2022-2023
Welcome St Anne's Class
Class Teacher - Mrs Thompson
Teaching Assistant - Mrs Mulholland
Events
Sports Day for EYFS and KS1 will be on Tuesday 4th July in the playground at 9am-10.15am.
Please send your child in wearing sporty clothes, ideally in their team colour red/blue/yellow or green!
make sure they have a hat and a water bottle. Come along and enjoy the fun! We do ask that you stand in designated areas to watch the races.
10.07.23
We are finishing off our RE work for the year this week and have been learning about the friends of Jesus. They spread the "Good News" to the whole world and there are churches everywhere for us all to worship Him. We have been making our own icons of Jesus and Mary to put on our walls at home just like they do in churches. We made sure they looked very special and covered them in sparkles. We drew scenes from Jesus' life on our classroom walls too.
We are also finding out about sharks. Sing this song at home Shark Song.
03.07.23
This week was a short week but what a week full of exercise! We not only had sports day for all of the EYFS children but it was also Walk to School Week. Peers the Meerkat popped in on Thursday to check everyone's chart. He was so impressed with all the children who were trying to walk to school everyday.
His message is KEEP WALKING!
23.06.23
Our trip yesterday was amazing. First the rockpooling was superfun. We found a shrimp, lots of crabs, limpets and sea snails. Coby was amazing at finding creatures. George turned into an explorer, looking in holes and under seaweed. Everyone was very brave walking over the slippery rocks. We ate our lunch on the beach and then travelled to the i360 where we "lounged" on the deck until our flight. After our exciting ride we played in the playground and enjoyed an ice cream. It was a perfect day.
A big thank you to the parents that came to support us and shared our adventure, we couldn't do it without you!
12.06.23
This week we opened our new role play area, it's a Fish Restaurant and we are serving seabass and mackerel and chips. The children are really enjoying using the new vocabulary they have learned regarding fish!
We found out that Peter was the first Pope and that his name means ROCK. Jesus wanted him to be strong and tough like a rock so he could build his church. We decorated rocks to remind us of Peter. He was a friend of Jesus.
We also said goodbye to our butterflies this week. We released them into the sunshine and they looked very happy about it. Good luck to them laying some new eggs!
14.06.23
Our Outdoor Learning session today was hot, hot, hot but we managed to stay cool. We stayed in the shade a lot and drank so much water. First we took part in the "ball challenge". The children had to use junk we had collected to see if they could make a run for a ball. Have a look at how clever they were in the videos below. It was a great opportunity to use and develop their communication and problem solving skills. Most of them worked well as a team and had great success.
We also pressed some pretty Summer flowers that we found in the school grounds we need to wait two weeks before we can look at them!
Our cooking today took on a bit of a fish theme. We had seabass and mackerel. The children really enjoyed watching me fillet the fish and seeing their fins, gills, tails and other bodyparts. They tasted them too! Even RJ liked the mackerel!
We finished off with a lovely ice pop provided by Mrs.Mulholland. What a lovely, sweaty day!
05.06.23
We visited the church this week and we got to meet Father Kieron properly. He showed us the tabernacle and the altar. We found out that the tabernacle is a very special place where the host is kept after mass.
We have been working with shapes in maths and using our skills to build boxes to fit different objects into. It was very tricky but some children showed amazing perseverance and determination and made fantastic boxes of all shapes and sizes.
News
During the Summer Term we ask the children to complete their activity passport. This is a way to engage in fun activities with your child and to share them with us at school. You can take photos and email them to us at myhomework@st-josephs.brighton-hove.sch.uk.
We can't wait to see what you will be up to!
There are Headteacher's Awards to collect so start now.
Download your passport here.
Well done George for making your sandwich, leaf rubbing and taking a photo! Teddy has been making a sandwich too, going for a Spring walk and meeting someone's pet, a very large dog!
22.05.23
This week we are looking after our own hungry caterpillars. They are getting fatter and fatter! We can't wait until they turn into chrysalises to begin their transformation. We have been writing about the Life Cycle of the Butterfly.
To support our understanding of the Holy Spirit the children made wind chimes today. A massive thank you to all the parents that managed to come in and learn with us. The children really enjoyed it.
Reception's Trip to Arundel Wetlands Centre
08.05.23
This week we were amazed to see how our "beans in bags" had grown. We could clearly see the bean, roots, stem and they were starting to grow leaves. We decided it was time to plant them. Before we planted them we had a good look at them and made posters that showed all of their important parts. I wonder how tall they will grow?
Lyla has visited a farm and Adam is busy with his cheese and marmite sandwiches! Well done you two!
05.05.23
We celebrated the Coronation by thinking about what we would do if we were King or Queen. Then we enjoyed a lovely picnic. The sun came out for us too!
Well done to the children that have started their Activity Passports. We can see planting seeds, visiting a farm, tasting cocnut and taking photos. What will you try?
Head teachers awards go to RJ, Kiedis and Adam.
03.05.23
What amazing weather we had today for our Outdoor Learning. The sun shone all day! Our theme was “shelter” and "teamwork". We worked together, collecting materials to build a shelter for minibeasts. We built a Bug Hotel with three floors! We hope ladybirds, bees, woodlice and snails will find homes there, especially in the Winter. Then we worked together to build shelters for ourselves.
On the fire today we made hot chocolate and some green beans. We are growing beans in our class and we looked inside the beans to find the seeds some of us thought they were delicious.
Sensational Start
We went on a worm hunt. First we thought about what we needed to bring and made a list. We collected our equipment. We knew that worms like rain and they always come out in the rain so we tried to pretend it was raining by stamping our feet to make them come out.
NO WORMS!
Next we tried tapping our fingers gently.
NO WORMS!
Then we used our watering cans to act like raindrops.
NO WORMS!
In the end we had to dig them out. We did find quite a few but they are amazing at wriggling away quickly.
17.04.23
This week we have been preparing for our Down in the Garden topic. We have been working in our new garden centre cafe role play area.
We have been wondering about gardens and thinking about what we know. We looked into our big planter to see what we could find. We are experimenting with seeds too in order to find out how plants grow. We are growing a bean in a bag to see what happens to a seed when it is underground. Last term we used a pumpkin to retell our story. We kept the seeds and now we are trying to grow our own pumpkins.
27.03.23
This week we have been building our own Easter gardens and filling them with all the things that remind us of the New Life given to Jesus by God after He died on the cross.
We made stick puppets and retold the story the Easter.
The children braved all sorts of weather this week to complete their Balance Bike Training. They loved it! They all received a sticker and a certificate as a reward for their hard work and progress.
24.03.23
We had a wonderful time at Lewes Castle today. We travelled by train and walked up an enormous hill.
We found out about how people used to live in castles. We handled artefacts that were 1000 years old just like the castle! We walked up the spuiral steps to the very top and looked out for enemies to shoot with our bows and arrows. What a great day!
We practised our Medieval Dance in the castle. We dressed up as knights and ladies.
20.03.23.
St.Joseph's Day
He was a carpenter. He made things out of wood and he was a hard worker.
He was an ordinary man who listened to God.
He looked after Jesus and was his Father on Earth.
He loved Mary and looked after her.
We made some fridge magnets out of wood. We made some Calla Lillies for our St.Joseph's Altar. This flower is associated with St.Joseph and he is holding it in many paintings and statues.
06.03.23
Once upon a time there were castles! We started our work about castles this week. The Three Little Pigs found out that brick houses were the best and could keep them safe. We know that people built castles to keep safe long ago. We have been finding out how they kept people safe with their deep moat, tall towers, strong walls, narrow windows and crenellations. We have been building and labelling castles.
We also thought about deserts and what a difficult environment it is to stay alive in. We made sensory cactus pictures. Jesus went to the desert for 40 days and 40 nights and managed to survive. He went there to be alone and close to God. We built ourselves a quiet tent where we could be alone to be close to God too.
World Book day 2023
Today all our activities were based around the traditional tale of
The Three Little Pigs
We role played the story with small world toys, we made houses of straw, sticks and bricks. We made pig masks too.
27.02.23
We worked very hard today at St.Richard's Foodbank. We carried the food there. We weighed the food and we helped to put it away. We know that people with less food than us will be very happy that we shared what we have.
23.02.23
Outdoor Learning was all about cooking outside. Before half term we collected some data in our class about which sandwiches we liked to eat. We found out that the most popular sandwich was cheese so we decided to make cheese toasties. First we collected different sizes of wood and all helped to build the fire. We learnt about being safe in the fire circle. We got very smokey. Then we feasted on toasties, popcorn and hot chocolate, all made using our fire! We surprised Mrs.Skinner with a toastie! (We needed to cheer her up because we didn't share our pancakes with her.)
"It was delicious!" she said.
20.02.23
This week saw the beginning of Lent. We made our own pancakes on Shrove Tuesday with our very simple recipe. Each child made their own batter. We shared our pancakes with others who didn't have any like Mrs.Davis and Mrs.Foan.
Recipe
3 tablespoons of plain flour
1 egg
1 large cup of milk
Our box of food for the food bank is getting bigger. Thank you for your generosity. We will be visiting the food bank on Monday.
Please talk to your child about how Lent is a time to think about what others want rather than what we want for ourselves. Watch this story together.
06.02.23
This week was Design Technology Week and reception class were designing and making fruit kebabs. The kebabs needed to look beautiful and taste delicious. This involved tasting and describing(texture and colour) in order to make a design. The next day we peeled, juiced and cut the fruit independently to make our fruit kebabs. Then of course we ate them!
30.01.23
This week we have been thinking about prepositions; words which tell us where things are such as under,through, behind, in and on. We took our monsters on an adventure and it was amazing how many places we found for them to hide behind, jump in, climb on and sit under. We used our photos to write some fantastic sentences. Look at Lyla and Halle's work!
27.01.23
Bertie liked all of our soups, especially the recipes with worms in! To thank us, his mummy got us some gifts, but we had to follow a map in Stanmer Park to find them! We found a treasure box full of Monster Munch and his favourite teddy, Elmo!
In Stanmer Park we developed our confidence when we climbed fallen trees. We were careful when we learnt how to whittle sticks with a potato peeler. We had a wonderful adventure in the woods.
23.01.23
This week we have been continuing with our story of "The feeding of the 5000". We found out that bread and fish were very important foods for people long ago and that bread has been made in the same way for thousands of years. We had a go at making our own bread. We had no snack all morning so that we could feel hungry and imagine how the 5000 people must have felt. Then we shared our delicious bread, 5 loaves.
16.01.23
This week we have had a visitor. His name is Bertie and he is a monster! We are trying to make monster soup for him because he is lost and hungry and sleeping in our class. He leaves us notes everyday. We have been making our own monsters out of salt dough and describing them.
We are contnuing with our work on paths and have developed our own simple imaginary maps. The children have been creating their own roads to travel to and from places and are beginning to understand how maps work. They chose where to put their own homes and added features to their maps such as swimming pools, gardens and even carparks.
In maths we have been working with balance scales and comparing mass of different objects.
What a "Sensational Start" we had to our new topic. Our first book which we get to know well is the wonderful "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" by Michael Rosen. We took off our shoes and recreated the different environments that the family in the story visited. Can you spot the squelchy squerchy mud? What about the swirling whirling snow storm? After this sensory experience the children were able to make collages of all the different places.
Watch Michael Rosen reading his own story here.
(Don't worry, their feet had a nice, hot bubble bath at the end of their journey.)
10.01.23
This week we have been busy as usual working on our motor skills with our new funky fingers activities. In maths we introduced the concept of zero as a number. The children have been working on following instructions to build models with Mobilo and being very successful. We discovered the qualities of gold and other metals and burnt some frankinscense.
We have been retelling the story of Bear Hunt in a range of ways and have made our own Bear Hunt books. There has been some amazing writing going on!
03.01.23
The children came back to school rested and ready to learn. We have been thinking about paths this week and long journeys. The Wise Men made a very long journey when they followed the star to find Jesus, the baby King. We have been finding out about where they came from. The children have been making their own long and short paths around the classroom, some of them were straight, some wiggly and some were zig-zags. It was a good way to practise our vocabulary regarding length.
12.12.22
Our Nativity was spectacular! Thank you all for coming I hope you enjoyed all the abaaaaaandoned sheep. This week has been very busy. We have "enjoyed" snow and ice all week. We were worried about our little Robin visitor and how he would find food in the snow so we decided to make some bird feeders to ensure he is fed, look at our amazing designs.
05.12.22
The children were amazed this week to find out how big the Sun was in comparison to Earth. They worked with inflatable models of the Sun and Earth to reenact how the Earth travels around the sun.
We have been very busy getting ready for our Nativity performance next week and the Christmas Fair on Friday 9th December. I hope you all can make it. Reception Class will be running a Teddy Tombola. The children have made their own decorations to hang on the tree and are preparing chocolate logs to eat. We look forwrd to seeing you there!
28.11.22
This week we have been exploring sources of light and thinking about what makes a shadow. We found out that any source of light can create a shadow. The children made some shadow puppets of their own. They used torches too and made long and short shadows.
In maths we have been trying to count sounds and actions as well as objects. We have been thinking of different ways to make 5!
21.11.22
This week in maths we have been thinking about capacity and how much space is inside different containers. We experimented with water, sand, oats and beans. We had a lot of surprises. It is not always the tallest container that holds the most!
The children had fun with our cube challenge. How many different models can you make with 5 cubes? We still haven't found them all!
We had a birthday party for Bobo too. We made him a banana cake and some cards. He was 5 years old. We are waiting for the birthday of someone else too. As Advent begins this Sunday, we are learning about the story of Christmas.
Watch these versions of our class poem. The children made dark pastel drawings of a dark wood and added captions describing it. We used the captions to create our class poem. By inventing and using actions the children were able to memorise it and perform it. I was so impressed at how confident they all were.
Children in Need
18.11.22
Today we raised money for Children in Need. look at our spots. Some of us even had spotty faces!
We found out that people in Australia make art with spots. We had a try at making spot pictures. We also went on a "Pudsey Hunt". Mrs.Thompson hid 25 Pudseys around the school and we had to find them. We used a tally chart to count them.
14.11.22
This week we have been working on our counting and playing lots of games where we need to recognise numbers and to count. We have learnt to count actions as well as objects and how to record this using tally marks. In RE we have been learning about how God welcomes us into his family with Baptism. The children role played a Baptism and Baptised all of the babies. We are working on a class poem about a scary wood. The children have been developing the vocabulary associated with a dark, creepy wood and have used it to create a class poem. We will be performing it soon! Watch this space!
09.11.22
The children really enjoyed the experience of coming to school after dark. It was so dark they needed torches to see their way around. However we were lucky enough to have a clear night and a full moon which we looked at with a telescope. They rescued Peppa Pig who was lost in the woods, had a camp fire and toasted marshmallows and drank hot chocolate. There were some great conversations around the fire. Enzo wanted to do it every day!
Welcome to Autumn 2
Our next topic Night and Day please click here to read the topic leaflet.
Our Outdoor Learning Day was blessed with lovely sunshine! We focused on using tools this time. The children learnt how to use palm drills but found it quite tough! They still managed to drill a hole and make a bookbag keyring. The children also learned how to snip wood with secateurs and how to work with a partner to use the band saw. Great Fun!
31.10.22
This week we are starting our new topic Night and Day. We have started learning about why some places are dark. We removed as much light from our classroom as we could. We turned off the lights, closed the blinds and made ourselves little tents. Inside it was really dark and we needed torches to see our pictures! Can you see us?
We have been thinking about nocturnal animals. We explored how to make our paint look fluffy when painting owls. We have also been using our new Pet Grooming Roleplay. There are lots of very clean pets in our class.
Three children have managed to read all of their "Hard to Read" words which were sent home to practise. They all received a head teacher's award. Well done to Blake, Enzo and George. Everyone else keep practising!
We finished off our first half term making bubble snakes! It was so much fun.
17.10.22
Following on from the work on our text Oh No. GEORGE! We started finding out about real dogs and what you need to do to look after them. We had a visit from Charlie the Chihuahua. We walked him, petted him and gave him a treat. We found out dogs need food, beds, water and play, just like us.
This week we have also been looking at pop up books and those with moving parts. The children have learnt how to use a split pin and have made their own pictures with moving parts. They had so many great ideas!
10.10.22
The children have been really enjoying our Power of Reading text this 1/2 term.
Oh No. George! by Chris Haughton
We have been retelling the story in a range of ways and making some great pastel drawings of George. We have also been thinking about all of the different parts of their bodies. Halle was our model and we labelled her. Then the children worked in pairs to draw around each other and tried to make some labels of their own.
03.10.22
This week we have really settled into our routines. The children have been enjoying their writedance sessions and creating the volcano pictures. We have been working in our new Doctor's Roleplay, making pretend medicine and learning all about our bodies. It is encouraging the children with their mark making so that they can practise everything we are learning in our phonics sessions. We made some fantastic skeleton pictures!
26.09.22
Grandparents Week
We had a fun session showing some of our grandparents how we learn to read. Then the children had the chance to paint some gorgeous portraits of their grandparents.
27.09.22
We had a wonderful time outside today. We collected Autumn treasures in our eggboxes and used them to make our interesting tree faces. The children explored the fantastic mud kitchen. They made apple pies, chocolate cakes and lots of soup! They used planks and crates to build secret paths in the bushes. It was a great day!
Our first topic will be "Marvellous Me" where we learn about our similarities and differences, our bodies, how to be healthy and much more. Click below for the topic leaflet which outlines the learning. Read this so you can support your child at home.
Please make sure your child has a named PE kit because we will be starting getting changed independently for PE week beginning 19th September.