Hello Lovely Elf Owls and Families,
We have enjoyed a lovely few weeks at school, including our first P.E and Forest school sessions. During P.E with Mrs Dickson we have been practising our listening skills and following instructions. Mrs Dickson has said how impressed she has been with you all and that you are beginning to listen well. One of your favourite games to play has been the “Dirty Bedroom” game where you have been throwing lots of balls and bean bags across the tennis court.
Forest school has been really fun too, even though our first session was very, very soggy! I loved seeing how much fun you all had making mud potions together and jumping in some huge muddy puddles! This week was dry weather and sunshine, you were all very busy making dens together, making small fairy dens, using the rope swing and climbing over log piles and jumping off them too. Mrs Howlett demonstrated how we carry large branches safely and you all remembered how to do it! Great listening Elf Owls.
We have enjoyed listening to a story together on the carpet and you all loved joining in with “Wonky Donkey” and “Dinky Donkey” Hee-Haw!!! We have also enjoyed “The Little Red Hen” which led to discussions about how fairly we thought the animals treated the Little Red Hen. We also listened and talked about "Ruby's Worry and "Ravi's Roar" again provoking some good discussions about our feelings. I will put a youtube link on the webpage to enjoy listening to these books if you don't have them at home.
We also joined the rest of the school, virtually, for our Friday celebration assembly. The rest of the school were very excited to see us and in particular the Hawk Owls (year 6) who are going to be our buddies.
A real emphasis for us in class is developing our social and emotional skills and learning “how to be a good friend” to everyone. We recognise that this can be very hard for 4 year olds and we are supporting the children closely in this area. We also have a kindness jar in class and when we spot children being kind they can put a Pom-Pom in our kindness jar. When the jar is full we can decide as a class what treat we have earned! We also have a "Kindness Tree" which we have on display and we will be adding children's names to the tree when we notice a child displaying "kind" behaviour to their peers or adults.
We look forward to another few weeks of learning and fun together before half term. As always please come and chat to me at the school gate if you have any questions or get in touch by email via the office@gmilton.org
As the weather is changing quickly we would ask that your child has a pair of wellies in school each day and a waterproof suit or trousers as outdoor learning is a very important part of our curriculum.
Best wishes
Nicola Bennett and The Elf Owl Team
Elf Owls September 2020
Teacher – Mrs Nicola Bennett
Teaching Assistants – Mrs Nikki Howlett, Mrs Hayley Cox and Mrs Alison Wheeler
Hello To all of Our Lovely Families,
We are the Elf Owls and we are the Reception class at Great Milton C of E Primary School.
We enjoy an airy spacious classroom with the addition of two outdoor areas: one under shelter and one offering a larger space to explore which features a range of climbing equipment and role-play areas, mud kitchen, reading tent, a water wall, bikes, trikes and scooters, a large sandpit and areas for growing plants and vegetables. Please take a look at the recent photos of our fabulous learning environment.
We enjoy exploring at school and spending our time learning. We become independent and active learners by exploring and learning from our environment and each other. Our teacher plans our lessons, activities and resources and topics mostly around our interests. Our teachers record some of our learning on tablets which are shared along with our books and observations at parents evening. Our activities are based and planned around the three prime areas of learning and the four specific areas of learning from the 'Development Matters Curriculum'.
Our parents and carers are encouraged to bring us to our classroom door each day and help us start our daily school routines. They can also speak to the adults about any concerns or share messages.
We have some daily sessions including our “Funky Fingers”, "Dough Disco" and group led phonic lessons as well as some adult- directed tasks. We have the opportunity each day to spend time planning what we would like to discover and take part in and then we are encouraged to review how successful we have been. The adults in our classroom support our investigations by asking us questions or observing how we problem solve and learn.
We are provided with a reading book that can be changed daily if required, along with an individual sound and word books. Each Elf Owl is allocated reading books suited to our individual ability and is updated as required - we also encourage the grown ups who read with us to ask us questions that can be found on the inside cover of our book that support our comprehension skills.
We are very lucky to have lovely teaching assistants who works with us full time and are very much part of the Early years team.
We join the whole school for lunchtimes in our hall and sometimes enjoy lunchtime activities, for example Book Club, Art Club and spending time with our kind and caring Year Six buddies and other friends. We join in with some whole school events, assemblies and worship when our teacher feels we are ready. We are part of the whole school and have two children from Elf Owls that are part of the School Council and an additional two that are our Eco Councillors. We are asked our opinions and have our voices heard and are part of a variety of school projects.