Mad About Minibeasts
We have all been ‘Mad About Minibeasts‘ this week. This is a fantastic book that has educated us on many of the minibeasts that we can find in our outdoor area.
It has been wonderful to see children turning over stones and tree stumps to find woodlice, worms or centipedes. Children have also been finding spider’s webs and following ants to their nests. We have been trying to build our own minibeast house. Our provision indoors has also reflected our book.
In Literacy we have been looking at rhyme in the book and making up some of our own. We have also written some short acrostic minibeast poems. Please continue to help your child at home by encouraging them to write for a variety of purposes (lists, maps, letters, stories etc). When helping them perhaps point out a letter they may need to practice the correct formation of or enable them to write the correct sound that they can hear in a word. This will really help your child on their journey to achieving the age related expectation for Reception. Remember the following too:
We certainly do enjoy writing and drawing!
In Maths we have been composing 5 in lots of different ways.
Here are some other photographs of our learning this week:
Home Link
This week could your child draw a picture of their favourite minbeast and write a fact about it.
Crunching Munching Caterpillar
It has been lovely to be back at school this week. The children have enjoyed sharing their half term experiences with the class.
In Literacy, we have read the story – Crunching Munching Caterpillar.
After reading, the children noticed similarities and differences between this story and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
Both caterpillars ate leaves. Max
There are holes in the book or an eaten page. Ella
They are both really hungry. Charlie
They both get into a cocoon. Bea
In Science, we have explored the lifecycle of a butterfly. We are looking forward to observing this with our own class caterpillars.
We have also created a wormery. By representing their habitat in a box, we have begun to observe how they tunnel through soil.
In Maths, we have been counting to 20 and beyond.
We ended our week with an egg rolling competition and a special visitor … singing sensation Egg Sheeran!
Well done to our winners.
In our areas, we have gone mini-beast mad! Check out some of our super learning.
Home Link
This half-term our topic is Life on Earth. For the next few weeks we are exploding mini-beasts.
Become a mini-beast detective!
You many choose to draw a picture of the mini-beasts you find, record how many mini-beasts you see in your garden or observe how different mini-beast move.
Rabbits don’t lay eggs.
We have really enjoyed our Easter themed book: ‘Rabbits don’t lay eggs.’ It does make us laugh! The children’s writing is really progressing. After the holiday we will have a really big push on this too. Prepare to be amazed!
Last week, we were in sun hats and sun cream. This week we’ve been in the snow with our wellies and woolly hats! We just had to go on a Winter walk in the snow before it melted. It was magical!
We also, collected the hail stones and enjoyed hands on learning about them.
A little Easter focus in the classroom.
What else we’ve been up to:
Home-link:
In Maths this week we have been using lots of different measurements. In particular we used the vocabulary: full, nearly full, half full, nearly empty and empty. Perhaps you could find containers and add liquid to match these labels. Photograph or video your child and send to our email address.
Reminders:
Egg rolling competition. Please send your child to school with a named (and decorated) hard boiled egg on Friday 22 April.
Have a wonderful Easter holiday! School reopens on Tuesday 19 April.
Jack and the Beanstalk
Using our story as a focus, we have been drawing story maps, retelling the story and changing what we might find at the top of the beanstalk. Children have shone in their writing this week.
In Maths we have been learning about odd and even numbers. How can you tell if a numicon number is odd? We have also ordered beanstalks by height and measured them.
Our reading sessions have been brilliant this week. Please allow your child to read their e-book to you this weekend.
The weather has been glorious and most welcome this week. As the weather continues to brighten during the coming months, please ensure that you send your child to school with a sunhat and apply a long lasting sunscreen before school each day. Children can bring named sunscreen into school but adults are not permitted to apply it for your child. As always please ensure clothing is named as children will be removing their cardigans and jumpers more frequently.
Spring walk. We enjoyed going onto the school field for the first time this year. We looked for signs of Spring.
They are starting to get more leafs.-Vinnie
Max found a ladybird.-Holly
They’re little furry buds.-Sofia
I didn’t see that yellow flower there before.-Reuben
More photographs of our learning this week:
Reminders:
Thursdays-Library book changing day.
Fridays-Reading record in school day.
Home-Link
Collect sets of odd and even numbers. Photograph them and send them to our usual email address. We really enjoy your home-link photographs!
18 March 2022
This week, we’ve been learning about adding the suffix ‘ly’ to a root word. When we add ‘ly’, it changes the word into an adverb – a word that describes how, when, where or how often we do something. For example, She ran quickly to the shops. The word quickly tells us how she ran. We’d like to you practise these words at home.
accidental complete famous natural occasional ordinary happy basic
We’ll have a test on Friday 25 March 2022. For some creative ideas on how to make learning spellings more fun, check out our super spelling strategies guide on the website.
Week beginning 07 March 2022
Hi everyone
We hope you’re feeling happy and healthy at home. We miss having you in school but we want you to know that you’re still very much part of our school community. Enjoy your home learning for this week.
Maths
Follow this sequence of maths learning which is linked to fractions.
- Lesson 1: video, worksheet, answers
- Lesson 2: video, worksheet, answers
- Lesson 3: video, worksheet, answers
- Lesson 4: video, worksheet, answers
- Lesson 5: video, worksheet, answers
- Lesson 6: video, worksheet, answers
- Lesson 7: video, worksheet, answers
- Lesson 8: video, worksheet, answers
- Lesson 9: video, worksheet, answers
- Lesson 10: video, worksheet, answers
You don’t have to print the worksheet. Your child can write or draw their answers on paper. Your child’s learning will be most effective if you sit with them to pause the clip and check / praise / support your child as the clip moves on.
Practise times tables on Times Table Rockstars, too. If your child is in Y3, we’re concentrating on the 8 times table. If your child is in Y4, we’re concentrating on all times tables up to and including 12 x 12. Email the class teacher if you need your child’s login and password details.
(Suggested time: 30 minutes of Maths and 15 minutes of Rockstars daily)
Spelling
Look on the homework page to find this week’s spellings. They should choose some past spellings that they feel less confident with. Your child should complete one task each day.
- Day 1: Generate more words linked to the spelling pattern or ‘rule’. You could look out for the words in the book you’re reading at home, or any other text, like a website linked to our science topic of Living Things and their Habitat.
- Day 2: Practise the spellings using two of the ideas in our Super Spelling Strategies guide. (Set yourself and others at home a challenge of using some of the words when you’re speaking, too!)
- Day 3: Write separate sentences, each containing one of the spellings. (Don’t forget to show off really neat handwriting and make sure you sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop, exclamation mark (!) or question mark (?).
- Day 4: Repeat Task 2 or 3.
- Day 5: Get an adult at home to test you on your spellings. Practise any you spell incorrectly – you could write them out carefully until you’re sure.
(Suggested time: 15-20 minutes daily)
Reading fluency
This is the text we’re using in class this week to build up fluency skills.
In school, we generally follow this sequence:
- Day 1: Read the text aloud with your child listening. Read it clearly and slowly, pointing to each word as you read. Have a chat about any unfamiliar words.
- Day 2: Read aloud each sentence (a full short sentence or part of a longer sentence), and have your child read it back to you. Do this ‘echo reading’ for the whole text.
- Day 3: Read the text and talk about the effect of the punctuation on how you read it – pauses for full stops and expression for exclamations (!) or questions (?). Your child reads the text aloud.
- Day 4: Read together with expression (just like you practised on Day 3).
- Day 5: Your child reads independently and fluently.
(Suggested time: 15 minutes daily)
Reading comprehension
We’ll be using this RIC text in class to practise comprehension skills. RIC stands for:
- Retrieve: finding information in a text
- Interpret: using clues in the text to unlock information
- Choice: thinking about the author’s choice of words, techniques or organisation that make the text interesting and enjoyable to read
Follow these lessons from Oak National Academy. There’s a whole series of lessons, but start at Lesson 1 and work through, doing one (or maybe even two) each day. (If you’re self-isolating in your second week, stick with the series of lessons you’ve already started and aim to complete the full series.)
(Suggested time: 30 minutes daily)
Writing
Follow these lessons from Oak National Academy. There’s a whole series of lessons, but start at Lesson 1 and work through, doing one (or maybe even two) each day. (If you’re self-isolating in your second week, stick with the series of lessons you’ve already started and aim to complete the full series.)
(Suggested time: 30-40 minutes for each)
Topic
Our topic this half-term is about computing.
Follow these lessons from Oak National Academy. There’s a whole series of lessons, but start at Lesson 1 and work through, doing one (or maybe even two) each day. (If you’re self-isolating in your second week, stick with the series of lessons you’ve already started and aim to complete the full series.)
(Suggested time: 30-40 minutes)
Science
Our focus this half-term is about working scientifically.
These six lessons from Oak National Academy link closely to what we’ve been doing in class. Start at Lesson 1 and work through, doing two or three in the week. If you’ve previously completed on of these lessons, have a go at the ones you haven’t completed yet.
If Science really motivates your child, you could also use look at these lessons all about practical Science.
(Suggested time: 30-45 minutes)
PE
Don’t forget to do some daily exercise!
Do two or three of these Five Minute Moves from Joe Wicks each day – spread them across the day as if they were playtimes, maybe!
Try working through this series of 25 lessons from the Association for Physical Education – do two or three in the week.
(Suggested time: 5 minutes daily, plus 30 minutes for the longer PE lessons)
Extra stuff…
As an extra (or as an alternative, if this helps to motivate your child)…
Fancy learning about a new religion? You don’t have to be religious to learn about, and appreciate, religions from all around the world. Check out this set of lessons from Oak National Academy – you could choose to focus on one religion or dip into each set for an overview.
What about some Living and Learning? While you’re away from school, you could check out these lessons on keeping safe!
Safety Week
We have had a very special week talking and learning about people that help us. There are so many highlights! We know that your child/ren will have been filling you in on their most memorable parts.
A fire engine and fire fighters came to the school playground to educate us on their important role of helping people in the community. Fire fighters took the time to show us their vast equipment on the fire engine itself and gave different scenarios when they might be used. We learnt about what fire fighters wear when facing a fire. Some children were able to wear a protective helmet.
The children even followed a tutorial on how to draw a fire fighter. We were really impressed with the results:
Our Police Headquarters role play was extremely popular outside this week. There have been many ‘bad guys’ caught and arrests made. Our bikes are well used and its great to see the children taking turns and involved in such great physical play. We have also been writing up police reports and parking tickets.
On Internet Safety Day we spoke about what the internet is, how we use it and what to do when we’re unsure (STOP and ask a grown-up).
We asked the children:
‘What is the internet?
It’s electric-Netflix. Poppy A
It’s Wifi-Ronnie
It works on screens at home-Stanley
Do you have a limit on how much time you use a screen?
Half an hour-Charlie
Why is it not a good idea to spend lots of time on screens?
You could get a headache-Jack
To help support our focus this week we set up many areas of provision to aid our understanding of those that help us. We had dentists, vets, road workers, doctors/nurses, rescue vehicles, a supermarket etc. We did speak about Superheroes and real life heroes. So many children said their parents were their real life super heroes.
Take a look at some of the incredible learning that took place this week:
Next Week
On Tuesday, the NHS school nurses team will be in to carry out routine checks on your child’s height, weight, hearing and vision. They will send a little report home.
Reminder
Please ensure that you send your child’s library book back to school each Thursday. If you have any outstanding at home, please return them.
Reading
We have received some very positive feedback about our new ebooks. Please continue to instill a love of reading with your children.
Home-link
Can you draw and label a picture of the heroes that you are thankful for?
Inspiring Arctic Expeditions
This week we have learned so much about the polar regions. Looking at the habitat for animals and how they are suited for life in their natural environment has lead to interesting conversations. We have looked at explorers who were the first to reach the South Pole and imagined that we were going on an expedition too.
You have to wear warm clothes so you don’t freeze.-Charlie
You might get to meet a penguin. It might have a baby egg.- Lewi
You will need to pack lots of food and a camera-Eti
We have also watched a video and read news articles about ‘Polar Preet’ (Captain Preet Chandi) the first woman of colour to travel solo to the South Pole. Her inspiring mission finished this January! Follow the link to her website to find out more about her:
We wrote a list of ten things we might see on our expedition. The children’s phonic knowledge is increasing all of the time. The process of hearing sounds in words and writing the correct corresponding grapheme is strengthening and speeding up. Every child is a writer in Reception!
Rainbow Class swam for the first time. We are so proud of our swimmers. They were so confident to get into the pool. We will continue to swim on our rotation every Wednesday.
Identity Day.
Today we have spoken about our choice of outfit, our hobbies, talents, families, likes and dislikes. Mrs Kopiczko is from Poland and she educated us on what Poland is famous for. The children were utterly intrigued.
Have a look at what else we have been up to this week.
Home-link
Can you use your phonic knowledge to write a list of 5 items? Perhaps a shopping list? Take a photograph of your list and send it to our email address.
Say Hello to the Snowy Animals!
We’ve continued our learning on the polar regions this week, by looking at animals you might find in The Arctic. We were introduced to some of these animals through our focus story, Say Hello to the Snowy Animals by Ian Whybrow and Ed Eaves.
We looked at where we would find the Arctic on a map and globe and saw that it was the opposite side of the globe to the Antarctic. We looked at Antarctica and the South Pole last week, as it featured in our story Lost and Found.
Animal observations…
We’ve been observing penguins and polar bears on zoo webcams and pre-recorded videos. We discussed how the zoo environment is different to their environment in the wild. We observed what they look like, how they move and what they like to do in their enclosures.
Swimming…
Sunshine class loved their first swimming session on Wednesday. Rainbow are really looking forward to their lesson next week! Don’t forget, PE days have changed to Wednesdays and Fridays. Children need to wear PE kits on both days and remember to bring your swimming kit on your days:
Sunshine – 12 Jan, 26 Jan, 9 Feb
Rainbow – 19 Jan, 2 Feb, 16 Feb
Dancing…
In PE on Wednesday, Rainbow class watched a short piece of ballet- Waltz of the Snowflakes from The Nutcracker. Afterwards, they were asked to name features of the dance/scene/music. We spoke about the movements and what story we thought the dancers were telling:
“I saw running on their tiptoes”- Ella F
“I saw twirling”- Sofia
“They were jumping back”- Poppy D
“They grow bigger and bigger”- Max
“Bells jingling”- Jack
“They had flowers I think”- Vinnie
“I think they are dancing about snowing ‘cause there’s snow falling”- Charlie
“It like Lost and Found- the penguin is lonely!”- Lewi
In the hall, we practiced movements we had seen. We walked around on our tip-toes (great for our balance and core strength) and made sure that when we moved our arms up and down, they were “floaty” and “graceful”, just like the ballerinas! We moved quicker, to tell the story of the snow falling heavier and twirled to show the snowflakes drifting down from the sky. We combined a few of the moves to create a short dance together.
Can your child show you some of the graceful movements from our snowflake dance?
And more…
Take a look at some more fantastic learning from this week:
eBooks…
Thank you to those that managed to get online this week and read your child’s eBook with them. A new book is issued each Friday. This will be a book your child is familiar with, from their reading in class.
There is a ‘collinsebooks’ app that is available to download on Apple and Android devices.
Please let us know if you are having trouble accessing your book at home.
Home-link challenge…
This week, we have completed our phase 2 sounds in phonics. As well as your eBook, we have sent home a number of additional word book sheets. Please practice these at home as usual. If your child is struggling to concentrate on reading at home, try turning it into a game! Here are some ideas:
- Hide and seek- Take 5 or 6 word book words, write them on a piece of paper and hide them around the room for your child to find. They need to read the word as they find it!
- Tricky word detective- How many times can you find a tricky word on the page/in the book?
- Hear it, find it- ‘Sound out’ the sounds of a word you are looking for first, then ask your child to point to it on the page. Your child may then feel more confident to repeat the word back to you, first segmenting the sounds and then blending independently.
Little Wandle has some great resources for parents, including videos and information sheets. Click here to find out more about supporting reading at home.
Diary Dates…
Friday 28 January- School Nursing Team, Reception classes.
Lost and Found
It has been great to see all the children this week and hear about their magical Christmas experiences.
The weather has definitely matched up to our new topic this half term – Fire and Ice.
In literacy, we have been reading the story Lost and Found.
We began by using the title and front cover to make predictions.
I think they might find a pirate ship. Leo
I think they fell off a boat and they have to swim home. Jacob
Someone might find them and bring them home. Lucille
It might be about getting lost at sea and they have to find their way home. Norah
We created a story map and actions to enable us retell the story.
Can your child spot key events in these story maps?
In Maths, we have explored numbers to five. We have used Numicon to partition numbers to five.
In the classroom this week, the children have enjoyed freeing the penguins from the ice, creating frozen themed narratives, drawing penguins, feeding the penguin words and lots of other fun learning activities.
Home Link
How fast can you melt an ice cube?
What happens if you put the ice somewhere hot/cold? What happens if you put salt on it? How different does it look after 10 minutes?
You may choose to record your results using drawings or use a timer.
Notices
New PE days – Wednesday and Friday
We are beginning our swimming lessons next week! Your child will go on alternate weeks. PE kit should be worn on both swimming and non-swimming weeks.
Swimming dates
Sunshine – 12 Jan, 26 Jan, 9 Feb
Rainbow – 19 Jan, 2 Feb, 16 Feb
Please ensure your child is in their PE kit on these days, including trainers.
New eBooks will be added to child’s online library on Friday. This will ensure they have read the text at least three times in school.