What a jam-packed week we have had with special assemblies, visitors and even a costume parade! It all started on Monday with a special assembly; Father Alastair taught us about the Trinity – such a tricky idea to try and understand but Father Alastair did a super job and we all listened very carefully. We also presented our value poster to the rest of the school which you may have seen details of in Mr Quinn’s newsletter.

Next came a very special Tuesday – Shrove Tuesday – so of course we had to read Mr Wolf’s Pancakes by Jan Fearnley, which you can revisit here:

We were all quite surprised by the ending and it prompted lots of interesting conversations about motives and perspectives! Thankfully, we also listened very carefully during the story so we knew exactly what we needed to make our own pancakes: flour, eggs and milk. We headed off to the nursery kitchen, being very careful to keep ourselves safe around the hot stove, and watched with great excitement as Miss Cronin attempted to flip the pancakes. And, it goes without saying that they were simply delicious – despite not always having been flipped perfectly!

On Wednesday, Mother Helen and Father Alastair led another special assembly – this time to mark Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent.

On Thursday, it was World Book Day. Miss Cronin, Mrs Mooney and all the children stayed home and all sorts of storybook characters arrived at school instead! The witch from Room on the Broom read her story:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0102qfj/room-on-the-broom

And the ladybird from What the Ladybird Heard read her story!

We also joined the rest of the school for a World Book Day parade so we could show off all our amazing costumes. Thank you so much grown-ups for your amazing efforts! Do have a look on Seesaw for some photos of the class in costume – there are several – as not everyone was looking towards the front at once, but hopefully you will find one of your child looking the right way!

On Friday, we had some very special visitors. Two of the parents in our class are dentists and they very kindly agreed to come in and talk to us about how we can keep our teeth clean and healthy. Even Mrs Mooney and I were surprised to learn some new things about looking after our teeth, for example, that it is better to brush your teeth before breakfast, it is better to eat sweet things with a meal and it is better to eat sweet things all in one go rather than having them now and again.

We really enjoyed the visit and would like to say a HUGE thank you to them both for giving up their precious time to giving us such an enjoyable and informative morning!

In other news, we learnt a new red word this week – said – and in our maths lessons, we talked about what numerals (or ‘numberlings’ as the Numberblocks call them) represent and matched them to quantities. We continued to practise our subitising skills (‘don’t count, see the amount’) and develop our understanding of quantity as unchanged by a change in the shape or formation of dots.

We have also been learning to recognise the dot arrangements on dice without counting. We put our skills to the test playing games of snakes and ladders, which is also a great way to practise our kind and friendly turn-taking skills.

And we practised our fine motor skills, challenging ourselves to use tweezers to pick up buttons and pom poms, matching them to the correct numerals…

And finally, our tuff tray was full of sand, socks and an assortment of scoops and spoons prompting lots of excited conversations about measuring, sorting and weighing.

Have a lovely weekend everyone and see you on Monday.