Please click on the button below to find a selection of learning activities for you to complete at home, if you are currently self-isolating.
Welcome to Elephant Class!
Hello and welcome to Elephant Class. We are are enjoying getting to know your children and watching them play alongside others and forming friendships.
Elephant class is part of Reception in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) with 30. We are taught by Mrs Norton, our general teaching assistant is Miss Barry and Mrs Salt is our SEN teaching assistant. Every Monday and Tuesday Miss Martin will be teaching us because Mrs Norton doesn't work Monday and has her planning and preparation time on a Tuesday.
On our webpage, you will find regular updates on our learning and useful information. Alongside our webpage, please see our class ‘Dojo’ for our regularly updated class stories and any new messages.
Please keep visiting the 'Parents' tab regularly, to view Mrs Houseman’s new updates and information.
If you have any questions or any concerns, you are very welcome to message me through 'Dojo' or via my school email: mnorton@dovedale.derbyshire.sch.uk
Our REACH superstars are:
Week 1 - Alice
Week 2 - Luca
Week 3 - Oliver F
Week 4 - Kiera
Week 5 - Sadie
Autumn 2
Week2 - Joseph
Week 3 - Daniyal
Week 4 - Zac
Well done to all of you! You are super Elephant role models!!!
Summer 1
Tuesday 27th April – parents meetings via phone call
Monday 3rd May – Bank Holiday
Thursday 27th May – Last day of term
Friday 28th May – Inset day SCHOOL CLOSED
Spring term
Monday 4th January - Return to school
Friday 12th February - Break up from school
Monday 22nd February - inset day
Thursday 1st April - Break up for Easter
Monday 7th September - First day of school 9:00 - 3:15pm
Thursday 22nd October - Last day of term
Friday 23rd October - INSET DAY (subject to change) - Children are not in school
AUTUMN TERM 2 starts - Monday 2nd November
Super Hero disco - Wednesday 4th November 2020 3:15 - 4:15pm
Individual Class photos - Monday 9th November 2020
AUTUMN TERM 2 ends - Friday 18th December
Hello and welcome to Summer 2!
We hope you had a lovely break filled with family adventures in the beautiful sunshine!
Our knowledge block for this half term is ‘Paddington and his great big adventure!’ where we will focus on different places Paddington visits and the people who help us in these places! Please see above for our key questioning and what we hope to find out in our learning!
In Literacy, we will be focusing on a range of quality books (please see above on our front cover) which our learning will encompass. We will be providing many writing opportunities which includes creating letters to send to Paddington and writing invitations to our Teddy Bear’s picnic! Additionally, we will be continuing to develop our storytelling skills and writing skills based on stories, using our ‘Talk for Writing’ initiative. We will be making predictions, identifying the characters and the story settings and changing these aspects to our own ideas and continuing our understanding of story structure.
In the children’s writing, we will be encouraging the children to use capital letters, finger spaces and full stops consistently. We will be challenging the children to extend their sentences with connectives and encouraging the children to checking their sentences. We will additionally be encouraging the children to use upper- and lower-case letters correctly which is developed further through our Handwriting sessions.
In phonics, some children will be consolidating phase 3 and progressing to phase 4. Majority of the children will continue with phase 3 learning and some children will be consolidating phase 2 learning.
In our Maths learning, we will be continuing to develop our addition and subtraction skills, using both the part-part whole model and ten frames. We will also be looking at patterns within numbers up to 10, including evens and odds, doubling and halving.
In our PE sessions, we will continue to focus on ball skills to ensure children are showing increasing control when throwing, catching, and kicking. We will also be focussing on our teamwork and preparation for Sports day by developing our multi-skills!
Please see our Knowledge Organiser above to see our learning in: Understanding the World, Expressive Arts and Design, Personal Social and Emotional Development and Religious Education.
WOW! A very busy and exciting term ahead in our last EYFS term together!
Please continue to see Dojo for updates and celebrations of our learning through the term!
Many thanks, Miss Hutchinson and Mrs Norton.
Hello and welcome to Summer 1. We hope you have had a lovely Easter and are looking forward to the Summer term?
Our knowledge block for this half term is 'Land, sea, where will the animal be?' where we will focus on animals and their habitats such as farm animals, sea creatures and jungle critters.
We will be focusing on using maps when reading 'What the Ladybird Heard' by Julia Donaldson The children should be able to identify objects on the map from the story, add to it and use positional language to extend their understanding. They will then move this knowledge into our school and outdoor area to find clues from around the outdoor space by locating them on the map.
When looking at animals under the sea we will be looking at floating and sinking as well as comparing countries that are similar and different to our own.
In Maths we will be recapping on pattern and 3D shape and moving on to look at number bonds, length and using the part, part whole method to represent numbers up to 20.
In expressive arts and design we will be looking at representing animal faces along with movement to music showing expression through art and dance.
In literacy we are focusing on writing with a capital letter and full stop, as well as using upper and lowercase letters correctly. We will do this based around the stories that we choose for each area.
In phonics a majority of the class are working on phase 3 phonics and some are recapping these sounds as well as some phase 2 sounds.
We have a busy half term ahead and Elephant class have their class assembly in May... Please keep checking Class Dojo for updates on how this will be shared.
Thank you
Mrs Norton
Within Literacy, we will focus on quality books (please see above), which are learning will encompass. We will be making predictions linking to our knowledge about seasons and plants, labelling plants, creating a poem about the importance of caring for living things and creating a fruit diary. We will also be applying our storytelling skills using the ‘Talk for Writing’ initiative to further our understanding about story structure, characters and settings. Mother's Day is also nearly here so the children will be reflecting on why our mummy's are so important and writing a lovely letter to say why!
Within our maths learning, we will be building on our understanding of number and quantity by exploring larger numbers and how these can be represented and developing our understanding of number bonds using ten frames and the part-part whole model.
Additionally, we will be exploring texture of materials in greater depth and developing our understanding of colour by thinking about its purpose and how they can make us feel. We will even by listening to music and thinking about what colour it represents!
In RE, we will be thinking about how different places make us feel and the reasons why and then exploring how there are special places for people of different faiths.
WOW! Lots of exciting learning ahead, we best get growing! (Sorry! It had to be done!).
Our learning for Spring half term is 'Dinosaurs and Fantasy'. We will be looking at the story - If I had a dinosaur along with Zog and the Flying Doctor and THe Girl, the Bear and the Magic Shoes.
In literacy we will be focusing on matching a letter to sound and using these to create words and sentences.
In Understanding the world we will be looking at Baptism, recognising areas around the school and trying to find them on a map, and looking at people who help us. We are looking for people who are in the Emergency services or within our local community to record a short video answering a few of our questions so if you can help please send a DOJO to Mrs Norton.
In Expressive Arts and Design we will be looking at creating textures in a variety of ways. We will also be painting a tile of our portrait to display in school. This will be sent back to be fired before being displayed.
Autumn 1
During Autumn 1 our learning is focused on the question 'Super Me!' During the term we will be learning about ourselves, friendships and families. We will be completing a baseline assessment for school which will give us an idea on where your child is and we will send targets home based on these outcomes.
We will be learning about the 5 areas of REACH - Respect, Enjoyment, Achieve, Commitment and Health and how these look within the school environment. We will be looking at the story The Colour Monster to sort feelings and from this look at colour mixing to create secondary colours. We will learn how to curl paper around a pencil to create hair for our portrait and also look at similarities and differences between our class animals Elephants and Polar Bears.
We are looking forward to an exciting half term getting to know the children!
Autumn 2
Our learning this half term is focused around the question 'In a land far away'. We will be looking at traditional and fairy tales such as The Gingerbread Man, The Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Elves and the shoemaker and Cinderella.
Areas of provision will include counting gingerbread men onto the baking tray, creating salt dough gingerbread men and creating shelters for the three little pigs in our forest area.
We will be carrying out the government baseline starting from the end of week 1. This will hopefully give us an idea of how far the children have come on since the first few weeks and give us further targets to work from and discuss during parents evening.
We are going to do a Christmas Production. It will be very different to normal and it will be an original about a 'Covid Christmas' so keep your eyes peeled for children to be given their parts and lines.
We will be celebrating Children in Need as well as looking at Diwali and Hannukah during November and December.
Fingers crossed everyone is safe and well during this half term and we look forward to experiencing our first Christmas together!
Mrs Norton
The School Day
Our School Day
Due to the current situation, as a school we are using staggered start and end times to the day for each year group to ensure ‘bubbles’ aren’t mixed.
EYFS Morning drop off time – 9am through the Main Green Gate (near the bins).
EYFS Elephant Class end of day pick up – 3.15pm near the pink gate next to the climbing wall
If our Elephants have siblings in the school, please select the earliest drop of time and let me know through ‘Dojo’ so I can arrange an adult to collect them from the correct gate.
At the end of the school day please use the latest time for any siblings to be collected. We are the latest anyway so will hold onto the children until they are collected by the known adult.
CVC words to read
School Money
You will shortly receive a text message /email about joining 'School Money'. This is our system on paying for things in school as we do not handle cash. This will include things like school milk, trips wrap-around club etc. Any questions please Dojo, email or ring the school office.
PE day
Our PE day will be every Thursday. This will include alternating indoor and outdoor PE. All PE kits will be kept on their own peg. Please can you ensure all PE clothing and footwear is labelled with your child’s full name. PE kits will be sent home every half term to be washed.
Outdoor Learning
Exploring the outdoors is a fundamental part of EYFS learning. We love to go outdoors come rain or shine, therefore, please can all children have wellies and a waterproof raincoat in school. Please can you ensure these are labelled with your child’s full name.
Water Bottles
We encourage all children to bring their own water bottles into the classrooms everyday with their full name clearly labelled on the side. Children are provided access to their own water bottles throughout the day to ensure hydration. Please could you ensure that only water is put into them and not juice! This will be returned each day to be washed and refilled for the next school day.
Milk
While the children are 4 years old, they will receive milk for free. Once your child turns 5 years old, unfortunately they will no longer receive it. If you wish for your child to continue to have milk at school, please visit: www.coolmilk.com.
Birthdays
To celebrate this special day, the birthday boy or girl can come dressed in their own clothes for the school day. If their birthday is on the weekend, they are welcome to pick the closest day to come in non-uniform!
Jewellery and Hair
To ensure the safety of your child our school policy regarding jewellery, hair and nails is as follows:-
- Jewellery can only be worn for religious purposes.
- Any recently pierced ears need to be kept covered for the advised time of six weeks.
- We recommend that children who have long hair (below their shoulders) should tie their hair back for school; however, it is essential that it is tied back for PE lessons.
- Nail varnish should be removed for the school week.
Rewards at Dovedale
At Dovedale we have a positive approach to behaviour management and use different strategies to reward positive behaviour. They are as follows: -
Smiley Chart
Both classrooms have a smiley chart. Each child starts on the green smiley face every morning and throughout the day if they show progress towards our ‘REACH Rules’, they have the opportunity to move up the chart to the silver (where a sticker will be placed on their chart) or gold smiley. The gold smiley is highly regarded and only 1 or 2 children achieve this each day. If they achieve the gold smiley they will receive a reward which may include a golden ticket or prize.
Alternatively, children who struggle to follow our ‘REACH Rules’ may have to move down on the smiley chart to have thinking time or to visit a member of SLT. This will additionally be communicated to their parents. However, they will always have the opportunity to move back up the chart before the end of the day.
If your child comes home with a smiley sticker this shows they have had a good day at school.
Sticker Charts
Children receive stickers for a wide range of reasons within the school day. As they gather stickers on their chart they will gradually be getting closer to achieving a bronze, silver and gold award. Children need to achieve 25 stickers to achieve each award.
House Points
Children across school are allocated a place in either the Gold, Sapphire, Emerald or Ruby House Team. Throughout the school day, children achieve house points for their team which are calculated at the end of every week. At the end of each half term the winning house team receives a small prize and an additional play time.
Here is our class blog! It will show you photos of what the children (who have photo permission) have been up to in the classroom, giving you a snippet of Elephant life!
Week Commencing 23.11.20
Over the past few weeks we have been learning about traditional tales. You hopefully watched the Dojo Story of our Class retelling The Gingerbread Man, The Three Little Pigs and Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
We have worked hard with our sounds and can decode CVC words to read them. We have also done a super job working on our numbers looking at one more and one less, and matching quantities to a written number. We have looked at Mendhi patterns for Diwali and made diva lamps to celebrate.
We had Children in Need day where we dressed up as anything we wanted and also had a minutes silence for Remembrance day and painted poppies and bottle top poppies to go on our school gates.
You can see our creations in our classroom windows!
Week commencing 9.11.20
We have had an amazing few weeks. We had fun at the Superhero disco and danced our socks off and enjoyed the flashing lights. We have also enjoyed den building in the Forest area for a house for The Three Little Pigs. We got very muddy but it was all worth the fun! Next week we will be looking at natural materials that we made the dens with. We will also be creating a map of the walk we did to get to the Little pig's wood.
We enjoyed painting bottle tops for our Remembrance display on the school fence and have been creating repeating patterns to decorate chairs, beds and bowls to add to our Three Bear cottage.
We are currently carrying out the Government baseline in maths and literacy which will demonstrate the children's development since our school ones carried out at the beginning of the year.
Week ending 16.10.20
This week we have been focusing on writing about our friend, prepositions and ordering sizes. We have been strengthening our fingers pairing socks back together, ordering numbers on a number track, using playdough to make our friend their favourite pizza and writing cards to our friends about why they are special to us.
We are looking forward to next week as it is Halloween themed whilst learning about our families.
We have had a great few weeks settling in to school and showing the teachers what we can do! They have been really impressed with our name writing skills and counting numbers.
We have had fun learning about Super me and have also learnt about the colour monster and our feelings.
Super Me! and The Colour Monster - Autumn 1
