We Have Continued to Find out More About Birds and How to Recognise Them Thank You to Bea

Dear Parents,

This week we have been finding out about Chinese New Year and how it is celebrated around the world. We found out that in the Chinese zodiac it is the year of the rooster and we have been having fun finding out what our zodiac animal is for our birth year. Thank you to Austin A for helping us to know a bit more about Chinese New Year in our assembly and for showing us where China is on the globe. Thank you also to Ruby and Gracie for bringing in animals that are found in the Chinese zodiac to remind us of our Chinese New Year story that we read on Monday.

We have continued to find out more about birds and how to recognise them – thank you to Bea who made a fantastic bird poster that she shared with us and to Maisie for bringing in her bird book to share, full of facts about birds we can spot locally.

Thank you to Jack who has brought in some prayers – he will be sharing these in our Monday assembly next week. We also continue to focus on friendship and we talked about the special friendship between Ruth and Naomi who were loyal friends. Ruth showed great kindness to Naomi, saying ‘Where you go, I will go. Your friends will be my friends and your God will by my God.’ We thought about how we too can be kind and loyal friends here in school.

Rabbits Class have been talking further about how we can care for our special world and have been busy making some colourful posters about caring for our local environment. We will be putting these up around the school as a reminder in our daily life to think about what we can do to help. They have also been learning about money this week, recognising the shape, colour and value of different coins – ready to start adding different coins together to find a total amount. They have had a lot of fun making Chinese lanterns and trying out some Chinese writing and numerals, and Mrs Selencky bought some chopsticks for everyone to try out. Rabbits class are looking forward to their trip to Wisley on Tuesday next week and are hoping for a sunny day.

Otters Class have been having a big focus on writing recounts about a day that they really enjoyed – putting everything in the right order for retelling the events and using time connectives in their sentences.
They have been working hard in maths, doubling numbers and recording the number sentences - and sorting odd and even numbers in their books. As part of their topic on ‘World Kitchens,’ Talulah’s mum visited the class to tell them all about Japan and they found it together on the world map, comparing its size with that of England. They learned what the Japanese flag looks like, what they eat in Japan and how the language is so different from ours. They enjoyed telling me lots of facts that they had learned – apparently the Japanese enjoy ‘stinky cheese’ and drink wine (amongst many other things of course!)

Badgers Class have been doing some amazing writing this week, creating their very own fairy tales with their own characters and settings. They have been very enthusiastic writers and are all superstars together this week for doing so well with their stories. In maths they have been learning about fractions and have been halving and quartering numbers and recording the number sentences. They have been learning about

parables and what they teach us, this week focusing on the parable of the prodigal son. Everyone has been thinking about why Jesus told parables and what they mean: ‘Jesus told them so we could be kind and look after people.’(Lahna) ‘He tells people what the right or wrong thing to do is.’ (Mathew) ‘To teach us to be a good person.’ (Bligh)

In outdoor learning this week each class has been working with Hannah (Countryside Team) to make bird hideouts on the common so that they can try to spot birds without scaring them away. They have been really creative with the cardboard boxes and tarpaulin provided and I am impressed at how many birds can now be named by all the classes. We are trying to get our webcam bird box fitted in the next week or so – and then we hope that it will be used for nesting, allowing us to watch the mother bird and her eggs on our TV screen.

Next week we have our parents’ evenings on Tuesday from 3:30 – 6pm and on Thursday from 6 – 8:30pm. If you have not already signed up please come to the office to put your name against a time that suits you. We hope very much that everyone will attend a parents evening as this is an important opportunity to talk about your child’s progress and next steps in learning. If you are unable to make either of these dates, please see your child’s class teacher to arrange an alternative time. A table will be set up in the hall for parent volunteers with a DBS to sign the register (a required termly check) in order to continue to volunteer in school. This needs to be done by 24th February.

It has been drawn to our attention that the grass triangle on the corner of Chilbrook Road, where the Downside Village sign is located, has become very churned up due to cars driving over it. Please can we remind anyone who parks there for drop-off or pick-up to take extra care to avoid the grassy area. As a school, we do recommend parents use the much safer alternative of parking in the Cricketers car park as crossing the road there can be quite dangerous.

We are very much looking forward to our St Matthew’s 5k / 10k run on Sunday 21st May. The run is now live on resultsbase for people to sign up and get involved. It can be shared far and wide as it is open to all not just our parents, and we are hoping to attract as many people as possible. This is the link https://resultsbase.net/event/3900

Please pass the link on to others.

Congratulations Thomas M and Francesca for finishing their sticker charts.

Have a lovely weekend, Mrs Hutt

AWARDS OF THE WEEK

SUPERSTARS

DIARY DATES

GATE DUTY w/c 6th February 2017, Parents of:

Mon 6th Chloe G, Tue 7th Toby H, Wed 8th Annabelle K, Thu 9th Sophie, Fri 10th Mathew & Theo M

Notices

SAINSBURYS VOUCHERS

It’s that time of year again! Sainsburys are giving out their ‘Active Kids Vouchers’. Please do collect as many as you can as they really help with purchasing extra PE equipment, cooking equipment etc . We have a collection box in the reception area. Thank you J