Welcome to Star Class

Class Teacher: Ms Harwood

Class TA: Ms Simpson

LSA: Ms Ebri / Ms Grace 

Star Class email address: star@kafed.org.uk

Coronation Day Celebrations

We loved taking part in a special parade to celebrate Coronation Day.  Indeed, we all dressed up for the occasion.  Some of us wore red, blue and white like the colours of our flag that we learnt about.  We also enjoyed having traditional food to celebrate the occasion and our own class party.  Look at our crowns that we made ourselves too!

Broad Beans

Our broad beans are growing so well! We have been looking after these by ensuring we keep watering these and providing plenty of light! Now they are flowering! We have been observing these closely looking at the details on the plants. 

Happy Ramadan!

Happy Ramadan to all those celebrating this.  Indeed, a few children in our class will be celebrating this with their families/ friends today.  They have enjoyed talking all about this to their friends and teachers.  As a class we have all made our own Ramadan moon pictures using silver foil and different chalks to create the night around our moon.  We loved reading the children's story of Ramadan Moon too.  We also enjoyed some traditional food that is often enjoyed at Ramadan.   

Children's Mental Health Week

This week we have been learning about our feelings and all about what to do if we have a worry feeling worried about something.  We have loved reading the book 'Ruby's Worry' to help us learn all about this.  We have been making our own worry monsters to help us so that we can tell these if we are worried about something.  We also read the book 'The Colour Monster' to help us understand how different colours can represent different feelings.  This week's theme for mental health week is all about making connections.   We have been thinking about all the people we are connected to such as our families, friends and teachers and making paper chains to represent all these connections.  We made a paper chain for each important person in our life and connected all these together. We thought about how all these people can help us learn, grow and be happy!  All these people can help us if we have a worry. 

Chinese New Year

This week we have been learning all about Chinese Year and how people celebrate this.  We have loved reading our story 'Goldyluck and the Three Pandas' learning about how Goldy celebrates Chinese New Year.  We have also enjoyed doing a dragon dance as well as other dancing to music making our own dragon masks.  We have learnt about different foods that people traditionally have for Chinese New Year.  We have also particularly had lots of fun making our own Chinese New Year envelopes.  We decorated these with numerals in Chinese with lots of red glitter as we learnt this is a lucky colour for Chinese New Year.  On Friday we will have our own golden coins in these as a treat! We will also be sampling some Chinese cuisine too : )

Road Safety 

We have learnt how to cross the road safely understanding different signs and signals that are used to help people know how to cross the road safely.  You might like to discuss with your child what they learnt today! 

Time

We learnt how to use a clock to tell the time! We learnt all about the hour hand and the minute hand making different times correctly on our clocks.  We also had lots of fun playing What's the Time Mr Wolf with our friends counting correctly our steps to form different times! Your child might like to practice telling the time at home with you too : ) 

Bear Snores On

We loved reading this book learning all about bears and hibernation this week.  We made our own bear cave with lots of snow and snowflakes on top of this.  We also made our own stick puppets from the story and retold the story with these and our bear cave! We had so much fun.  We also made our own caves in class using blocks and sheets playing with our teddy bears.  You might like to learn more about bears with your child at home.  Children have been particularly interested in learning about different types of bears e.g. polar bears, brown bears, black bears etc.  

Please see above for the autumn 2 star class newsletter! This details all of our amazing learning this autumn term.  It also let's you know what we shall be learning in the new term in 2023.  The newsletter also gives you some ideas of things you can do at home over the holidays to help children develop their learning.  

Happy Holidays!
Miss Harwood 

We went on a Leaf Hunt!

We enjoyed a fabulous trip to Beckenham Place park together in Star Class where we went on a leaf hunt! We searched for lots of different coloured leaves, twigs and sticks.  We also found squirrels, mushrooms and even feathers ticking these of our list! We collected lots of lovely things on our autumn leaf hunt putting these in our brown paper bags.  We even see a Gruffallo footprint there! We were all so well behaved and a joy to take on the school trip.  We all did fantastic listening, working together as a team, helping each other find different autumn things.  Finally, we enjoyed playing in the park on the swings, slides and roundabouts! We even got to explore the sand there and had a go at building different things that interested us such as volcanoes! 

I'm sure your child will love to talk to you about the day out and show you what they found!  You may like to continue talking with your child about autumn and the changes it has bought us.  Soon we will begin learning about winter.  You might like to talk to your child about winter and how December is the first month of winter that is nearly here now,  You might like to draw a winter picture at home and label this using your phonics.    

Cooking sessions have started!

We are doing lots of cooking now in Reception! This week we made some owl toast after reading our story 'The Gruffallo'.  It tasted very yummy! We used lots of different things to make our owl toast and then wrote about this in our writing books.  We remembered what ingredients we used and made a list using our phonics to help us write words.  You child may like to write a list with you at home if they go to the shops.  They could mark make about what they buy there!

REMEMBRANCE DAY 

We have been learning about Remembrance Day! We learnt why we have this day and thought about all those affected by wars.  We enjoyed watching this beautiful animation to help us understand this day better.  You might like to watch the clip again with your child and talk about what is happening.  We also enjoyed learning all about poppies studying this type of flower.  Indeed, we made our own poppy pictures to decorate our amazing reading garden in star class!  We used potatoes to make our poppy pictures by printing these to make a poppy shape.  We then used our fingerprint to make a black mark in the middle of our poppy pictures.  Our pictures are fabulous! 

Your child might like to paint a picture at home printing different things in paint e.g., shapes, handprints, leaves etc.  We are enjoying learning about the technique of printing using paint in Reception at the moment: ) 

DIWALI

This week we have had so much fun learning all about Diwali! We have enjoyed listening to the story of Ram and Sita retelling this to our friends.  We have enjoyed listening to different versions of the story talking about our favorite parts.  We all tried different foods that are often eaten to celebrate Diwali learning the names of these too.  We made firework pictures, Diwali lights and beautiful Rangoli patterns with colored rice.  We participated in different Diwali dances.  We particularly loved making our own diya lamps with candles and colored decorations that we carefully decorated by ourselves.  They remind us of the lights that were used to welcome Ram and Sita back home as Diwali is the festival of lights.   

SO MUCH!

We have been looking at the book 'So Much' this week and children have been joining in with the story and add expressions. 

Why not watch the clip below together with your child and see if they can join in when it says 'DING DONG' and 'SO MUCH'. 

See if they can read it with expression. 

We have also been talking about what our family members do with us. 

E.g. My nan bakes with me. My Dad reads me a story. My Mum plays with me. 

Discuss with eachother what each family member does at home. 

You can also talk about a birthday party- what would you bring to a party/ see at a party. 

Everybody wants to squeeze the baby, Everybody wants to kiss the baby, Everybody loves the baby... SO MUCH!

ENJOYING FAMILIAR STORIES 

We have been learning to read with expression joining in with repeated phrases in much loved books.  We recently read ‘Owl Babies’ by Martin Waddell and have loved joining in with Bill when he says ‘I want my mummy!’ We have also been reading other books such as ‘Monkey Puzzle’. Your child may like to listen to the stories again at home with you and discuss what happens : )

ENJOYING LEARNING OUTDOORS 
The children have very much enjoyed exploring different resources outside.  We have been challenging ourselves to have a go at climbing in different ways using the outdoor climbing apparatus.  We have been balancing in different ways. We have measured how many tyres tall we are too for example! We have also very much enjoyed finding different minibeasts outside in the garden such as snails, slugs and worms. Children have enjoyed observing what they notice about these.  For example, they have noticed lines on worms and different patterns on slugs and how snails differ in size.  We also caught a few bees and observed these with magnifying glasses!  We then explored together why we need to release the bees back to their environment and how we can help care for these. 

We have began learning phonics!

(Phonics helps your child to read and write) 

You can click on the documents below and spend some time with your child having a go at doing the different activities.  Can your child try to say the sounds at home? You might like to have a go at writing the different sounds/ letters.  We will send home sheets for your child to do this for different letters we are currently learning to write.  You may like to have fun playing the match up game. Try to match the initial sound with the picture e.g., a is for apple 😊 Enjoy!

Your child can listen to the jolly phonics song below to hear the phase 2 phonics sounds being said. 

This can help you support your child to be able to articulate the different sounds we focus on learning this term.

For Autumn 1 our focus is for children to:

Settle happily into their new class

Learn the class routines and expectations

Make friends with others

Explore their new learning environment

Manage their personal hygiene and be able to dress themselves

Talk about themselves and their families