Term 3 

Welcome back to St Thomas' Primary Academy. We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas break and enjoyed time with your families. We are very excited to see the children continue to progress with their learning and take part in lots of exciting opportunities. This term the children will be learning all about superheroes both in fiction and in real life. This will include identifying people who help us in the community and their roles. They will continue to explore numbers to 5 but focus on the composition of numbers and also explore weight and capacity. The children's love for Maths is shining through and all our lessons encourage the children to explain their reasonings and apply their learning in their independent learning time. Throughout our Understanding of the World learning, the children will begin to identify places in the community that are special to them and others, this will include visiting our local church and meeting our Reverend. PE lessons will take place every Wednesday and all children should have both an indoor and outdoor PE kit, this is so the children are able to keep warm throughout the winter weather. 

Safer Strangers 

This week, Joy class had a very special visit from a  PCSO who came to talk to the children about how to stay safe and what to do if we met a stranger or found ourselves lost from our parents or family members. The children were able to share their knowledge of safer strangers and people who help us and enjoyed trying on some of the police officer uniform. Throughout this term, the children have shown fantastic knowledge of how to stay safe and identify all the people who help us day to day. 

Safer Internet Day and Children's Mental Health Week 2022

We have had an action packed week this week, looking at both Safer Internet Day and Children's Mental Health Week. The children explored the theme of 'Exploring Respect and Online Relationships' through communication. We looked at all of the ways you can communicate with others using technology, we spoke about what communicate meant and that we only communicate with people we know and we always ask an adult's permission to use technology so that they can check it is safe for us to use first. As part of Children's Mental Health Week we have had discussions about feelings throughout the week along with exploring our wellbeing display. The children can use this to reflect on how they are feeling. The children have taken part in different activities each day to support positive mental health such as mindfulness activities, dancing and breathing exercises.

Gymnastics

This term the children have been taking part in gymnastic lessons. This has involved the children using different apparatus to help bring different traditional tales to life. They have been developing their balancing and rolling skills to retell the stories of Jack and the Beanstalk and Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Throughout the sessions, the children have demonstrated resilience and courage, especially when using the equipment and apparatus at different heights. 

Chinese New Year 

This week the children have been learning all about Chinese New Year and exploring how it is celebrated all around the world. They identified that this year is the year of the tiger and took part in lots of exciting activities such as creating lanterns, writing good luck messages, painting Chinese numbers and role playing The Zodiac Story. All the children also had the opportunity to create their own dragon dance using the dragon head. Some children used a range of percussion instruments to help create a rhythm for the children to dance too. Joy class have really immersed themselves into this celebration and they have been fantastic at articulating their knowledge about the celebration. 

Posting a letter 

This week the children have been reading the story The Jolly Postman. As part of their learning the children were given the opportunity to write a letter to a family member using their sounds. On Friday, everyone walked in small groups to post their letter and we can't wait for their families to receive them. 

Composition of Numbers 

During our child initiated time, the children have continued their learning of making numbers using different amounts. In Maths this week, they have been recognising numerals 6,7 and 8. Some children then challenged themselves further by using the giant numicon to find the different ways to make these amounts. Fantastic effort Joy Class. 

This week we have began to look at the community around us and our local area. In Literacy we looked at the story 'The Jolly Postman' this gave us an insight into the role of a postal worker and the important role they have in delivering messages, letters and parcels. The children loved the story and took their enjoyment of it into their independent learning time where they began to draw story maps, talking about the main characters and the different places the Postman visited.

In Maths this week the children have been looking at Capacity, they have explored capacity in different ways such as using water and sand. The children were encouraged to use to vocabulary of full, empty and half full and then compare containers, thinking critically and predicting which container may hold the most or the least. The children have also been comparing weights of different objects, looking at what happens to scales when something is heavy and when something is light.

Nursery Rhyme Week 

This week the children in Reception have been celebrating `Nursery Rhyme Week`. The children have been learning different nursery rhymes and focusing on the pronunciation of words, their performance and the beats and syllables to support them. Everyone contributed to their final performance and created actions. 

In Maths this week, Miss Kelly decided to share her Christmas chocolate with the children. Whilst doing so, the children used language such as fair, equal, greater than, less than, more than or smallest amount to describe the number of sweets on the plate. They showed great confidence with identifying amounts and began to subitise and compare. Children continued to work on the comparisons of numbers and ordered them from greatest to smallest or the least amount. They then answered more and less questions. 

This week our story focus has been `Supertato`. The children have enjoyed learning about different superheroes and retelling the story of Supertato and the Evil Pea. In choosing time, there has been many learning opportunities for the children and many have challenged themselves to draw and paint pictures of the different characters. When showing their friends, the children could describe what was happening in their pictures by creating their own narratives linking to the different stories that they have been read.