Christmas has well and truly arrived at Damers! We have been enjoying Christmas Jumper Day today and there has been lots of sparkle in the classroom in aid of Save the Children.

We have also had a busy week rehearsing our version of A Christmas Carol. We are really proud of the children who have worked hard to learn their lines, songs and dance. Thank you adults at home for your help with this too! The children loved having the opportunity to perform on the stage under the lights and really showed us what super actors they are. We can’t wait for you to see the film when it is released.

We’re especially proud of all the children’s adapting and learning new parts, whether that was in school or from home. If you were able to send in a Christmas message for those at home, thank you; we understand that you couldn’t be there and we’ve missed you very much. Everyone in Skipper 2 is missing you all and can’t wait until we’re all able to be the full team again!

Amongst rehearsals we have continued practicing ball skills in PE and singing Christmas songs in music. We’ve even started learning how to use sign language for the song ‘Jingle Bells’. 

In maths we have been continuing to look at the 2, 5 and 10 times tables, showing different ways of representing an equation. You might like to have a look at this together at home.

The children have been enjoying Hit the Button and TT Rockstars in class and if you have time you might want to have a go at using one of these at home to reinforce our learning of the 2, 5 and 10 times tables.

We have continued to learn about Victorian toys and really enjoyed making our own thaumatrope. This is a toy that some children would have played with as they were easy to make at home. They have a different design on each side of a circle and when spun quickly create the effect of a moving picture. We decided to make ours Christmassy so on one side we had a snow globe and on the other side a picture of the item inside the snow globe.

We talked about this being an early step in animation leading the way to cartoons and eventually movies like Frozen and Cars years later. 

Here are some other designs you may like to experiment with at home:

We can’t believe we’re approaching the last week of term before the Christmas holidays. Have a wonderful weekend where possible.