Monday 1st December

Welcome to this week's blog spot and Christmas is fast approaching. Thank you to everyone who came to the Christmas Fayre on Saturday it was really busy and very successful. There were lots of stalls and Santa's grotto looked amazing. Thank you to every one who sent a shoe box in for operation Christmas child. I am sure we will put a lot of smiles on the faces of children who are less fortunate than ourselves.

Please remember that costumes for the play are due in on Monday and we will start to use them early on in the week so the children get used to them. We will be doing lots of practices and putting the finishing touches to the play.

Communion dates have now been finalised and year Three parents should have seen a letter a couple of weeks ago. Here are the final dates.

Presentation Mass - All year three are presented into the parish on the start of their preparation. Sunday 26th April 2009.

Parents' Meeting - Wednesday 29th April 2009

Away Day for all communicants - Tuesday 16th June 2009

9.30am Mass in church. Activities and lunch in St Joseph's centre.

Practice in church - Friday 19th June 2009.

First Holy Communion - Saturday 20th June 2009.

LITERACY

We will be exploring ways of further improving our writing - focusing on SENTENCE STARTERS. The children will be learning how to start a sentence with an adverbial phrase. A HOW, WHEN or WHERE starter.

For example:HOW - Turning around slowly, the man began to cross the room.

WHEN - As the minutes turned to hours, the sun slowly set over the horizon.

WHERE - In the distant field, the excited children played football.
http://www.mape.org.uk/startower/menu.html - check out all the different parts on this fabulous writers site.

http://www.kidsonthenet.org.uk/ - another great site for writers!

http://goodnightstories.com/stories.htm - a huge range of story activities where you can read, see, hear, finish or decide stories.

All the children are keen to improve their reading skills and so we are working on improving comprehension skills. Don't forget that their reading ages and decoding skills get assessed in January. You can help at home by checking out the sites below. There are a variety of different levels so find the one that suits where your child is at.

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/revision/engindex.html

http://www.manatee.k12.fl.us/sites/elementary/palmasola/psmain.htm

http://www.eslbears.homestead.com/Map_and_Directions.html - We have been continuing to develop our spelling skills too - check out the language game site below for some different ways to work on your spellings.

NUMERACY
This week in all three groups we will be starting to assess the children's levels in Numeracy. Therefore, this week we will be reviewing lots of themes in Numeracy. To revise some of the main topics click below:

http://www.crickweb.co.uk/ks1numeracy.html

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/maths/index.html

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/maths/wordproblems/index.html - have a look at these if you want to get the hang of test style questions

http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/maths/timestables.htm

http://www.kidsnumbers.com/

http://www.topmarks.co.uk/Interactive.aspx?cat=20

http://www.funbrain.com/brain/MathBrain/MathBrain.html

Don't forget one of our favourite sites for all things mathematical:

http://www.mathszone.co.uk/ - the children really enjoy working and playing on this site.

ICT

This week the children in all three classes will be introduced to the new laptops that are being used in school. Each class has been assigned to a 5 and 6 class to help them learn about them. The children in 5 and 6 have planned and prepared a lesson for our children. Listen out for the ripples of excitement with this fantastic new resource in school.

And finally, now that we are officially in December check out some Christmas Activities

http://www.btinternet.com/~tony.poulter/xmas/xmastlinks.htm - a super site with lots of festive links!

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/Xmas/calendar/ - lots of different activities to try out.

http://www.akidsheart.com/holidays/christms/chgames.htm

http://www.themouseclub.co.uk/flash/mouseclub.html

http://www.mape.org.uk/ChristmasCrackers/

http://www.northpole.com/ - the old favourite is back!!

Have a great week,

The Three and Four team.

xxx