St Joseph's Catholic
Primary School
Following in the footsteps of Jesus, together we love live and learn.
24th November 2025
Maple and Elm’s weekly round up.
What a busy and exciting week with two birthdays and the realisation that Christmas is round the corner after we read our first Christmas story.
Nativity rehearsals are underway and children are really enjoying the singing and actions so far. By now you should all have received a letter with the character your child is playing in the nativity and the clothes they will need to wear. If you are having any problems locating the requested clothes please speak to one of us.
Maple began singing The Grand Old Duke of York, the children loved marching and stomping around the room and have made some wonderful hills for the Duke and his men to climb.
In maths we are continuing repeating patterns, this week we had the paint and dabbers out so the children could start making their own pattern. The afternoons that we had Elm children with us, they also wanted to join in with their patterns too, which the younger children loved looking at.
On Tuesday afternoon everyone from Maple and Elm spent the afternoon in Holly class. For Maple children this was very exciting as they see their older friends go down there and for the Elm children they decided they would take their gloves off younger ones under their wings and show them all the activities they could take part in. Everyone had a great time which was finished off with snack and a drink whilst listening to our Nativity songs.
Elm class have continued reading the story, 'Mixed'. They have enjoyed retelling the story to the adults and Maple children and are proudly telling us what different colours can be made from mixing colours together.
Elm class were involved in lots of colour mixing activities-painting with water colours, mixing oil pastels and wax crayons together to see what colour they will make.
The children were introduced to the sound ‘p’ this week, they are really enjoying the phonics and are noticing lots of their familiar environment around them and suddenly announcing something they can see starts with a sound they know - excellent work Elm, keep it up
In maths the children continue practising their subitising, the ability to instantly recognise the number of objects from 1-5. Children are born with this ability.
On Friday the children noticed our Reflection table changed colours from green to purple and we had a wreath with purple, white and rose coloured candles on. We explained this was the beginning of Advent - the count down to Christmas when Jesus was born. They are very excited about seeing the candle lit each day and I am sure they will be coming home saying which coloured candle it is this week and why.
Elm children had another great, slightly warmer Forest School session on Friday with Mr Williamson and Holly class. It was warm enough this week for the children to relax in the hammock and take their gloves off to draw and of course, drink their warm squash!!
When Elm came back from Forest School they were delighted to see a Christmas tree in Maple room and a box of decorations. They spent the rest of the afternoon gathered around the tree decorating it. From now until Christmas they will be able to decorate the tree as much as they like and at the end of the day they will take all the decorations off again, ready to redecorate the following day. So far, they have loved the idea of being in charge of decorating the tree and I imagine it will continue until we break up.
Next week both Maple and Elm will be starting to open their Advent calendar in class and may receive a ‘treat sweet’ when it is their turn to open the next door. This will be put in their bag or lunch box to bring home for their adult to decide if and when they can eat it.
Have a good rest of the week end and we will see you all tomorrow.
