Welcome to Maple Class

Hello, my name is Miss Hallam, and I am the teacher of Maple Class. In our classroom, we are lucky to have the fantastic Mr Clayton as our teaching assistant. I am really looking forward to working with such a wonderful group of children and getting to know you all.

In Maple class, we enjoy learning and know how to work hard whilst having lots of fun! We are kind and caring to make sure that everyone can enjoy school and go home smiling! We will work as a team to help others to make sure every child is able to try their best and reach their potential. We will also be supportive of each other by understanding that everyone makes mistakes, that this is a part of learning and that mistakes are okay. I always tell the children, they will never be in any trouble for making a mistake, we will be proud of them for having a go and can then help them to improve.

We have some fantastic topics that we will be covering throughout the year, including Space Explorers, Australia and Antarctica and the Great Fire of London. I am sure I will learn some new facts from the children and their amazing thirst for learning!

I love reading and telling stories and know how important being a great reader is to being an independent learner. I look forward to not only hearing you read, but also to find out about the stories you have enjoyed and your favourite authors. To promote a love of reading at Newtown, we have the 100 club, where prizes are awarded to those children who read regularly at home. Who will be the first in Maple class to reach 100 reads this year?

Key things to remember:

• PE lessons are on Mondays and Thursdays, but their kit needs to be in school every day as the days can change.
• Children are expected to read daily and record this in their reading records.
• Spelling and Maths homework will be sent home every Friday in the orange learning destination book. All homework must be completed and handed in by the following Friday.
• The children’s learning destination book can also be used for any additional home learning that you wish to be included. We love seeing all the learning that they do at home.

Please check back on this page throughout the year as there will be updates of our brilliant school year.

Mrs Dowler

Christmas Tree Festival Visit

On 4^th December, Maple class visited St James’ church for the Christmas tree festival. The children had worked really hard to create the decorations consisting of painted wood slices and pinecone snowmen. I hope you agree, they did a super job! Whilst we were at the church, the children were treated to a drink and biscuit. As always, their behaviour was fantastic and it was lovely to see the children’s achievements celebrated.

Space Day

On Thursday 28^th November, Maple class had an amazing space day. During this day, we completed lots of activities to test our astronaut skills alongside going to the moon!

We started the day by making space helmet masks for our flight, the children did a fantastic job with making them and following the instructions. Next, we were able to try some space food – freeze dried strawberries, cinnamon apple wedges, mint and Neapolitan ice cream sandwich slices. The children were brilliant at trying each of the items – overall the favourite was the mint ice cream sandwich.

After break time we went on a rocket flight TO THE MOON! Commander Marshall led the flight with astronauts Carter and Martha helping with the navigation. When we reached the moon, we explored items which were left by astronauts. Then we took our flight back to school (in time for lunch time)!

In the afternoon we completed a carousel of activities: role play in the space tent, fine motor skills with space gloves on, sharing space stories, making space Lego models and discovering more objects. All children thoroughly enjoyed their day!

Reading

I have been so pleased with the amount of reading at home this term, we have seen lots of Maple class receiving their 25 reads certificate and on the final week of term, we saw the first 50 reads certificates being received. Thank you all for reading at home, it makes such a difference, and it is wonderful to celebrate this learning with our 100 club certificate and prizes. I look forward to seeing this dedication continue into term 2 and beyond!

D&T - Bridges

This term, Maple class have been very busy learning about bridges. We have learnt about different types of bridges, the shapes and structures which provide most strength and the properties of materials that are used. After designing their model bridges, the children carefully created their bridges, including using the string and dowel to create our winch and hinge moving mechanism. I was really impressed with all of the children’s resilience and concentration to ensure their bridges were created as accurately as possible to ensure they worked successfully! Additionally, the children have remembered their fantastic facts really well and are able to talk about what these facts mean in relation to their learning.

Self Portraits

Each year, we begin term 1 by creating self portraits and talking about our own personalities, similarities and differences. this year, Maple class produced beautiful pieces of artwork, both when we were looking at individual facial features and when using these skills to create their very own self portrait. This strongly supported our term 1 topic title, ‘All different but all equal’.