Hello Everyone,

We enjoyed a lovely lesson outside in science this week. Reception were busy collecting objects for our Autumn display, while year 1 were finding living and non-living things. Year 2 were working together to categorise objects that were alive, used to be alive, and never been alive. They were excellent at giving reasons as to why they had chosen their particular categories.

In art this week, the children each created their own colour wheel, which used the 3 primary colours to mix purple, green and orange. They enjoyed adding more of certain primary colours, and watching the effects.

We have been particularly pleased with Year 1 this week, as they have really made an effort to become more independent in their writing. We have written some lovely descriptions of story settings and have innovated the Mr Benn stories by David McKee.

Well done to Reception this week, for working hard in maths to compare weight and to sort objects in different ways.

Have a lovely weekend.

From The Penhallow Team

The children had a truly immersive trip to Morwellham Quay. We started the day by dressing up in Victorian clothes and walking through the town. We learnt that manners were important and you had to say 'good day' to anyone you saw, with the girls curtsying and the boys dipping their hats. We then went to look at the cottage of a rich Victorian family and a poor Victorian family. We learnt about how they got water as they didn't have taps or toilets. After lunch we had a lesson in the Victorian school room. We had a go at writing on slates. We also learnt about what happened to children that didn't follow the rules. We finished off by trying some different playground games. All the children had a great day and learnt a lot. 

Welcome one and all. Next week, we will be having 2 Harvest festival assemblies. EYFS and KS1 will take place at 9am whilst KS2 will take place from 2pm. Please feel free to come in and join us.
Contributions for the FOOD BANK will be gratefully received.

This week we have been supporting the Save a Heart campaign and learning how to use CPR if we ever needed to. The children practised thier skills using teddies, cushions and jumpers. We looked at the DR ABC approach - Danger, Response, Airways, Breathing, CPR.
If you want to explore this further at home or for yourself do take a look at: https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/how-to-save-a-life/how-to-do-cpr/learn-cpr-in-15-minutes 

We've had a busy and exciting start to the school year! In English, we've been diving into Stig of the Dump by Clive King. The children have loved exploring the adventures of Stig and Barney and even wrote their own creative chapters about a brand-new adventure the two characters might have. In Maths, we've been sharpening our place value skills and stretching our understanding of numbers up to 1000. It's been great to see everyone's confidence growing! Our History focus has been the big question: How did we survive before metal? We've travelled back in time to the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages, learning about early homes, tools, weapons, and how people used nature to live. The children really enjoyed creating their own triorama Stone Age homes. In RE, we've been learning how Christians follow God through stories and messages in the Old Testament. In French, we've started with the basics-greeting each other with a friendly "Bonjour!" PE has been all about football, developing our control, teamwork, and ball skills. And in DT, we looked at seasonal foods, then rolled up our sleeves to bake delicious treats for our Bake Sale! It's been a great month-well done, everyone!

Preschool is taught by Natalie and Sam along with Teighan our Nursery Apprentice.

What are the aims of our Pre-School?

We follow the Early Years Foundation Stage** (EYFS) Principles from birth to age five.

In doing this we aim:

• To have happy, fulfilled and motivated children.

• To provide a stimulating environment for children to explore with their play and to learn from their experiences.

• Supporting Learning

• Transition to School

• Play and Exploration

What is the Early Years Foundation Stage? This is how the Government and Early Years professionals describe the time in your child's life between birth and age 5. This very important stage in your child's development helps them get ready for school, as well as preparing them for their future learning and successes. 

From when your child is born up until the age of 5, their early years' experience should be happy, active, exciting, fun and secure and support their development, care and learning needs

You can download a copy of the Parents' Guide to the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework at

https://foundationyears.org.uk/2021/09/updated-guidance-to-support-the-eyfs/

Our school council are organising a community event to raise money for one of our chosen charities this year, the RSPCA.

We want families to create their own scarecrow and all scarecrows will be placed throughout Widegates. This is the perfect chance to do something creative and fun as a family whilst raising money for an amazing cause!

Deadline for entries: 20th October.

We have 8 new EYFS children join our Trenode family and they have settled wonderfully. The focus over the first few weeks is establishing routines and building relationships with their new peers. 

In maths, we are focusing on place value and understanding each number's worth.

Our curriculum learning is "Why didn't Paddington come to Looe?" so the children have been busy in the role play bakery. They have been learning and performing the story of Paddington and we even went on the same adventure tasting food from the bakery, writing our name on mirrors and drawing a map in Peru in shaving foam. We are currently learning about eating healthy in DT and will be preparing a healthy meal for our teddy bear's picnic.

We have also started with a weekly forest school session each week with Kelly. She has been looking at team building in different outdoor games and the children have loved exploring our amazing grounds. A reminder to parents that children require old clothes every Friday during this half term.

You may have seen us in the news and this is because Looe Shedders kindly created a playhouse for our outdoor learning area. The playhouse has been a hit with the children enjoying imaginative and creative play to support language development. We love that we have a space outside to take part in role play.

We have launched Showbie (our online learning platform) to EYFS parents. Please make sure you have signed up to see what your child gets up to with their learning. For Year 1 and 2 parents, you will be receiving the codes for Showbie in the next couple of weeks.

Key date: Wednesday 1st October-We are inviting family members in to have a teddy bear's picnic to taste the healthy food we are making in DT.

A welcome back to our pre-school blog!

The children have all settled back into pre-school well for the start of autumn term.  We have also welcomed some new little faces to the pre-school, and it has been lovely to start to get to know them.  We have also welcomed Mrs Barrett as a Pre-School TA on a Friday, Mrs Barrett is an experienced TA who also works at Duloe Pre-School and is a wonderful addition to our team.

This half term our enquiry question, "Who am I?" leads us to lots of wonderful ways to learn about ourselves and each other.  From self-portraits to all about me collages, family pictures and talks about siblings or pets at home. Lots of Grand Conversations happen with the children to build up their self-identity and understanding of who they are.

We have also been discovering changes to the season with stories and songs about Autumn and what we can see around us.  The children will be bringing home a special bag to collect some autumn items to bring into pre-school.  We will build up a display table to let the children explore and learn about these items.  So, any crunchy colourful leaves, acorns, conkers and pinecones or any other natural autumn object the children would like to bring in.

The children have been enjoying joining in with some of Lantic's afternoon activities such as music with Mrs Butlin and PE.  They are showing great listening skills and follow instructions from the teachers.

Next week on Wednesday 8^th October at 2pm we will be joining the whole school for their harvest festival celebration in St Nun Church.  If you would like to bring any donations of tinned or dried foods that we can add to the collection for Liskeard and Looe food bank , that would be very much appreciated.

We will be enjoying some baking next week with the children so do make sure we are up to date with any known allergies.

Below are some pictures of our first few weeks back at pre-school, also attached is the most recent pre-school newsletter incase you have not received one. 

The Pre-School Team.

The reception and year 1 children went to Gunwen chapel to take part in the tradition of crying the neck. This is a Cornish tradition that is about celebrating the harvest. The children joined in with the Cornish chants where they had the opportunity to hold the neck of corn and lead the chant. We then went into the chapel and joined in with some harvest songs and learnt a bit more about how the tradition started. We then finished off in the chapel hall doing some crafts. As a group we made a field of corn out of our hands which we made with paper and a collage owl.