Henri’s Scissors
Henri’s Scissors
We’ve been reading Henri’s Scissors, by Jeanette Winter. (This is a YouTube link. Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog along the play bar and turn off autoplay – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip).
The story is a biographical children’s book, about the artist Henri Matisse. We found out about his life and looked at some of his artwork. 
Our word of the week was artist. We had lots of discussions about types of art, introducing new vocabulary such as sculptor/sculpture and collaging.
We’ve been artists ourselves by “painting with scissors”, just like Matisse!
Art talk
We’ve been using our language and communication skills to respond to different examples of artwork by Matisse. We thought about which parts we liked and disliked and tried to answer some questions about the artwork.
- Why do you think the artist painted this?
- Which is your favourite and why?
I like it because I can see green diamonds. Delilah
I like the sprinkles. Mila
It looks like a rainbow. Jazmin
I can see a green dinosaur footprint. Cillian
Phonics
This week, we learnt some more new phonemes: ck, e, u and r. Here’s a video on how to pronounce these sounds using pure sounds.
We’ve also learnt the tricky word; I. Tricky words are words that should be read by sight. We start by identifying which part of the word is ‘tricky’. ‘I’ is tricky because we need to say /igh/ and not /i/.
Poetry Picnic
Children continue to enjoy listening to poems during snack time. We listen to a new poem each week and recite it every day. By saying the poem out loud, we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers.
We also talk about how poems sometimes have rhyming words and about how poems can have fast or slow rhythms.
Follow the link to watch Reception recite this week’s poem,Leaves are falling.
Maths; counting principles
In Maths, we’ve been using our subitising skills to identify patterns to 4. We’ve practised spotting changes and identifying the changes we can see. Are there more, fewer or the same? We even tried to listen to how many sounds we could hear – without counting!
Children investigated different ways of making 4, using multilink cubes. This was inspired by our introduction to Numberblock 4.
Help at home – autumn leaves and conkers.
If you go on a walk this weekend, we’d really appreciate donations of dry leaves to help us with an art project next week. We also need some conkers to use in our maths learning – see how many you can find! Thank you for your support.
Column Addition- Year 4
This week, Year 4 have been perfecting column addition. We started the week by adding two three digits numbers, before ending the week with adding four digit number with more than one exchange!
It’s important to remember to set out your columns correctly.
Which are correct? Spot and explain the mistakes in the others.
When exchanging, we know that we can…
Exchange ten 1s for one 10…
Exchange ten 10s for one 100…
Exchange ten 100s, for one 1000…
Help at home: Practice chanting the exchange rules. I say it, you say it, we say it! You can even say them in silly voices!
Living and Learning
This week our school-wide living and learning statement has been ‘I respect myself’. We talk about the word respect often in school. One of our school rules is ‘We’re respectful.’
In 2C we had a discussion about what it means to be respectful. Last week we spoke about respecting others and their protected characteristics such as religion, race and culture. Our discussion this week involved ways we can respect our bodies and keep them healthy such as eating a balanced diet and exercising regularly.
2C spoke about the fact that everybody is different but that is okay. For our Living and Learning task we did an activity where we each drew the head of a creature/ animal or human. We then folded the paper over and passed it to a friend who then drew a body and arms. After this we passed the paper on again and the final person drew legs. Finally, we got our original drawings back and unveiled the creature that had been created. We then spoke about how all of the pictures were different and we all have different ideas/ styles of drawing and that this should be respected.
Parent- Teacher Zoom Appointments
Nursery will hold our parent-teacher Zoom meetings after half term, in the week commencing 25 November.
Please look out for further information when we return to Nursery after the half term break.
Reading as historian
This week in reading we are linking our learning to our history topic – Ancient Egypt. The children studied labelled diagrams of the pyramids and how they are structured. The children had to research whether the sources of information were reliable – they used websites to validate the information and to also study the websites to see if they were trustworthy. The children were able to identify how one source of information was unreliable as it wasn’t a secure site. They were able to validate information by finding similar information elsewhere.
1A Parts and wholes
Today, we introduced the concept of parts and wholes into our Number learning. We looked at photographs of fruit and vegetables and decided if it was the whole fruit or a part of it. Looking at pictures of carrots, we discussed how the parts could be cut in different places to make all kinds of different parts.
After that, we were given a tower of blocks and we used our imagination to pretend they were carrots. To begin with, we ‘cut’ them into two different parts. We used the STEM sentence “these two parts combine to make a whole” to help us in our learning. After that, Mrs Brown challenged us to see if we could ‘cut’ our ‘carrots’ into three, four or five different parts.
Later this week, we will learn how numbers can be split into parts too. We will also look at a part-whole model and begin to use it in our table learning activities.
Help at home: You could talk to your child about parts and wholes as you prepare food for meals and snacks e.g. This is a whole potato, how many parts did I cut it into to make roast potatoes? Even though this is small, this is a whole grape. How many parts did I cut it into?
When you discuss parts, you could also discuss whether or not they are equal parts or whether they are different sizes.
Living and learning : respect
I am respectful is one of our school rules. We watched this video and talked about the ways we can show respect and be respectful of others.
I can show respect by listening to others.
I can show respect by sharing and taking turns.
I can show respect by looking after my things.
It’s always worth listening to Winnie the Pooh’s messages too!
We’re Going on a Bear Hunt!
Literacy
This week, our focus book was We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.
The children were able to use their knowledge of the story to retell it using pictures and props.
Geography
On Thursday, we went for a sound walk around the school. This involved finding landmarks, such as the gazebo and writing graphemes
(letters) we found on a map.
Maths
This week, we have explored how numbers can be composed of 1s.
We have will learnt that a ‘whole’ is made up of smaller parts and is, therefore, bigger than its parts.
Phonics
This week, we have focused on the new phonemes: d,g,o,c.
We’ve also learnt a new tricky word; is.
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. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers. This week’s poem is called Falling Apples.
Stay and Learn
Our first stay and learn session will be on Thursday 10 October.
This is an opportunity for you to come into school to find out about phonics and watch your child learning in school. There will also be a coffee morning after the session.
Please ensure you sign up at the door before Wednesday 9 October or email scholesreception@spherefederation.org.
2C update
Thhe We’ve had another great week in the 2C classroom. We started off with a very rainy week which included lots of indoor play times, so we are very happy to see the sun shining this Friday!
Reading and writing
We have been enjoying a new book this week called ‘Vlad and the Great Fire of London’. This book is about a flea and his rat friend Boxton. In the book the pair tell a story of their own experience of the Great Fire of London. We’ve been interpreting what parts of the book mean. We have also been analysing the illustrations and discussing some of the vocabulary in the book. We’ve also been writing our own sentences about the Fire.
Maths
In Maths this week we have continued to look at place value. At the start of the week we looked at related facts e.g. if 4 + 4 = 8, then 40 + 40 = 80.
We have also started partitioning two digit numbers flexibly. For example if we know that 81 = 80 + 1, we also know that 81 = 70 + 11 and 81 = 60 + 21.
Science
We learnt about reptiles and amphibians this week in Science. The children know that they have some similarities but also some big differences. We sorted the animals into categories and researched some facts using books from our fantastic reading corner.
History
Our current Topic in History is the Great Fire of London. We have been learning about what exactly caused the fire this week and why it spread so fast.
Drop down morning
Today, we spent some of the morning recapping Topic learning from last year. This included discussing the oceans. continents and the countries that make up the UK. We also looked at shops from the past and compared them to shops in the present. Finally we each had a turn playing with the Beebots.
Quick message – Thank you to all of those that attended ‘Watch us while we work’ this week. It was great to see so many adults supporting their children and hopefully you’ve gone away with ideas on how you can help with learning at home.
Thanks, Miss Young 🙂
Amazing Autumn
Thank you for returning your autumn bags! This week, we began to look at their contents. Children enjoyed talking about what they had found and where they found their autumn treasure. Don’t worry if you haven’t had a chance to go for a walk yet, there’s still time. Please return your bag to Nursery over the next week.
We’ve been learning all about autumn this week; we talked about the changes that we could see around us in our Nursery garden. Children noticed that the leaves were changing colour and falling from the branches. We listened to a song about autumn leaves falling down and named lots of different coloured leaves that we could see outside.
In our story corner, children have enjoyed listening to the story of ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’. They’re getting really good at re-telling the story and joining in with the repeated refrains.
Next week, we’ll continue to learn about autumn and will look at some artwork by Andy Goldsworthy so don’t forget to bring your autumn treasure bag back to nursery.
Help at home
Next week’s nursery rhyme is Baa Baa Black Sheep Can you join in with this nursery rhyme?
We are continuing to explore “We’re going on a bear hunt” Here is the author telling the story. Have a listen at home and join in together with the sound effects!
Reminders
- Our individual photographs will take place on Tuesday 08 October. If your child does not attend nursery on a Tuesday but you would like them to have their photograph taken please contact school.
- Please ensure that your child has a waterproof coat at nursery every day. We go outside to learn, whatever the weather!
