Week Ending 7/10/2021
Date: 4th Oct 2021 @ 1:27pm
Happy Friday! It’s finally starting to feel like Autumn has arrived, darker nights setting in, jumping in muddy puddles and conker walks! These are certainly one of the best times of the year being a 4 and 5 year old as the beautiful autumn leaves fall we see so much change in our wonderful world. This week we have experienced our very first trip outside of school and to say we were very excited was an understatement. The EYFS team in particular were overjoyed at the prospect of trips back on the agenda and the children’s smiles said it all.
Nothing quite says Autumn is here again like conkers falling from the trees to the delight of children up and down the country. These are one of the most iconic signs of Autumn and provide endless fun and discovery. The children have been learning about how these glossy brown seeds are from a horse chestnut tree and they grow in green spiky cases. The shells often fall to the ground and split on impact to reveal the shiny conker inside. I wonder how many signs of Autumn you can spot on your next walk outside!
This week in Phonics we have learnt G, O, C and K and the children are excited to read their online books with these taught sounds. Please encourage your child to sound out a word using their ‘robot arms’ and ‘blending hands’. This is important for them (and you) to hear the correct pronunciation of the sound and support blending the sounds back together. We have also learnt some harder to read and spell words I, THE, NO, PUT, OF, IS. These will be in your online reading books for this week as the children begin to read longer sentences. These are words that cannot be sounded out but should be learnt by heart as they appear time and time again.
Oxford Owl – online reading books
Each week the children will be taught four sounds (Mon-Thurs) with a reading application lesson on a Friday. Following this lesson, the children will be allocated reading books containing the four sounds from that week. Reading and then rereading books is the key to success. We recommend rereading the same book at least four times to support fluency and letter recognition.
This week we have started to read with the children and recorded this in their reading record. Here you will find two ticks (positive comments) and the arrow which is a next step and tells you how to move your child’s learning on. Please read with your child and write in their reading record as much as possible! Yesterday Miss Nicholas held a Zoom meeting which explains all about phonics and our new programme (Essential Letters and Sounds). This is a very useful guide to support early reading and we recommend you sit down with a cup of tea to listen to! I have uploaded the recording below should you wish to access this video.
In Maths, we have been focusing on comparing numbers 1-5. We met number 4 and 5! We continued to recognise our numbers and order them using the language ‘greater than’ and ‘less than’. E.g. 5 is greater than 4. 2 is less than 3. We have been learning some number songs to support us including 5 little ducks, 5 speckled frogs and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 to help us with saying our number names in order. These are great for reinforcing number names and exploring the concept of take away/less than/how many left. We also continued to focus on subitising numbers to 5 and dice work is a great example of knowing these numbers just by looking at a group of objects. Snakes and ladders is great for both subitising numbers on a dice but also number recognition. I have uploaded some activities below should you wish to continue learning at home. These are optional.
On Monday, in RE Jack told us the story about Joseph and his brother’s saying sorry. We reflected on this and the importance of saying sorry and spoke about forgiveness. In the afternoon, we made rainbow artwork to match Joseph’s coloured coat.
On Tuesday, we continued to read the story of The Gingerbread Man. We drew a story map of what had happened in the story so far and the animals he might meet. We used magnetic letters to sound out simple CVC words like ‘pig’, ‘cat’ and ‘dog’ with the sounds we have already learnt in phonics. In My Happy Mind, we continued to think about our ‘brain growing’ moments and made our own brains using play dough. They were fantastic and supported our fine motor skills too!
On Wednesday, we focused on rhyming words and played lots of rhyming games in groups. We sang the Gingerbread Man song and used our music sessions to help us clap to the beat.
On Thursday, we went on our Autumn walk and collected lots of conkers! The children were amazed and held a competition to see who collected the most. It was very close! In the afternoon we used the leaves we had collected on our walk to make Leaf Man pictures.
On Friday, we played a game of football on the field. We also celebrated a belated European Languages Day French party. We tasted traditional French food and some were brave enough to enjoy a piece of smelly brie…delicious!
On the week beginning 18th September we will be holding our first Parent’s Evening of the year. This will be on SchoolCloud (an online appointment) which will last ten minutes. This is a general meeting to discuss your child’s first half term and transition into Reception. Mrs Lovelock has sent an email regarding Parents Evening last week and if you have not done so already you can book your appointment now.
Well done to our Stars of the Week, Lola and Saphira-Lou.
Our mystery reader this week was George’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 the middle of next half term so please do let us know if you would like to come and we can put it in the diary.
Have a lovely weekend and happy reading!
Miss Selwyn and Miss Nicholas
