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Preston
Primary School
Academy

Foundation Stage Weekly Newsletter

Puffins and Penguins Weekly Newsletter, 1st April 2022

Traditional Tales

We continued our learning on traditional tales by using story maps and taking part in drama to retell a narrative. The children discussed the characters and key phrases they would need and arranged themselves into small groups to practise.

Teamwork has been our school value focus this half term and it was wonderful to see the children putting their learning into action. At every opportunity we talk to the children about how to collaborate and work as a team. These are some of the characteristics of teamwork that we share with the children and remind them to think about when collaborating.

  • Be positive and encouraging 
  • Be a good friend  
  • Be kind and supportive to motivate and achieve a common goal 
  • Lend a hand when others are stuck  
  • Share your good ideas 
  • Work to resolve group conflicts
  • Listen to everyone’s ideas
  • Allow others a fair opportunity to make decisions and understand compromise. 

We were very impressed when they organised themselves into drama groups and discussed roles and responsibilities. They were taking turns and listening to one another’s ideas. It was wonderful to see them supporting each other and having fun. They rehearsed the stories The Three Little Pigs, The Gingerbread Man, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, and The Magic Porridge Pot. Next week they will perform their short traditional tale to the whole unit.

Woodland Camp

In the Woodland Camp this term, the children have shown great creativity. They have enjoyed exploring all the different opportunities that the Woodland Camp has to offer. The children use their imaginations to role play stories, dig for dinosaur fossils, explore and create with natural objects, they swing, climb and jump, they sing, dance and make music, the opportunities are endless. We are very lucky to have access to this wonderful learning environment.

This week we took the children to visit our Environmental Area. We have flower beds, vegetable patches and a large poly tunnel. The area currently needs lots of care and attention, but Puffins and Penguins are up for the challenge! We talked about what we could do next term and all the wonderful things we could plant and grow. They were very excited about planting flowers for the butterflies and bees, they would also like to grow some vegetables. Before we can do this the area needs preparing which means we will be doing lots of weeding, so we are ready to plant next term.

If you are a keen gardener and would like to start growing some seeds at home over the Easter holidays for us to plant next term, we would be very grateful.  

Maths

In maths this week, Puffins and Penguins continued to explore mathematical stories using the words ‘first’, ‘then’ and ‘now’. Many children are focusing on addition when making their own stories and some have made links to subtraction. We encourage the children to rehearse the key sentences and used different representations to show our stories. We drew the stories, used bricks and cubes to show the different parts and used a number track. Eg ‘First there were 3 pigs in the pen, Then 2 more pigs trotted into the pen, Now there are 5 pigs in the pen’

In addition to this, Puffins and Penguins have been taking part in maths fluency sessions. These are short, 10 minute, daily sessions. The children are in different groups and work on different mathematical concepts. Some children are working on their number bonds to five. These are pairs of numbers that add together to make five, e.g. 4 and 1, 3 and 2, 5 and 0. We use different methods to help children visualise the bonds so that they can recall them at speed. Other children have been exploring doubles and counting in 2’s. They used animals and dinosaurs to stimulate their mathematical talk. We will be sharing some ideas with you to help you support your child with these fluency activities at home.

Beach Maths

This week was the final maths beach trip. All the children have had visited the beach at least once and have had the opportunity to take part in practical maths activities using the natural environment. We have been very impressed with the children’s enthusiasm and the mathematical language used. It was a wonderful way to inspire a Love of Learning.

Racism awareness – The Smeds and The Smoos

At Preston Primary we promote the British Values, one of which is Tolerance of those of different faiths and beliefs. We also teach children our School Values, one of which is Respect. We want to enable our children to develop their own personal values in order that they become good citizens who will flourish in the workplace, in their family and in the community.

We are glad you enjoyed sharing the story ‘The Smeds and The Smoos’. We enjoyed hearing the children’s comments on Seesaw. Puffins and Penguins impress us daily with the respect they show to one another and this was reflected in the comments they made about the story. Thank you for talking to your child, we would like to share some of the comments with you.

“Janet and Bill wanted to be best friends, but they weren’t allowed. But you are allowed to be friends with anyone you like. It doesn’t matter what colour skin you have; you don’t have to be the same to be friends.”

“I think Grandfather Smed and Grandmother Smoo should let Janet and Bill play with each other, it doesn’t matter if they are different colours, they can still play with each other. Everybody’s different and that’s fine.”

“Janet and Bill were different. One was red and one was blue, they did different things, and they wore different clothes. It doesn’t matter what anyone looks like, everyone is unique, we can all be friends.”

Oi Frog - Literacy

The children have been busy finishing their writing linked to their learning from the book ‘Oi Frog’. They have all enjoyed exploring rhyming and have been using it independently in the learning environment. We will share their writing with you on Seesaw so your child can read to you what they have written. There are other books in the ‘Oi Frog’ series that you might like to share with your child.

There are many elements to independent writing, and we are supporting children to be able to independently write simple sentences. This involves forming letters correctly, using finger spaces between words, rereading what they have written, using some tricky words (words that cannot be sounded out i.e. the, my and I) and spelling some (not all) simple words correctly. Practising the correct letter formation will help children write fluently and will prepare them for Year 1 when they begin to write joined up. We will send home a handwriting booklet to use over the Easter holidays.

Responsibility

Our school guinea pigs, Harriet and Malala, were very happy this week as they were given a nice clean enclosure to sleep in and the children made them a guinea pig garden to play in. Puffins and Penguins understand that they have a responsibility to care for the school animals and they take turns to do this. They use teamwork when cleaning out the enclosure and care and respect the guinea pigs.

They spent time planning, making, and redesigning the guinea pig garden. There were a few occasions were Harriet kept climbing over the wall, so they had to make it taller. This prompted a discussion on the difference between taller and longer.

PE

In PE the children have been practicing their rugby skills. They have been passing the rugby ball, scoring a try, and using the tag belts. When running to score a try we have been encouraging the children to look for the spaces to run past the defender. Over the weeks we have been building on their previous knowledge and skills so that next week we can safely play a small game of tag rugby.

Home Learning

  • Enjoy the story on Seesaw, ‘The Bookworm’ by Debi Gliori. Read by Mrs Bastin. 
  • Check Seesaw and your book bag for this week’s RWI books and activities. Practise reading your book at least 3 times across the week.
  • Use Ten Town to practice numbers 1-10.
  • Complete the sentence writing activity on Seesaw.
  • Try making your own maths story using the language First, Then, Now. You can use everyday objects from around the house to make up a story (first there were 3 grapes on the plate, then 2 more grapes rolled onto the plate, now there are 5 grapes). You could record a video/sound clip and send it to us on Seesaw.

Contacts

  • Please continue to contact the school office by email admin@preston.torbay.sch.uk or phone 01803 607075 with any questions or queries, including breakfast or after school club queries, or if your child is being collected by a different adult to usual.
  • In the event of your child being poorly, please call our absence line is 01803 607589 where you can leave a message.
  • There is also lots of useful information, as well as event dates and term dates, on our school website  https://www.preston.torbay.sch.uk/

Dates

  • Monday 11th April to Friday 22nd April - Easter holidays.
  • Monday 25th April - Return to school.
  • Monday 2nd May – Bank holiday.

From Mrs Bastin, Mrs Clague and the Foundation Stage Team

Address
Preston Primary School Academy
Old Paignton Road
Torquay
Devon
TQ2 6UY

Phone
01803 607075