Welcome to Ruby Class!

Reception

Term 2

Celebrations

11th November - 20th December 2024

This week in Ruby Class;

 

Friday 20th December 2024

Ruby Class enjoyed a week of Christmas Arts and Craft activities. We have also learnt about the Winter Solstice and made cards for our families. 

        

 

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. 

Mrs Fieldhouse. 

 

Friday 13th December 2024

Ruby Class have had two very busy, and festive, weeks. The children really enjoyed our trip to the Pantomime last Friday and absolutely shone during their own performances of the Nativity this week. We were very proud of how confident they were, and we hope you enjoyed the show.  

In maths this week we have been mastering our counting skills, along with recognising and ordering numerals to 10 - with the help of some snowmen to add some festive cheer. 

Next week we will have the opportunity to go and see the Key Stage 2 carol service rehearsal, which is sure to be a real treat. We will also have the chance to do lots of lovely Christmas arts and crafts activities. 

Friday 29th November 2024

Ruby Class have been learning about the country of Egypt this week as part of our MFL Enrichment Week. We have tried some foods that are popular in Egypt and looked at some of the famous landmarks. As I was lucky enough to spend the half-term holiday in Cairo, I shared some photographs of the inside one of the pyramids. We made our own pyramids and turned ourselves into sphinx statues. We also looked at how they used to write using hieroglyphics a long time ago and made our own cartouches. 

 

We also learnt about the Jewish Festival of Light, Hanukkah, learning why and how it is celebrated. Many of the children really enjoyed trying the doughnuts, something that is often eaten at Hanukkah.

 

Friday 22nd November 2024

This week we have continued to learn about different celebrations by looking at Ramadan and the festival of Eid al-Fitr. We will revisit this topic later in the academic year, February/March 2025, to coincide with the Islamic holy month. The children have been thinking about charity and acts of kindness or Zakat, one of the five pillars of Islam, and thinking of ways we can show kindness towards others. We made some delicious Eid biscuits and created beautiful 'Mosque at Sunrise' silhouette pictures. 

      

Friday 15th November 2024

We started this week with a visit to the War Memorial, accompanied by Sapphire Class, to observe the act of Remembrance with a two-minute silence. I was very proud of how respectful the children were. 

This week we have been learning about the Hindu Fesitval of Diwali. The children have been fantastic at learning the stories of 'Dipal's Diwali' and the story of 'Rama and Sita'. The children have learnt some new, and challenging, vocabulary which I hope they will share with you at home. They particularly enjoyed making their salt dough diva lamps which you will be able to see no the windowsill next week. 

       

I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Mrs. Fieldhouse

 

Friday 8th November 2024

Our first week back has been as busy as ever! To finish off our 'Pumpkin Soup' based work, and in keeping with our Healthy Eating Week, we have been making our own pumpkin soup. Unlike in the story, the children all worked really well as a team. While all the children enjoyed chopping the pumpkin and adding all the ingredients into our soup maker, not everybody enjoyed the taste of the finished product. 

As part of our new topic 'Celebrations', this week we learnt about Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot. The children discussed their own experiences with fireworks and Bonfire Night and created some beautiful firework pictures. We also did some more cooking, combined with the science of melting and reversible changes of states of matter, when we made chocolate sparklers. The children seemed far more enthusiastic about eating these!

Friday 25th October 2024

It has been a very busy last week of this, exceptionally long, first half-term of the year. The children have been working very hard and I have been reflecting on how far they have already come in such a short space of time - well done to all the little Ruby gems! 

This week we have been reading more of our book 'Pumpkin Soup' with the children making predictions on what might happen to Duck and making their own story maps to show the main events of the story. We have also been making our own pretend soup, with a spooky twist.

Mrs Kirby and I will be attending a training event on the first day back after the holiday. We have prewarned the children that there will be another teacher in the class. 

We hope you have a lovely half term holiday.

Mrs Fieldhouse

Friday 18th October 2024

This week we were lucky enough to have Mrs Coatsworth join us in class to help us bake bread, just like the Little Red Hen. We soon realised how much hard work kneading the dough was! But the effort was worth it and the children managed to make some delicious rolls to take home and share. 

We also started learning about pumpkins, with the introduction of the book 'Pumpkin Soup'. We are looking forward to using this book over the next few weeks. After learning about the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, we created pumpkin artwork based on her style.  

 

Friday 4th October 2024

This week in Ruby Class the children have been working very hard! We have introduced two new codes, 't' and 'i', explored the composition of numbers to four and have been practising retelling both our class story of The Little Red Hen and the poem we will be reciting at next week's Harvest Festival. This week we were also able to look at the results of the bread experiment we set up two weeks ago. The results were really rather disgusting, with the bread we had handled before washing our hands being covered in mould! However, we were able to see the importance of properly washing our hands as the other slice of bread, the one we handled after washing our hands well, had no mould growing on it at all. 

Thank you to all of you who have sent in photos of your children for our topic work. This week we had a very cute time looking at them before the children made their own timelines. 

We were very proud of the children on Friday, when they joined the whole school for the 10K challenge in support of Read With Me. Not only did they do fantastically well with the running and walking on the field, Ruby Class were impeccably well behaved walking to and from the site - well done!

It was wonderful to see so many parents at the Motor Skills Workshop on Tuesday. If you were unable to make it but would like a copy of the handouts from the session, please let me know. It has also been great to see so many parents signing up for the parents evening next week. If you are yet to do this, there are still slots available. 

Have a wonderful weekend.

Mrs Fieldhouse 

     

Friday 20th September 2024

Ruby Class have been learning about keeping ourselves clean and healthy this week. They have had fun learning about the importance of washing our hands using an experiment to show how germs or bacteria can be passed from our hands to others and onto the foods we eat. They also enjoyed learning about brushing our teeth and had a great deal of fun in our 'Dentist's Surgery'.

Thursday was International Talk Like a Pirate Day and shiver me timbers, these landlubbers made an excellent crew for Captain Tiny Squid Legs (Mrs Fieldhouse) and First Mate Mad-Eyed Sharp Sword (Mrs Kirby). We made pirate hats, practising our scissor skills, and treasure maps so we didn't forget where we had buried our booty. All children received a certificate with their pirate names on them and I hope parents have also had fun working out their pirate names. 

Please remember we will be holding our parents phonic information sessions next week. Thank you to all those who have returned your slips. There is still time to join us if you are yet to reply. We will be introducing the phonic and maths home packs during these sessions. Next week will also see the introduction of the first codes (phonemes); very exciting!

Next Friday will also be our open afternoon for perspective parents. I will be in class that afternoon and will be opening the doors at 3pm if you would like to come and have a look around our newly decorated classroom and view some of your children's work. The KSA will be running events in the playground, weather permitting, so it should be a lovely occasion. 

Hope you have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Fieldhouse 

Friday 13th September 2024

I want to start this week's update by saying a huge WELL DONE to all the children in Ruby Class for completing their first full week in school. The children are settling into the class routines well, and we have been delighted to see them coming into school so confidently in the mornings. 

Earlier in the week you should have received information about the parent workshops we will be running this term. Thank you to all who have responded already. If you would like to attend, please return the slip indicating the sessions you wish to attend. Please let me or Mrs Kirby know if you require an additional letter. 

We are seeing a pattern form with the children's lunch choices with many of them choosing jacket potato every day. While this is not a problem in itself, we do worry that the children are just choosing the option they are most familiar with. On the classroom door we post the weekly lunch choices accompanied by a photograph. Please discuss the menus with your child in the mornings. While we do like to give the children the freedom to select their lunch, should you want to order for them, or want us to try and gently guide them towards a particular choice, please let us know in the morning. I will also be displaying the photographs of the day's menu on the interactive screen while we are doing the register as an extra reminder for the children. 

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Mrs Fieldhouse 

 

Friday 6th September 2024

It was lovely to welcome the new children and their families on Wednesday. We are happy to say that the children already appear to be settling in very well, and I am sure we are going to have a lot of fun learning together this year. 

The children have brought home a book to share with you, along with a folder full of fun activities designed to support your child's development. Below you will find attached the Knowledge Organiser and Home Fun Grid for the first part of the term. 

Have a lovely weekend. We look forward to seeing you on Monday when the children will be attending school full-time. 

Mrs Fieldhouse