Week Ending 8/12/23
Date: 4th Dec 2023 @ 12:42pm
Happy Friday! This week we finished our story ‘The Three Little Pigs’ by planning some imaginative traps to finally catch the wolf! The children had lots of fantastic ideas and used the sounds they have learnt to write their thoughts down.
Thank you for your support in providing your child with their base layers for the nativity. If you would like to help walk us down to the Church on Tuesday/Wednesday please come to the main office for 1:20pm. We aim to be leaving as soon as possible. Thank you in advance!
Christmas Craft - Final reminder
Thank you for purchasing your child's Christmas craft at the Christmas Fair last week which was made by your little angel themselves. We still have some remaining crafts which the office have notified you via email. If you would like to purchase these, they will be available from the school office!
Dates for your diary
Dates for the diary:
- Nativity Dress rehearsal –Tuesday 12thDecember (walkers needed please!)
- Nativity –Wednesday 13thDecember at 2pm at St Helen’s Church. (walkers also needed please!)
- Christmas Dinner Day– Wednesday 20thChristmas jumpers worn and cracker needed.
- Last day – Thursday 21st December – bring a toy to school day. No electronics. Early finish - please pick up at 1:30pm. Treehouse will be operating as normal should you need wrap around care.
Phonics – Little Wandle
This week we have been revising all the Phase 2 sounds we have learnt using the new Little Wandle grapheme cards and phrases. We have also been focusing on words with ‘s’ at the end (plurals and verb forms) such as ducks, shuts, pots etc. To support blending, we cover the ‘s’ and decode the word then add back in the ‘s’. The children have found it a little tricky to segment words with ‘s’ in. For example, cups = c-u-ps. Ask them to use their segmenting fingers to ensure they are not missing out key phonemes. This will heavily support their writing.
Next week we will be completing this half term’s phonics assessment. Your child's results will be recorded in their reading record and a percentage will be given. 80% is on track. Please see me if you require any support for home learning. In the assessment your child will be completing four activities:
- Grapheme recall (letter recognition) These include S, A, T, P, I, N, M, D, G, O, C, K, CK, E, U, R, H, B, F/FF, L/LL, J, V, W, X, Y, Z/ZZ, QU, CH, TH, NG, NK.
- Oral blending (c-a-t = cat)
- Decoding (by applying taught sounds to simple CVC words)
- Tricky words. These include put, pull, full, as, and, has, his, her, go, no, to, into, she, push, he, of, we, me, be, is, I, the.
I have attached the link to support the pronunciation of the sounds we have learnt in Phase 2. In your child's book bag you will also find a helpful grapheme sheet with the sounds we have left this half term. Please ensure you are looking at these as well as your child's next steps in their reading record after their assessment. The pace in Spring term does increase and we will be learning lots of new Phase 3 digraphs. It is imperative that your child is secure in these Phase 2 sounds to progress onto the next set of books.
In Kinetic Letters, we have continued to learn the ‘abracadabra family’. (c, a, o, d, q, g, s) which follow the ‘pull around and push along the ground’ action. We always start our letters from one of two places; brave monkey branch (top of the line) or the ‘scared monkey branch’ (middle of the lines). No letter starts from the ground. Please encourage your child to hold their pen/pencil using their ‘three friends hold’ when forming their letters. These are very tricky letters which can be made easier by simply remembering to start with the ‘c’ letter shape. The video below should give you some ideas for home and we have sent a ‘c’ sheet to practice at home. If you can confidently write ‘c’ then you will crack the abracadabra family! I have attached part 2 of the Abracadabra teaching. Please see the video below.
In Maths, we have visited the Pattern Palace with the Numberblocks. We have been learning to continue, create and fix ABAB patterns this week. We had lots of fun making tile patterns and trying to fix the patterns made by the teachers. If your child spots a pattern or creates one at home then please take a photo and upload to Tapestry!
On Monday, we enjoyed finishing the story of ‘The Three Little Pigs’, we also watched the original Disney version! This really made the children laugh. We created our traps and wrote our plans.
On Tuesday, we continued with our writing and made our pattern tile pictures. They took a lot of patience and concentration but looked great in the end.
On Wednesday, Amanda came in to deliver us a fun-filled afternoon of music. We thoroughly enjoyed singing and moving to the music and familarised ourselves with games we have learnt previously and enjoyed some festive songs to end.
On Thursday, we took part in Christmas Jumper Day! We are feeling super festive now and are looking forward to decorating the classroom next week to properly get us in the mood.
On Friday, we enjoyed going to celebration assembly, practising our nativity and doing phonics. In the afternoon, we try to be builders and got to make a house for the Three Little Pigs. We then used a 'wolf' (Miss Selwyn's hairdryer) to pretend to blow it down. Did they stand strong and safe from the wolf's huffs and puffs just like Percy's? See Twitter and Tapestry for the answer.
Our mystery reader this week was George T’s Mum, thank you for coming to share a story with us!
Congratulations to our Stars of the Week, Jude!
Have a wonderful weekend!
Miss Selwyn
