Breaking the rules today was lots of fun, I particularly enjoyed snack time, as did the children! Thank you for all your generous donations.

We read our tricky words on balloons and wrote them in flour today. We have been playing lots of games to consolidate our phonics knowledge this week, especially those that help us to recognise digraphs and trigraphs in words. In maths we have been grouping and sharing and using sharing, or dividing between 2, to identify whether an amount is an odd or an even number.

We read the runaway pea and designed our own fugitive vegetables, exploring all sorts of alternative, unfortunate happenings! Tuesday was World bee day, we found out why bees are so important and drew, painted and collaged some wonderful bee pictures. In p.e. we used the apparatus in the hall to hold quiet and still balances and learnt how to move our bodies with increasing control like a champion gymnast. In computing we used the floor robots, which introduce children to the concept of coding. The children worked with a partner to input a series of commands to instruct their robot to travel a particular route, they really embraced the activity.

Today, just in time, one of our butterflies emerged from it’s chrysalis. We were able to observe the butterfly and placed a slice of fruit and some sugar water (nectar) in the enclosure for it to drink from. I’m so glad we were able to witness this. Unfortunately, the children won’t be able to observe the release of the butterflies, I will have to take them home and wait for the other 4, so I will release them during the half term. I will film the release to share with the children when we return.

Thank you for sharing your baby photographs with us, the children have really enjoyed this. All photographs have been returned to the children today, so please do look for them in their book bags. You also should have received the information you need to order your professional class photograph this week, the deadline for this is the 4th June.

On a more cautionary note, I have to let you know that, unfortunately, a member of our class has had to endure a series of rather uncomfortable hospital visits, culminating in an operation under general anesthetic, in order to remove a sticker from their ear! Obviously we have spoken to the whole class about this, reminding children of our classroom rules and explicitly spelling out the dangers of poking anything from the classroom in their own or their friends ear, nose, mouth, or indeed anywhere it shouldn’t be! I would be grateful if you could reiterate this message at home with your children.

I’d like to wish everyone a wonderful half term break, and look forward to seeing everyone again on the 3rd of June.

Jo Bentley

Please do not hesitate to email me with any questions or queries: jbentley@stjohnsprimary.org