WELCOME TO THE EMOJIS!
Welcome back!
TheEmojisis a Year 4/5 class led by Sarah Taylor, full-time teacher, and Yasmin Amla and Cathy Taylor, part-time teaching assistants. Miss Amla will be in on Tuesday, Wednesday afternoon, Thursday and Friday, and Mrs. Taylor will be in on Monday, Wednesday morning and Thursday morning. Mr Goodge will be teaching Computing on Monday, and Mr Juliffe will be taking one of the PE sessions on a Thursday. There will be Rugby training starting on Wednesday afternoons this term. We will probably be swimming in the Spring Term. The children voted for the Emojisas their class name before the holidays, and each chose their own Emoji character to make for the classroom door.
We will spend the first couple of weeks doing literacy, numeracy and topic work connected to Emojis. We will look at writing using picture symbols; we will look at words to describe emotions and similes for those emotions we will look at maths problems that substitute symbols for numbers and try to solve them; we will do lots of work about emotions and how we feel in different situations. Maybe you could look at your phones at home with your children and send each other messages using just emoticons.
This book is to enable us to communicate with all the parents/carers. Please check the book every evening, as there may be important news/ queries/ information regarding your child. As you can see from the front cover, we will be using this book to help the children to tell us their weekend news or anything that crops up during the week. Please use the book to stick in photos, tickets or leaflets about places you have visited, or get the kids to draw a picture or write a few lines about what they have been up to.
I will be writing a newsletter at the end of each week to let you know what we have been up to. This will also include a brief summary of the things we are likely to be doing the following week, subject to change.
For the first few weeks, could I ask you to email me a photo or two of something your child has done over the weekend, whether it be playing with a favourite toy at home, to going out for the day. We will share these photos on a Monday morning and write about the weekend for a couple of weeks.
My email:
Please send the photos to this address before Sunday 7pm to enable me to prepare the work for the following day, thank you..
Practical notes:
UNIFORM
Please make sure everything is clearly labelled with a sew-in or iron-on tag. We spend a lot of time every year trying to find lost pieces of uniform or P.E. kit. Unfortunately, if you write the name in biro, it will wash off. Please use sharpies or labels. Please check all pumps fit and are named. We will do a uniformcheck at the end of the week.
IMPLANTS, HEARING AIDS AND EAR MOULDS
These are essential and must be kept clean and working. Please ensure children are wearing their aids at all times (except when asleep!). Moulds are often clogged with wax, so check them regularly and clean them out with warm soapy water. Please send in batteries to be kept in school. We will let you know if we have had to change anything so you can get replacements from the hospital.
SNACK MONEY – if you would like your child to have a healthy snack at playtime, please send in £1 per week. The above applies.
READING BOOKS – we will be issuing reading books and reading record books. Please try to read regularly with your child – every day, if possible, it will really benefit your child. Please enjoy sharing all types of reading material with your child, read comics together, go to the library, enjoy a bedtime story, reading will then become exciting and fun, rather than a chore. The children love listening to stories at school, so I know they will appreciate them at home as well. You can play games by seeing if the children can find some of the common key words within the text.
LIBRARY BOOKS – will be loaned using our electronic system to log out the books every Friday, so have a record of which book is with each child. These are books the child has chosen independently to share with you at home. Please make sure they are in the school bag to change for a new one the following Friday.
SPELLING TEST
Each week the children will be given a list of spellings to practise and learn. Please help your child to learn them by looking at the word, then covering it and trying to write it from memory. A few minutes of practise repeated daily works wonders. This year we have decided to give you a spelling practice book to use at home, and we will have a duplicate in school, this will enable the child to practise at home during the week. Please send the book in on Friday for the new spellings for the following week.
HOMEWORK
Your child will be given a few pieces of homework a week. This will often involve simple worksheets that reinforce the week’s work for you to do with your child. I will also ask you to talk about things, or bring items in from home or even do a bit of easy research. All of this will help with your child’s communication skills. Please do the homework – your child will receive stars for completion.
REWARD SYSTEMS
Star charts – the children are given stars for excellent work, participation in class, good behaviour etc. These are collected and when a child gets to 50they receive a badge in assembly.
WEBSITE AND TWITTER
We will try to upload photos to the website regularly so you can see what we are up to. We will tweet regularly each week.
I am sorry that this first letter is so long! Please take time to read it carefully. You may want to take it out and keep it somewhere safe, or stick it on your fridge so you can refer to it. I will also ask Mr. Goudge to put it on the website.
Thanks
Sarah Taylor, Yasmin Amla and Cathy Taylor