As we come to the end of a wonderful term, I wanted to take a moment to say a heartfelt thank you for all your support. The children have worked so hard, and it has been lovely to see their confidence, curiosity and teamwork grow over the past few months.
I am so proud of everything they have achieved, both big and small. Their energy and enthusiasm have made our classroom bright and joyful every single day.
As we head into the holiday break, I wish you and your families a very Merry Christmas and a peaceful, happy New Year. I hope you all enjoy a well-deserved rest and special time together.
I look forward to welcoming the children back in the new term, refreshed and ready for more learning adventures. See you on January 5th!
Happy Friday to you all! I hope you are all staying warm in this cold weather.
We have been busy practising for the Winter Show this week and really excited to show you our moves next Wednesday. The Winter Show will begin at 2pm on Wednesday 10th December in the school Hall. I am looking forward to seeing you all there. Our Students Pebbles, bookmarks and keyrings will be on sale before the show.
In Literacy, we have finished our unit “The Owl who was afraid of the dark” and sat the end of unit writing assessment this week. I am going to be marking them over the weekend and will send them home on Monday with your child. We are going to be doing some Winter Crafts and connection activities next week before we finish up on Friday 12th December.
In IPC, we had so much fun exploring myths and legends. It was a special one for me as we looked at the Loch Ness Monster in Scotland. The students had great fun researching and finding out about the big monster that many have claimed to see! I told the students that I would love to take them to Scotland for a field trip but they weren’t keen on meeting the monster – haha!
We are coming to the end of our last unit, ‘Shape’ in Maths and it has been fun making shapes, identifying vertices and edges. Next week, we will sit our end of unit assessment and I am confident they will all do well.
The Children have been given our song lyrics as part of their homework and I would love for them to sing it all weekend so that they are confident for the show on Wednesday! Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree
Have a wonderful weekend and see you all next week.
I hope you are all having a lovely week. This week has flown in! I can’t believe we only have 2 weeks left until Winter Break now.
We have chosen our Winter Show Song and practised the dance today. If your child would like to practise at home, this is the song Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree. I have also bought canes for the students to use.
This week, we said goodbye to our lovely Ana Clara. She has returned to Brazil for three months. Everyone was sad to say their farewells. We hope she has a great time!
In Maths this week, we started our new unit on Shape. We have been having lots of fun exploring them, drawing them and looking at lines of symmetry.
In Literacy, we are now getting ready for our writing assessment next week. We have been working hard to gather all the information we need to create a fact sheet about owls. The children have been making mind maps, practising key grammar skills, and learning how to use sub-headings to organise their ideas.
In IPC, we have been learning about parts of stories and have read the story of Phileas Fogg: Around the world in 80 days. The children enjoyed using globes to find the countries that Fogg travelled to. They made little postcards with facts about each country too.
We also went on a lovely walk around the school grounds after our fire alarm practise today. The children had THE BEST TIME! Look at the happiness in their faces.
What a wonderful week we’ve had! I want to begin by thanking everyone who came to support us at the TGMC Kindness Market on Friday. Seeing so many of you there, engaging with the children and their work, truly meant so much. It was such a joyful and meaningful afternoon, and I felt incredibly proud of our students. Watching them explain the backpacks and share the strategies they’ve been learning reminded me just how much effort, care, and dedication goes into supporting one another’s well-being. Moments like these make all the hard work feel so worthwhile, and I left the event feeling inspired by their kindness and effort.
We have just three weeks left now until the end of term 1. I cannot believe how quickly time is flying by.
Maths This week, Year 1 and Year 2 completed their end-of-unit assessments, and I’m delighted to share that everyone did exceptionally well, with many achieving full marks! The children took the results home to share with you 🙂
Year 2 Objectives
Aut.2.17 –Review Add or subtract 1 or 2
Aut.2.19 – Mixed addition and subtraction
Aut.2.20 – Compare number sentences
Aut.2.21 – Missing number problems
Year 1 Objectives
Aut.2.14 – Subtraction: take away/cross out (How many left?)
Aut.2.15 – Subtraction: take away (How many left?)
Aut.2.16 – Subtraction on a number line
Literacy We are focusing on planning our non-fiction reports about owls. The children are learning about titles, subheadings, and key features of reports. To practise these skills, they wrote a report about a cat and will work on drafting their final writing piece before the assessment in Week 14.
IPC In IPC, we have been learning about animal gods and creating fact files. The children produced beautiful displays and researched fascinating facts. We explored:
Falcon, Jaguar, and Cat heads from Ancient Egyptian stories
Thunderbird from Native American traditions
Jaguar and Feathered Serpent from Aztec culture
This is quite a challenging topic, but the children approached it with curiosity, asking thoughtful questions and engaging enthusiastically throughout.
Christmas Show
The Christmas show will take place on Wednesday, December 10th. I will be introducing the children to their Christmas performance song this week. I am sure they will be as cute as ever. I will be in touch again to let you know what to wear on the day and will send home the link to the song and a copy of the lyrics.
I hope you are all well. We have had a busy and exciting week in class!
Maths
Year 1 have been working on addition and subtraction, using number bonds, counting on and back, and solving simple problems.
Year 2 have been focusing on subtraction across 10, using number lines and different strategies to help them understand how to exchange and subtract confidently.
Year1 and Year 2 will sit the end-of-unit assessment next week and results will be sent home with your child.
IPC – The Stories People Tell The children are really enjoying our new unit. This week we:
Explored myths and legends, including stories from Ancient Greece.
Created our own simple legends as a class (This was very funny!)
Designed beautiful Greek-style vase patterns on paper, inspired by traditional greek pottery.
Literacy We continued reading The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark.
We focused on a scene from the story and described what we could see, hear, and feel.
We explored the owl’s emotions, creating a timeline to help us retell the story.
Year 2 practised using adjectives in a list, adverbs, and adding more detail to their writing.
Year 1 worked on writing simple sentences using and, as well as using plural endings (adding s and es).
Kindness Carnival – Friday 21st November Please continue to practise the children’s song lines and presentation parts at home. We are preparing a small workshop for you, where the children will demonstrate how we use our wellbeing backpacks in class. It would be wonderful for each child to have a parent or family member on Friday so they can teach you.
Dress code: a colourful plain t-shirt with dark trousers/jeans. Donations: If you have any items to donate, please send them to school by Wednesday 19th November.
Thank you for your continued support. We look forward to seeing many of you next Friday!
Welcome back! I hope everyone had a lovely and relaxing mid-term break. It’s been wonderful to see the children return full of energy and ready to learn. We’ve had a great first week back together, getting stuck into lots of exciting new learning.
Literacy
This week, we continued our work on The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark. The children have been developing their vocabulary, participating in collaborative discussions, and practising how to build and punctuate sentences correctly.
Year 1 focused on writing simple sentences using and to join their ideas, such as “Owls hunt in the dark and have sharp talons.”
Year 2 explored using and, but, and or to extend their sentences, learning how conjunctions can change the meaning or tone.
We also learned fascinating new facts about owls -what they eat, where they live, and how they care for their young – using both information texts and a short educational video. The children did a brilliant job sorting facts into groups and writing about Plop and his family. Later in the week, we began exploring how Plop is changing throughout the story, noticing the use of punctuation such as commas and capital letters, and linking this to our own writing.
Maths
Year 1 Objectives
Year 2 Objectives
Find a part
Subtract from 10
Subtraction – find a part
Subtract a 1-digit number from a 2-digit number (across a 10)
Fact families – the eight facts
10 more, 10 less
Add and subtract 10s
Add two 2-digit numbers (not across a 10)
The children are becoming more confident using practical equipment and number lines to show their understanding of addition and subtraction.
IPC – The Stories We Will Tell
We have started our new IPC unit The Stories We Will Tell. The children had great fun exploring costumes and props, thinking about different ways we tell stories, and sorting familiar story characters into groups. They shared lots of stories they already know and love, and we are so excited for all the creative learning to come this term.
TGMC Kindness Carnival – Thursday, November 21st
We are thrilled to announce our upcoming TGMC Kindness Carnival. This event will raise money for St Teresa’s Primary School in Bristol, UK, a fellow TGMC school working hard to support the well-being of their students.
We kindly ask for donations of items suitable to sell at the carnival. If anyone would like to bake or bring in snacks, cookies, or cartons of juice, it would be much appreciated.
Starting this Monday, students will be able to:
Pay to Guess the Bear’s Birthday (up to 8 guesses each)
Buy tickets to Pie the Principal (unlimited)
Pay to Guess the Candies in the Jar (up to 5 guesses)
Each guess costs 500 won. The children are very excited and everyone wants to win the Backpack Bear! All winners will be announced during the Kindness Carnival on November 21st.
Thank you so much for your kindness and support in making this event a huge success.
I hope you all have a lovely weekend and enjoy the nice weather we have had this week.
As we come to the end of the first part of Term 1, I just want to say how proud I am of all the Year 1 and 2 children. They have worked so hard, grown in confidence, and made wonderful progress both in their learning and in how they support one another as a class. It’s been lovely to see their enthusiasm and kindness shine through each week.
We finished the term with a fantastic Halloween party today – thank you so much to all the parents who helped make it such a fun and successful celebration. The children absolutely loved it!
I hope you all have a lovely and relaxing holiday together.
Homework Please note that there has been no homework sent home this week. I hope you all have a lovely break with your child. Homework will resume in Week 10 and will be sent home as usual on Friday, November 7th.
I hope you are all well and have had a nice week. The weather was wonderful today and the children are enjoying the cool breeze in the playground now! This week has just flown by 🙂
Literacy
This week, we began our new story, “The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark.” The children explored what they already know about owls, what they want to learn, and how to describe them.
Year 1 students focused on using adjectives and the connective ‘and’ to make interesting sentences. They also learned how to change a noun into a plural by adding s or es.
Year 2 students worked on expanding their sentences with descriptive language and connectives such as because, so, and and to create short paragraphs full of detail. I have been very impressed with their work in class and at home. Well done!
I’ve also been trialing a new “learning pathway” method to support children’s independence and focus. It helps them break tasks into clear steps, so they can see exactly what to do along the way. This links beautifully with our behaviour pathway, teaching children that learning is like a journey – there may be obstacles, but with the right strategies and support, they can reach their goals! 🌈
Maths
In Maths, Year 1 students have been working on:
Number bonds within 10
Systematic number bonds
Number bonds to 10
Year 2 students focused on:
Adding by making 10
Adding three 1-digit numbers
Adding to the next ten
The children are becoming much more confident at spotting number patterns and using mental strategies to make 10 quickly – well done, mathematicians!
We had a lot of fun outside of the classroom this week, investigating giant number lines, searching for number sentences around the school, making posters and sticking stickers! I love to make the lessons as interactive and hands-on as possible.
IPC (If You’re Happy and You Know It)
We’re now in our second last week of this unit, and it’s been full of fun, hands-on learning! The children played ball games, jumped into coloured hoops, and created dances around the Zones of Regulation.
Each zone inspired a different dance, if they landed in the green zone, they danced happily; in the yellow zone, they danced silly! It was wonderful to see everyone expressing emotions through movement and recognising how they feel. Many children can now name their emotions and identify what they need to do to regulate – SO WONDERFUL to see! 💚💛💙❤️
Halloween Party Reminder
Our Halloween Party will take place on Friday, 24th October, from 2:00pm – 4:30 p.m. A huge thank you to all the parents who have been working so hard to prepare this exciting event. We can’t wait for an afternoon of fun, laughter, and just a little bit of scariness! 👻
Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend – rest well and see you all next week!
I hope you all had a lovely break. The children were quite tired today after returning to school, so I hope they can get some good rest over the weekend and come back refreshed for a full week of learning next week.
We had a lovely day together -reviewing in Maths, starting our new book in Literacy, and enjoying a wonderful whole-school assembly in the afternoon, followed by P.E.
Please note that no homework was sent home today. Library books were sent home in the yellow folders as usual.
I hope this finds you all well on this gloomy, rainy Friday afternoon. Let’s have a look at what we have been learning this week.
Maths This week in Maths, Year 1 focused on:
Aut.2.1 – Introducing parts and wholes
Aut.2.2 – Part-whole model
Aut.2.3 – Writing number sentences and reviewing them
Aut.2.4 – Fact families (addition facts)
Year 2 focused on:
Reviewing fact families
Aut.2.3 – Related facts
Reviewing related facts (subtraction)
Aut.2.4 – Bonds to 100 (tens)
Aut.2.5 – Adding and subtracting 1s
The children are building strong number knowledge and beginning to see how facts link together across operations.
Literacy We completed our final assessments this week – planning, practising, and writing! The children showed fantastic resilience throughout, and I’ll be sending their work home after marking.
Our next unit, beginning after the Chuseok break, will be based on the book The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark by Jill Tomlinson. The learning outcome will be non-fiction report writing.
Year 1 objectives:
Use plural noun suffixes -s and -es
Punctuate sentences using capital letters and full stops
Join words using and
Year 2 objectives:
Use co-ordination (but, or)
Add -ly to turn adjectives into adverbs
Use commas to separate items in a list
We’re looking forward to diving into this beautiful story together.
IPC In IPC, we moved into our Art lessons and learned about Mark Rothko, exploring how he used colour and paint to express emotions. The children created their own masterpieces, worked collaboratively on a group painting, and discovered that not everyone feels the same emotions when looking at Rothko’s work. It was a busy, creative week, and I hope these lessons are helping the children learn more about identifying their emotions and trying strategies to manage them.
Chuseok A reminder that school will be closed Monday–Thursday next week for the Korean Thanksgiving holiday. I wish you and your family a wonderful Chuseok, and I look forward to seeing everyone back in class on Friday, October 10th.
