Week Ending 12/11/21
Date: 11th Nov 2021 @ 3:50pm
Happy Friday! This week we have been busy being Artists and Historians, whilst learning about Remembrance Day. Remembrance Day is an important date in the calendar and we have been learning that we wear poppies to help us to remember the brave soldiers.
This half term in phonics we are focusing on letter formation. At Tarporley, we use Kinetic Letters as our handwriting scheme. This week we have finished learning The Jumper Family which contains the letters h, n, m, b, p and r. Kinetic Letters introduces writing on a line from the start and teaches them that all letters start from the ‘brave monkey’s branch’ (top of the line) or the ‘scared monkey’s branch’ (middle of the lines). No letters start from the ‘ground’ (bottom line)! To support your child at home, please encourage them to start their letters from the right place, hold their pencil correctly and provide lines for them to write on. In your child's book bag you will find a paper copy of the whiteboard we use in school that you may wish to practice the letters we have already learnt. An example of how the letter should look is at the beginning of each line.
We will continue to set online reading books each week and send home books for the children to read to you at home. Please continue to practice reading everyday as the focus will be on fluency and recognition of high frequency words. Along with the rest of Key Stage 1, we will now be sending home a ‘reading for pleasure’ book each week. The children will be able to go to our school library on a Friday afternoon and choose a picture book to take home and share as a family that week. They may choose a familiar book such as ‘The Gruffalo’ or they may choose a book that they haven’t read before but are excited to try. We hope you enjoy sharing these books as a family.
In Maths, we have been focussing on how the Numberblocks 1-5 can make different shapes but still show the same number. We discovered that Number 5 could make the most shapes because it had the most blocks! We also found that number 1 could make all the different blocks. For example, Number 4 is made up of four ones and number 3 is made of three ones. This can be applied to any number! On Friday we celebrated the end of World Maths Week with an activity around the nursery rhyme Incy Wincy Spider. We created a large drainpipe using the number tiles 1-10. The children threw the dice and moved the spider up and down the drain paiper to see if he would reach the sun or water first. This is a simple idea that you may want to replicate at home using numbered bits of paper, a dice and a teddy and getting the children to count on and back by starting at 5 each time.
On Monday, we learnt some more songs from our Nativity! Please remember that our EYFS Nativity is on Thursday 9th December at 2pm in St Helen's Church. The children were given the choice of choosing which character they would like to be. Due to so many children wanting to be the same character we will pull names from a hat.
On Tuesday we watched the Cbeebies animation 'Poppies' which inspired a conversation around the importance of Remembrance Day and the significance of the poppy. In the afternoon, we were left clues as to what our poem this week would be. We found wellies, a tweed cap, a toy tractor, an egg box and some milk. The children correctly guessed we were on a farmyard. We discussed our own experiences of a farm and listed the animals we might find there. Then we consolidated our understanding of rhyming words and played Silly Soup.
On Wednesday, we read the story of Rosie's Walk by Pat Hutchkins and played a game of I Spy. For example, "I spy with my little eye something beginning with f and rhymes with box...a FOX! Perhaps this game could inspire your home learning around the house or on a walk to practice rhyming words and initial sounds.
On Thursday, we read the poem 'The Farmyard' by A.A. Attwood. We then created our very own poems following a similar pattern and structure with all the things we have learnt this week. The children deserve a gigantic pat on the back for their efforts! We took part in the two minutes silence at 11am where we through about everyone, including animals, that have fought in a war. We also created lots of different craft activities relating to this.
On Friday, we starting learning numbers 1-5 in French. The children are always greeting me in the morning with what they've learnt and it's so lovely to see them so engaged in learning a new language. Tres bien! We also did Yoga in the classroom.
Congratulations to our Stars of the Week, Dexter and Jasper.
Our mystery reader this week was Lola's Mum. Thank you for coming to share a story with us! Please speak to your child’s class teacher to put a date in the diary if you would like to be mystery reader. We are fully booked until after Christmas. In January we will be splitting the Dormice and Hedgehogs into their classes as we have been inundated with requests! This will mean more opportunities for more than one family member to come into read with their child's class.
Have a fantastic weekend!
Miss Selwyn and Miss Nicholas
