Reaching high for the best for your child

Before we look at our jigsaw activities, we should think about taking inspiration from the amazing Captain Sir Tom, who sadly died yesterday. Even though this is incredibly sad news, we should remember how much of a positive man he was. It is natural to have days when we don’t feel as happy and, on those days, we need to remember his words, “Tomorrow will be a good day.”   

There are things we can all do every day though to help change sad days into positive ones that Captain Sir Tom would smile at. Our jigsaw piece activities will help us to get into this habit and we hope you are enjoying completing them. My activities for each jigsaw piece on Tuesday were:

Physical – A member of my class said we could time ourselves running up and down stairs, either in our homes or steps outside. This was definitely an activity that increased my heart rate and such a simple exercise to do, it was a great suggestion! You could do this too but you might like to make it a little easier by walking up and down the stairs in a set time. Please remember to take care when doing it though!

Give Back – My daughter loves having her nails painted but she finds it very tricky to paint with her non-writing hand (like most people) so I volunteered to paint them for her. It was super to see the smile on her face when they were finished.

Self-Care – I got out an old jigsaw and began to put it together. It’s 1000 pieces and full of detail so I didn’t get it all finished in one sitting but it was very relaxing and took my mind off everything as I did it.

I was then able to colour in another three of my jigsaw pieces and it is starting to look incredibly colourful. Don’t forget to colour in your pieces ready to share with your teacher at the end of the week.

Remember that today is Wellbeing Wednesday and that means no devices from lunchtime onwards. You could complete your jigsaw pieces during this time if you like. We will be sharing what we get up to on Facebook on Thursday morning.

 As you know, from Monday’s Values assembly, this week is Children’s Mental Health week, and we are completing activities to support and promote positive mental health and wellbeing. Each day, I (Mrs Jeffries) will share my activities with you and they may even give you a few ideas for what you could do. My activities for each jigsaw piece on Monday were:

Physical - I went on a walk in the cold with my dog and I felt both exhausted and exhilarated after it.

Give Back - My sister is home schooling her children while she is working from home (like so many amazing parents are doing right now). Both her and her husband had important meetings, so I volunteered to ‘virtually babysit’ her children. We had a scavenger hunt over Zoom which ended up with lots of loud laughter and having a sweet treat very close to dinnertime. The three of us had a lot of fun.

Self-Care - One of my Christmas presents was a penguin face mask and hair treatment to pamper myself with so I decided to use them to look after myself. My family could not stop laughing at the cartoon penguin on my face but it was impossible for me to do the same when I was wearing it!

I was then able to colour in three of my jigsaw pieces and it certainly put a smile on my face. I reflected on how to help others, I felt refreshed and I had fun, it was so lovely to do things that made me feel happy and made others feel the same. Don’t forget to colour in your pieces ready to share with your teacher at the end of the week. We are looking forward to hearing about all of the super things you are doing and then we will be able to share some as ideas for future Wellbeing Wednesdays.

During February, we will be focusing on the value of 'Positivity'!

We are hearing a lot at the moment about when 'testing positive' is a bad thing... but what does it mean to think positively and make positive choices?

We will talk about: 

- always ‘looking on the bright side of life’

- noticing the good things, the good people, the good moments

- knowing that difficult times won’t be here forever

- choosing to do things which help our positive wellbeing

Take a look at our introduction assembly here!

This term, we are excited to embark on our whole school focus, Wizard Words. The whole staff team have been thinking of exciting ways to help the children to remember the common exception words. Our aim is to help the children feel confident spelling the words and over time, this will be reflected in the children’s writing. At the end of the term, the English team will be organising a whole school event to celebrate all of children's hard work, at home and in school.

In the Year One, Trickster Ted has been challenging the children to create a tricky word game. There have been some wonderful examples including a tricky word board game, even the adults were excited to play!

Year Two have been using their Wizard Word spelling sheet and been using the spelling investigation strategy. They have been identifying the tricky part in the word and recording this.

In Year Six, the teachers have been sending the weekly spelling words via Google Classroom. The children have enjoyed working out the spelling acronyms by scrambling the letters. 

Our value for January is 'Quality'... we will be thinking about:

-  doing our very best at tasks

-  being prepared to go back, try again and improve something

-  accepting that we cannot be 'perfect' but we can still aim for greatness

There will be lots of opportunity for us to show how important 'Quality' is, whether we are learning on-site or at home!

Every year at Fairlands, we have a Christmas celebration consisting of songs and contributions from each year group. As we close this assembly, the Year 6 children perform a Circle of Light around the rest of the school.

While some things have had to change (we held this over Zoom this year), this was one rite of passage we felt had to remain. The children were videoed earlier in the week and watching this video was a beautiful way for the school community to reflect and continue to feel connected.

As the oldest children in the school, it is their job to look after the rest of us and set an example and help keep us all safe.

Christmas Reflection:

Year 6 are holding candles which help us to remember LIGHT

Christmas is a special time to remember the light

The light and joy that our families, the people we love, bring into our lives

The light and fun that friends bring when we play and laugh with them

The light we feel in our hearts when we feel safe and we keep other people safe

The light we feel when we join together to make our school and our world a better place.

We would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very merry and safe Christmas from all at Fairlands Primary School.

https://youtu.be/E4GgXB4sgUY