Friday 10th February 2023
The last day before half term! Yay!
This week we have been reviewing the phase 3 sounds that we have been learning. We have been trying to spot the digraphs inside of words before trying to read the word so we don’t get all muddled up.
In PSHE we reviewed the goals that we had set that we wanted to achieve and lots of us feel that we have indeed improved and progressed towards our goals. When asked how they achieved this goal, children said they did it by not giving up and asking people around them to help them and that having the football coach come into school helped us too.
In PE we used our balancing and throwing accuracy skills to play another game. We were so much better at this game and managed to get through a full game because we were so accurate with our throwing and stretching! It was great to be able to demonstrate how the skills we practised in the first few lessons can be applied to help us across a variety of games.
The children have been enjoying colour mixing to make some interesting pizza paintings! Some had mushrooms and blueberries on – yukk! This afternoon we washed our hands and decorated our pitta bread pizzas – I hope they were as tasty as they looked.
This week the children were absolutely superb on their school trip and sat beautifully on the bus. They stayed in their partners and really showed their Respect and Responsibility value. The children seemed to really enjoy the show of ‘Room on the Broom’ and joined in with lots of the words that were repeated from the story. When we came back, lots of children had some of their lunch left and enjoyed a little picnic in the classroom.
In Maths we have been looking at pairs. We played games of snap and then progressed by matching numerals to different representations of the number. Eg, the number 5 with a photo of 5 fingers, the number 2 with a picture of a ten frame with two counters.
Please have a wonderful holiday!
Miss G x
Friday 3rd February 2023
Sounds this week: ar, or, oi, ow (cow)
Tricky word: you
This week we pretended to be on a rocket, zooming into space and thinking about what we would like to be when we are older. We had lovely suggestions such as: builders, doctors, vets, cleaners, teachers and even a princess! We then talked about what skills we would need to do those jobs. If we wanted to be a doctor we would need to learn lots about body parts, builders may need PE to be strong and maths to help them measure things.
In PE we brought all of our nee balancing and ball skills together and had a game of ‘fishy fishy’. We had to do accurate throwing and then if we turned into seaweed, we had to do super balancing. The children had so much fun.
In RE we created a tuff tray to enable the children to re-tell the Creation story. They remembered lots of key parts and talked about why the word ‘God’ is special to Christians. The understand that God is a very special person to Christians.
We read a lovely story of ‘The Invisible String’ which inspired us to make some ‘I love you’ cards for special people in our lives. Our cutting, sticking and writing skills are superb!
In Maths we have started looking at the number 6 and what this looks like. What is one more, one less.. we read some stories about six such as ‘Six Dinner Sid’ and ‘Sidney The Silly Who Only Eats Six’. We have enjoyed seeing how we can show 6 in different ways using both of our hands and comparing to our friends’.
In English we have read the whole story of ‘Supermarket Zoo’ and have been learning about some of the animals in the story. We had three habitats and lots of animals and then worked as a team to sort them to where we think they would live. Some of us have also written in our books about what the animals need to live and where they live. The rest of us will finish this next week.
Next week we will be reviewing the phase 3 sounds we have learnt so far.
Please read 5 times a week
Friday 27th January 2023
This week we have looked at the digraphs 'oo' = boot, 'oo' = look and 'ar' in car.
We looked at the tricky word 'my' and began to look at 'you'.
In English, the children have been writing a shopping list for what they would like to have on the wrap pizzas that we will soon be making. The children applied their new sounds by writing things like 'cheese' and 'sweetcorn'. Their sounding out is brilliant. We have just read the first two pages of our new text 'Supermarket Zoo'. We have had some very interesting predictions about what we think it may be about.
In Maths we have been thinking about weight and how the scales show if something is heavier... it goes down. We then weighed items and had to predict which we thought would be heavier or lighter. Today we tried it with Numicon and had either a four or five piece on one side and we had to find amounts that added together to equal those numbers to make the scales balance. The children remembered lots of number bonds for 4 and 5.
In PE the children had basketballs and had to try and bounce the balls using two hands and then one hand and then walk and bounce... tricky stuff! We then paired up and had to try and bounce the ball into the hoop. Next week we will be bringing all of our new balancing and ball control skills together to play a game.
In RE we had a think about the Lord's Prayer and what it refers to God as .. 'our Father'. We then thought back to the Creation story and what other names we could call God based on what we know about him. The children suggested 'dad' because Christians believe he created humans. Someone suggested a 'Creator' because he created the world. Someone even said 'Artist' because Artists make things and Christians believe that God made the world.
This week children have enjoyed using sweet wrappers in their continuous provision to add colour to their models - we had a fantastic bird made with an orange sweet wrapper beak and a sellotape body with a lollipop stick handle. Some children have enjoyed going on the balance bikes this week and were able to explain why we need a helmet to protect ourselves. Children have been exploring lentils and water and how we can fill containers to full, empty, half full, nearly full etc. This week the children had food pictures on the painting easel and smaller paintbrushes with only the primary colours. The children have shown that they have superb colour mixing skills and have even been managing to stay within the smaller lines when painting! Mrs Gibson worked with small groups to produce lots of play doh and the children got to help with the measuring and mixing.
Please keep reading and name writing practice - we are having a big push on letter formation and making sure that we start our letters in the correct place!
Have a great weekend,
Miss G x
Friday 20th January 2023
Tricky word: she
Sounds: ai, ee, igh
This week children have finished our Handa’s Surprise book by writing a speech bubble for an animal from the story and them saying which fruit they took. The children used tricky words ‘I’ and ‘The’ and even remembered finger spaces and a full stop. They are getting so much more confident with sounding out the words and remembering which sounds make what.
In PSHE Jigsaw Jeanie kept giving up after trying to write his name and not managing to do it. He then gave up after building a tower and it breaking. The children told him not to give up and shared things that they used to not be able to do but they can now because they didn’t give up. The children then thought about things that they would like to be able to do soon and came up with lovely ideas such as learning how to brush their teeth themselves, wipe their bottom and even swim without a float.
In PE the children continued to think about having control over their bodies but this time had to do it by pretending to be a bird on a branch with huge gusts of wind. The children had to keep their legs firmly planted on the floor and not topple over. We tried it with wide and narrow legs and found that the narrow legs made it significantly harder to balance!
In outdoor learning we worked with a partner to make potions and thought about what amazing things they could do. We thought they may make us run faster or even make dinosaurs come back to life.
In maths we have been thinking about the composition of the number 4 and 5. We have been using cubes and ladybirds to help us with this. The children even challenged themselves to begin recording their number sentences and have had a go at writing numerals, the add symbol and the equal symbol.
Please keep reading every day. The children haven’t learnt all of the phase 3 tricky words yet but we are slowly working our way through with one a week.
Have a restful weekend,
Miss G x
Friday 13th January 2023
This week the sounds we learnt were: sh, th. ng and tricky word me.
We then read a book with th, sh and ng words with a friend, taking it in turns to read and support our friend.
In PSHE we continued to think about not giving up and we talked about things that we have achieved through not giving up. We discussed how we can now walk because we practiced, we can now do our coat zips, put on our shoes and even brush our teeth and wipe our bottoms without needing help.
In PE we had a go at stopping and starting with control. Miss G would shout 'up' or 'down' and we would have to stop running and quickly do the move. If Miss G shouted 'stop' we had to freeze as quick as we could.
We have been thinking about the Creation story in RE and how Christians believe that God created the world and had a day of rest on the seventh day. We explored Jellyfish and jelly and how even following the instructions to collage a jellyfish or cut and stick one, it wouldn't come to life. This must mean that God is very special to be able to give life to something because we tried and tried but couldn't make it happen.
In English we continued to look at Handa's Surprise and we tasted lots of the fruits from the story, the guava juice ended up being the most popular! The children weren't keen on the passion fruit but lots of them used their confidence value and gave it a go. We then wrote a sentence saying 'The ____ is best.' The children remembered finger spaces and a full stop, I am so proud!
In Maths we have finished our learning about the number zero and played a game in pairs where we had to roll the dice and race to the number zero. It involved dice rolling, turn-taking and lots of counting. We then moved on to compare numbers, saying which group has fewer and which has more. We did this with stone towers and dominoes. We are growing in confidence!
This week has seen lots of junk modelling - children have developed their ideas from last week and this week children have been making instruments, ornaments, African animals and all sorts of other wonderful things.
Children have been writing their name everyday and I have seen tremendous progress. This week we sent home some tricky word sheets for phase 2 and 3, could you please support your child in learning these words?
Please remember to read 5 times a week and record this in their journal.
Have a wonderful weekend,
Miss G x
Friday 6th January 2023
Welcome back to Spring Term 1!
We have gotten stuck straight into our new term with some fantastic learning. This week we have been reviewing the phase 3 sounds that we started learning before the end of term and I am so proud of how much they have remembered.
The children have been practicing their name writing every day, please could you support with this at home too? We have been trying to make sure our tall letters are tall and our descenders are below the line.
In Maths we have been learning about the number zero and how this mean that there is nothing. Nought. None etc. We have played a bean bag game here we had to record how many landed in and how many landed outside of the hoop - emphasising when one group had zero.
The children have been exploring shaving foam, coloured water and pippettes, then we added soap flakes and the children thought it was magic how the water turned soapy. They then added red sand and the blue and the red made purple!? Magic!
We have had lots of cardboard boxes and containers out and the children have been making some wonderful creations - we have had skateboards, sculptures, suitcases and even a lovely handbag. They used a variety of tapes, scissors, glue and a range of materials.
PE will continue to be on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, so please ensure your child has a PE kit in school. Outdoor learning will also continue to be on Thursday afternoons so please ensure your child has a pair of wellington boots in school.
Keep reading five times a week as usual - it makes such a huge difference with their fluency and confidence.
Have a restful weekend.
Miss G x