Winter

This week, we’ve been talking about typical signs of winter. We’ve been reading a range of winter themed fiction and non-fiction books. We have also been discussing animals that live in a cold climate. Climate is our word of the week!

Rainbow class have been writing about typical signs of winter.

 

Sunshine class have been writing about Arctic animals.

In Literacy, we’ve also been discussing the features of fiction and non-fiction books, sorting them into groups. Here are some thoughts that children shared during the activity.

Fiction books

“They’re fun to read and they can make you laugh”- Sonny

“Some books can be scary”- Mollie G

“They’re good for your brain because they make you feel good”- Maddison

Non-fiction books

“If you don’t know about something, you can read about it and find out”- Georgie

“I got a non-fiction book from the library because I wanted to find out about pyramids”- Keira

Maths: The staircase pattern

We’ve been counting to find ‘how many’.

With the help of our Numberblocks friends, we’ve revisited the ‘stable order’ principle of counting (Understanding that number names are said in order)

We’ve  been learning about the ‘one more’ relationship between consecutive numbers. We discovered that when you represent numbers in order using cubes, it makes a ‘staircase’ pattern!

Phonics

This week, the children have learnt some new digraphs – a digraph consists of ‘two letters that make one sound’. Ask your child to tell you the sounds the digraphs below make.

oo      oo    ar   or

You may have noticed that one of our digraphs is repeated. That’s because the ‘oo’ digraph makes two different sounds! It might take a bit of investigating in our reading to see which one fits the word. Please support your child with this when practising their ‘learn at home’ phonics sheet.

Before reading a word, we always look for any digraphs (two letters that make one sound). Then, we say the sound the digraph makes. Finally, we sound out the word and blend it together – using our phoneme (the sound a letter makes) fingers! This helps your child identify the digraphs (two letters that make one sound) before reading a word.

Penguin observations

Over the past two weeks, the children have loved observing the ‘penguin cam’ at Edinburgh Zoo. They’ve been watching closely, making notes about what they look like, how they move and what they have in their enclosures to keep them happy. We discussed how this is not their natural habitat and what their environment would be like in the Antarctic.

Living and Learning

This week’s Living and Learning statement is: I know that some drugs are harmful.

In Reception, we’ve focused on our  PSED (Personal, Social, Emotional Development) statement “I know that I must only take medicines when an adult is with me”

The children shared some fantastic knowledge of why they must be with a trusted adult when using medicines.

“To make sure it’s not out of date”- Jack

“To look at the label to see how much you need”- Olivia

“If you get the wrong one, it could make you more poorly”- Skyla

“You might take too much”- Alfie

PE

On Wednesday, Rainbow class enjoyed their first fun-filled PE session led by Foot-Tech Academy

This half term, our PE skill focus is dynamic (moving) balance and static balance.

In Friday sessions, we’ll be using a variety of apparatus in the hall to develop these skills.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Inspiration on a rainy day

It’s been a very dreary, soggy week outside but, as ever, the children’s curiosity led to some fantastic exploration. After a conversation about rain, flooding and potentially needing a boat to get around (ha!) the talk soon turned to types of boat and learning about canal boats. The children watched some short clips of ‘Rosie and Jim’ and a group were inspired to build their own canal boat in the outside area. They showed great team work and story-telling. This spontaneous, child-led interest and construction carried on throughout the week.

Poetry Picnic

Each week, we will be learning a new poem. We will recite this poem each day. By saying the poem out loud we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. This week’s poem is ‘I can build a snowman ’.

We talk about how a poem sometimes has rhyming words and sometimes doesn’t. Can your child tell you the rhyming words in this week’s poem? We also talk about how a poem can have a fast rhythm or a slow rhythm. Can your child tell you if this week’s poem is fast or slow? We know that learning to recite poems, helps our reading in lots of ways.

Click here to watch Reception recite this week’s poem!

Celebration assembly

Reception have started attending Friday celebration assemblies with KS1. Each week, we’ll be awarding sports, living and learning and great learning certificates. If your child receives a certificate or award outside of school, they can also bring this in to share with everyone in the assembly.

Reminders

• Reading- Please remember to bring in library books on Thursdays and reading records on Fridays.
• Funky phonics Phase 3 stay and play- Monday 16 January/ Wednesday 18 January 9.00-9.30am Please only attend the session you have signed up for and please remember that we have space for only one parent/carer at this session. We’ve taken on board your feedback from previous stay and play events and have split the session over 2 days, to lower numbers and ensure a  calmer learning environment for all.

We are looking forward to welcoming you all back into the classroom and showing you how much our phonics has developed!