Pre-Prep News, Friday 13 October
Happy half-term break!
From Mrs Hall
It has been a fantastic half term with the boys making incredible progress in many different ways. Two Year 2 boys, Ian and Aaron joined the South of England Chess Championships last Saturday at Yateley Manor School. It was the first time participating for both boys and after a whole day of highly competitive chess matches, Ian won a trophy for 4th place and Aaron 9th place. Well done, to both of you.
Hopefully, you will have all been able to access your Tapestry accounts. Please do add any achievements, photos or trips to your sons' accounts too. It really does help us to build a holistic view of your boys. Can we also please ask that over the half-term break you discuss and complete the ‘About Me’ section together with your sons.
Please can I reiterate the importance of naming the boys' uniform and having the right clothing in school; school coat and waterproof trousers for Forest School too. Please also be aware that despite wearing long sleeved tops and trousers at Forest School, there are still ticks around. Pease do check your sons after their Forest school days. If you do find a tick on your child, please take special notice of the advice about tick removal and check your child afterwards for the symptoms suggested in this leaflet and contact your GP if you have any concerns.
As a Pre-Prep, we are always looking at ways of enhancing our learning environments. We are very passionate about creating calm, naturally curious environments, as well as becoming more sustainable. With this in mind, we would like to ask you as parents if you have any of the following: stainless steel items, old crockery tea sets, houseplants and pots, sieves, metal/china teapots, pots/pans/frying pans and large neutral shade rugs that you would be willing to part with. Any donations will be greatly received. It all helps to rescue, reuse and recycle everyday objects.
I wish you all an enjoyable half-term break, and we look forward to seeing you back at school on Monday 30 October.
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Pilgrims' Shell Awards
- Year 2 – to James H for being thankful by showing and expressing appreciation for his friends. Well done, James!
- Year 1 - to Arthur J for thinking of others in his class and always being helpful.
- Year R - to Rory H for his positive attitude towards school life and for always being so friendly and smiley towards others.
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Save the Dates!
A reminder of upcoming events next week and other dates for your diaries for this term. Please keep a look-out for further details.
| Monday 16 October | Pre-Prep Parents' Evening, 1700-1930 | |
| Tuesday 17 October | Pre-Prep Celebration Assembly 1500-1530 Start of Half-Term (1540, 1630 or 1800) |
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| Monday 30 October | School resumes (0830) | |
| Wednesday 1 November | Year R trip to Winchester City Mill | |
| Friday 10 November |
Pilgrims' Play |
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| Friday 10 November |
PPA Fireworks event, Booking now open - Please go to My School Portal |
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Notices
Menus for next week are available here on My School Portal.
Reminder: no food is to be brought into the school and/or given to boys at any time, especially at sign-out.
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From the PPA
Year 2
A storyteller: 'a person who tells stories', and that is just what each boy in Year 2 turned out to be on Tuesday morning as they shared their stories with the boys in Reception. The excitement level was high; however, the level of focus was higher as visitors came and went unnoticed by the boys. Mrs Huntley was all prepped to take the Reception boys back after listening to one story, but the boys stayed and moved from partner to partner, eager to listen to another story, hearing about the scary wolf or the angry bees.
We are looking forward to sharing a few short snippets with you during our Celebration Assembly next Tuesday, as well as some facts we have learnt about The Great Fire of London.
Mrs Kent
Year 1
Art and Design – Learning about Yayoi Kusama
The Japanese modern artist, Yayoi Kusama, also known as 'The Princess of Polka Dots', has captured the Year 1s' imagination over these past two weeks. It might be because she covers EVERYTHING in dots, it might be because she loves pumpkins (and covers them in dots!), it might be because she has bright red hair. It might also be because her Japanese name sounds lovely on the tongue, full of interesting sounds that the English language doesn’t have. She is a really inspiring lady who has helped us play with colour mixing and create an imaginary galaxy that our literacy character Beegu may have come from. Kusama was once quoted as saying, 'Our Earth is like one little polka dot, among millions of other celestial bodies.'
Kusama’s
work, along with some wonderful real pumpkins from Mrs Kent and Mrs Ford’s vegetable patches, has helped us to create some fantastic pumpkins of our own out of clay. The boys were utterly amazing using clay for the first time in the Art classroom. They were focused, attentive and so gentle with their technique. We rolled a sausage to split our clay into two equal shapes. We squished and squashed our clay to explore its texture and temperature. We used the pinch pot method to make two shells. We learnt to cross-hatch our joins, dab them with water to help them connect. We used our fingers gently to blend the join together. A lollypop stick proved a useful tool to work with and use to finally make a hole for our stalk. What a wonderful round-up of fine motor skills practice.
The boys are extremely proud of the shapes that they have made, and rightly so! They are so characterful. We are all now crossing our fingers for a quick drying process, so we can get on and paint them and cover them in Yayoi dots!
Messages…
The boys have been issued with a Home Learning book instead of the folder that was originally given. This will help keep all spellings and home learning together more neatly. This will always come home in their book bag each Friday. Doing spelling practice little and often during the week is the best approach.
In keeping with our dotty theme, the boys have a dot-to-dot picture to complete this week in their Home Learning book as well as a new dose of spellings. Not only are dot-to-dot pictures fun, they are a brilliant way to practise counting.
Best wishes for the weekend.
Mrs Ford
Year R
The boys have continued with the Nursery Rhyme theme this week and have used their fine motor skills and joining skills to create 'winches' for Incy Wincy Spider. This will help poor Incy climb up and down the spout more quickly as he keeps falling down. Some boys chose to use plastic cups as their spouts while others used tubes. It was challenging to make sure the string did not fall off of the stick and that the mechanism turned efficiently.
Great enthusiasm and perseverance are shown for the task. Super winches boys, well done!
The boys were also delighted to have been invited into the Year 2 class to listen to the Year 2 boys' stories that had been written. It was a super experience for all, and I could see the pleasure, concentration and kind interaction on many faces. Some boys on return to the classroom said to me, 'I loved that. Their stories were so good!' A session to be repeated I think!
Well done, for the excellent first half term completed (nearly) in Reception Class. The boys have settled brilliantly into school and class life, and have been a pleasure to get to know and work with.
Have a great, restful break, and I look forward to seeing you all again for the next half of the term.
Mrs Huntley
Forest School
Conkers were still a wonderful inspiration for Year R this week. The boys continued to learn how to drill using gimlets and palm drills and used their imagination to make some wonderful conker creations. Fun was had playing with them in the autumn leaves. The boys also had the chance to plant a conker, which they can watch grow during the coming year.
Year 1 boys were introduced to an important knot skill this week, that of a stopper knot. Using this skill, the boys were able to learn how to thread leaves onto their piece of string. We chatted about different sized leaves, different colours and shapes, and the boys chose the criteria to use for their leaf decorations. The results were beautiful; the boys came up with the idea of turning them into leaf crowns and leaf necklaces!
Mrs Walker
