This week we are exploring the big idea questions:

What is a villain? 

What does an Author do?

This week the big questions are:

Can you tell me about a character? 

How might you start or end a story? 

This week we are exploring the big idea questions:

• How do people celebrate Hanukkah?  
• How do people get ready for celebrations? 
• What does winter feel like? 

We will be sharing these wonderful stories with the children to help us explore these questions: 

• Remember next Friday is 'Christmas Jumper' day and our Christmas Fair (children to wear Christmas jumper or anything festive/bright & colourful).
• Big thank you to everybody that has brought in their builder's costumes- if you haven't, please could these be in as soon as possible as we have dress rehearsals soon. Please speak to a member of staff if there are any issues with this.
• (F2) We think that all children who have now completed their Doodlemaths challenge have received their gold star. However, if anyone has been missed as our system resets regularly please speak to Mrs Gerrard or Miss Inglis. Many thanks.

Thank you for your continued support 😊 

This week we will be exploring the big idea questions:

• Can I talk about my day? 
• What happened today? 
• What is happening tomorrow? 
• What happened yesterday? 

A new half-term and a new big idea to explore...

We will be looking at different celebrations and what the children celebrate with their families at home. We will be using celebrations to transport us into the lives of people and communities around the world, discussing and sharing experiences of different celebrations including: Halloween, Bonfire Night, Birthdays, Diwali, Hanukkah, Weddings, Christmas - and more! We will be revisiting the things that make us unique and will do this through the ways in which people celebrate special events in different ways.

In the lead up to Christmas, we will look at the traditions of Christmas and the Christmas nativity. We will learn about the celebration and even work in our elves’ workshop, helping to wrap presents and make Christmas decorations to put up around the classroom!

To help bring our topic to life and make it more relevant to the children, please share photos of themselves/family at a celebration which is special to them. These can be uploaded to tapestry or physical photos. We will print these off/photocopy them to share and discuss with the children alongside making a display in the classroom. Please make sure these are sent to us by Friday 10th November.  Thank you for your continued support, it really is appreciated! 😊 

Supporting your child at home

• Share our 'Big Ideas' resource - discussing the key questions and vocabulary (see attached PDF for clearer version, we will send home a physical copy next week too).
• Talk about what you celebrate as a family together and how you prepare for these celebrations/traditions you might have.
• Visit the local library and see if there are any storybooks or non-fiction information books about celebrations.
• Check out our regular blog posts to find out what we are learning in school/what stories we are sharing/ideas you could try at home.

We are coming to the end of our 'We are all Superheroes' topic, with just a couple of weeks left!
The children have really enjoyed it and it was lovely to hear what superpowers they would like to have  ... From invisibility and super strength to pink power! They really do have the best imaginations. 

This week we are sharing the 'Supertato' stories and exploring our big idea question:

• How do we stay healthy? 

As well as talking about this question in detail... We will be making our own Supertato characters, thinking of ways that we could trap the evil pea and making some delicious bread rolls... Just like the Little Red Hen in our talk for write story! 

Have a listen to one of the Supertato stories that we will be sharing: