Hello everyone! 

The weeks are really flying by and we are almost halfway through this half-term; they do say time flies when you're having fun! This week Mrs Biggs and I have continued our telephone/ video call Parent Consultations, and it has been lovely to speak to so many of you. We have a few more calls to make next week and are looking forward to those. Please don't forget, you can contact us at any time via our class email address (elmclass@manea.cambs.sch.uk) or by phoning the school office and leaving a message. We're always happy to hear from you and will always try our best to address any questions or queries you may have.

So, what have Elm Class being doing this week? Literacy has been very exciting because after two weeks of reading, gathering ideas and planning, we have finally been able to write our own alien stories inspired by Beegu. Mrs Biggs has been very impressed with the children's efforts and the wonderful ideas they have come up with; well done everyone.

In Maths this week, it has been all about the 'ten count'. The Year 1s have enjoyed learning their ten count (have a look at the link below for a fab song we have enjoyed), and have all impressed Mrs Johnson by being able to order the count and represent the various numbers using Numicon. The Year 2s, who are already familiar with the ten count, have been using their 10x table knowledge to solve problems.

In the afternoons, we have been joining lots of other schools across the country for 'Anti-Bullying Week 2020'. We have found out what the word 'bullying' means and have thought about reasons that bullies might act in the way they do; we have been working hard to understand that although there might be a reason, there is no excuse, and that bullying is never acceptable. Towards the end of the week we have created our own 'Helping Hands' where we thought about the people that we could go to if we ever felt scared, worried or upset because of bullying behaviour. The children all dealt with this difficult but important subject very well, and we had some fantastic discussions on what bullying is and how we can deal with it. 

One final thing... I have added a new tab on the 'Class Pages' section of the website called 'Reading at Home'. On this new page, I have added documents that have some wonderful ideas for supporting your child's reading at home, and will update it whenever I come across some new and exciting tips! Please have a look when you have the chance.