Theatre Trip – ‘Room on the Broom’

The children thoroughly enjoyed our trip to the Theatre Royal in Plymouth. For many of them, it was their first time on a coach and their first experience of watching a live performance. They loved watching the show and they all joined in with the actions and rhymes to help the witch and all the animals.

“The frog is my favourite character, and his song was hilarious!” Beowulf

“My favourite part was when the frog burped. It was very funny!” Olivia

“I liked the witch and the cat. Whenever the cat said ‘no’, the witch said ‘yes’! The cat didn’t use our school values.” Matilda

“My favourite part was when the dragon ran away!” Noah

“I liked when the frog burped, and the dragon was funny because I didn’t know that he could talk.” Freddie R

“The witch was trying to make a spell, but the frog just burped and ignored her! I liked it when the lights turned dark.” James

“The dragon said that he would eat me raw!” Tobi-Rose

The children have been inspired by the theatre visit and have enjoyed re-enacting the story themselves. In the woodland camp we have seen many a creature whizzing by on broomsticks, casting spells with their wands and creatures jumping out from the bushes just like the dog! I think we may have some future actors and puppeteers in our midst!

Literacy - Oi Frog!   

The children continued to enjoy the funny rhyming story ‘Oi Frog’ by Kes Gray and Jim Field.

This week we produced some writing linked to the story. Some children wrote phrases (e.g., dog on log), and some wrote a sentence (e.g., A dog can sit on a log.) Some were challenged to use a question mark in their writing (e.g., Can dogs sit on pans? No.)

We have been focusing on accurate letter formation, using finger spaces and full stops to punctuate the end of a sentence.

When all of the children have finished their writing, we will share images of your child’s recent writing on Seesaw so that you can see their progress and their ‘next step’ target.

When I Grow Up - Ready for Work

It has been a fun and exciting week full of unique and wonderful experiences. The three aims of our school are to create a love of learning, teach children to be good citizens and get them ready for the world of work. In our current learning experience, we are exploring the future career opportunities for all the children, and we would like to thank everyone who continues to support us.

Pincombe’s Estate Agent visit

This week a group of children visited local business Pincombe’s to find out about the role of an estate agent. The children met Gerald and Kim who explained how they use all our school values in their job roles. The children learnt that estate agents sell homes and are very respectful when talking to clients. Gerald showed them how he takes photos of houses with a special camera. They then had an opportunity to use a camera and take their own photos. Kim explained how she writes a story about every house that is for sale. She uses creativity to design a brochure for every house. The children carried out some role-play. They used the images from the sales brochures to tell one another about the houses, to tempt the other to buy it. They had lots of fun, and it prompted some wonderful vocabulary. In the sales brochures, the children noticed the floor plans. They linked this to our recent architect visit saying they looked the same as her plans. This prompted a conversation about measurements. The children explored some of the different ways of measuring. They decided that using a ruler would not be a good way of measuring a room. The children used tape measures to measure the Pincombe’s office. Gerald explained to the children how he did not need to use a tape measure anymore because he now has a special laser machine that measures all the rooms. The children were fascinated by all the information. They made lots of links to learning in school and realised the importance of learning to read, write and mathematical knowledge for future jobs. Gerald and Kim were delighted to have a visit from the children and said they were very polite and knowledgeable. They were impressed with the eagerness of the children to learn about being an estate agent.

Thank you to Gerald and Kim for welcoming us and sharing information about their jobs.

Visit to the school kitchen

Some children had the opportunity to visit the school kitchen to talk to Siobhan and her team about their job roles and how they link to the school values. They said that they had to work as a Team because they all had to work together to get our lunch ready on time. We were lucky to observe them making pizza – one cook was kneading the dough and stretching it onto the baking tray, another was adding sauce and cheese to the top, while a third cook was taking the cooked pizzas out of the oven and putting in others to bake. Altogether they had to make 16 trays of pizza!

They also talked about how they used our school value of Responsibility. They have to make sure that everywhere is very clean and that their hands are properly washed. They also have to make sure that the children get the right lunch, especially those children with allergies.

Thank you to our kitchen staff for a fun and informative session!

Visit to the Co-op

This week, twelve children had the opportunity to visit the local Co-op store and talk to Vicki about her job and how it links to our school values. She told us that the main school value they used was Teamwork - all of the staff have different roles and rely on each other to help. Vicki also told us that it wasn’t just the people that you see in the shop, but that there are others who work in different places, such as the people who work ‘behind the scenes’ in the warehouse and the truck driver who transports the groceries to each store. Vicki said that they also used the value of Respect as they were polite to the customers and wanted each customer to feel welcomed when they came into the store.

We also discussed where our food comes from. The children knew that milk comes from a cow, but they thought milk was cow’s wee! They were also surprised to learn that crisps were made from potatoes. We will be exploring this in a future learning experience.

The children were also surprised that we had to pay for our own shopping! They thought that Vicki bought the food for us! As the use of cash is not as popular, with lots of us paying for shopping with our debit cards and phones, many children are not seeing a physical transaction, so the concept of paying for items is hard to understand.

When the children went back to the classroom, they shared their experience with the rest of the class.

Thank you to Vicki and the staff at the Co-op, for inspiring the children and sharing your experiences.

World Book Day

World Book Day is celebrated in over 100 countries around the world! It is an annual event and is a wonderful way to promote reading, books, and authors. At Preston Primary we will be celebrating this special day on Friday 3^rd March.

All children are invited to dress up as a character from a book. At the end of this newsletter are some ideas of easy character costumes and if you view the newsletter on the website, you can also see images of these costume ideas.

There will be lots of reading events happening in school that day. We will let you know more details closer to the event but thought we would give you advance warning so that you can think about what your child might like to wear.

Please don’t feel pressure to buy anything especially for this day. Use the dressing up clothes or onesies that you already have. There are so many story books with characters containing pirates, witches, animals, etc. Look at what you already have before buying new. Torquay Library are also offering a free loan service.

More information can be found on our latest reading newsletter www.preston.torbay.sch.uk/news/?pid=116&nid=1&storyid=689

Messages

• Please remember that you can also view this newsletter on the school website where you can see any photographs that we include.
• The messaging service on Seesaw is no longer monitored. If you have any messages regarding absences or medical appointments, please contact the school office on 01803 607075 or admin@preston.torbay.sch.uk

Home Learning

• Enjoy the ‘Oi Frog’ story on Seesaw.
• Check your child’s book bag and Seesaw for phonics activities and reading to complete at home.
• If you are shopping or paying for things that use cash (like parking meters), talk to your child about how you pay, or give them some coins so that they can choose and buy their own item.
• Talk to your child about where their food comes from.

Important Dates        

• Half-term - 13^th – 17^th February.
• Return to school – Monday 20^th February.
• Puffins online parent meetings – Monday 27^th February.
• Penguins online parent meetings – Wednesday 1^st March.
• Face to face parent meetings – Thursday 2^nd March
• World Book Day – Friday 3^rd March. Dress up as a book character.

From Mrs Bastin, Mrs Clague and the Foundation Stage Team