Weekly Blog 17/11/23
Date: 12th Nov 2023 @ 8:07pm
Happy Friday! This week we have also been learning all about Diwali, which is the ‘Festival of Light’. Each of the children has made their own Diya lamp which they have brought home today. We even held our very own Diwali party to conclude our week of celebrations in school. The children were able to try some yummy food, design their own henna hands and learn about the story of Rama and Sita.
World Nursery Rhyme Week
This week we have participated in World Nursery Rhyme week that seeks to promote the importance of nursery rhymes in early childhood development and education. Each day we have spent every welcome time choosing and singing our favourite nursery rhymes. Singing nursery rhymes and songs to young children can help develop their language and communication skills from an early age. With nursery rhymes offering lots of repetition, alongside accompanying actions, it can help to widen children’s vocabulary, so that they are able to use these words in everyday interactions. This means they can also learn new words within different contexts. Believe it or not, nursery rhymes are incredibly powerful influencers in development. Phonemic skill development gained from nursery rhymes has even been scientifically shown to significantly improve reading, spelling and other literacy skills.
Dates for the diary:
- Nativity Dress rehearsal –Tuesday 12th This is our final practice before the children get to show you. We will be performing in front of our buddies and the Done Room pre-school at 2pm. If you are in the village and would like to volunteer to walk us down to the church (or back) we would greatly appreciate it.
- Nativity –Wednesday 13th December at 2pm at St Helen’s Church. We will also need some parent walkers please!
Little Wandle – Phonics
This week we have continued on our Phase 2 journey by learning the sounds V, W, Y and X using the new Little Wandle grapheme cards and phrases. We have also learnt four new tricky words 'HAS', 'HIS', 'HER' and 'AND'. ‘Tricky words’ are words that cannot easily be decoded (‘sounded out’ and read). To support the learning of tricky words, we have put together a pack attached with a paper clip into your child's reading folder today. Although we have not learnt all of these yet, please do continue to practise the ones we have learnt which have been in recent blogs. It is SO important that the children can recognise these without needing to decode them (sound them out). These will also form a part of our assessment this half term. Our mission this half term is to ensure every child is blending by Christmas! We would really appreciate it if you could continue to practise oral blending wherever you can. This is something that every phonics lesson focuses on even if your child is super confident with their blending. It is a skill which only benefits your child's early reading.
Kinetic Letters.
This week we have introduced the children to our Kinetic Letters handwriting session. These will be daily handwriting sessions as soon as the children come in in the morning. Therefore it is vital your child is here on time at 8:45am to ensure there is no lost learning! Due to the time constraints of our daily timetable we will be shutting the community doors at this time to ensure we are back in class to start teaching Kinetic Letters from Monday. If you are running late, you will need to come through the main office doors. Thank you.
We are starting by 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. I have attached a video where you will be able to see the correct formation as modelled by Miss Nicholas with the three letters we have learnt this week, H, N and R. These all follow the same starting action of 'down bump, back up, push over'. If your child is struggling to form these letters, try practising by tracing the letters in sand/glitter or even flour first using the 'down bump, back up, push over' mantra for the Jumper Family. We also use big movements to help us remember it too by doing it in the air first. If you would like us to photocopy a template of our whiteboards for practice at home then please let myself or Mrs Line know.
We have taken a photo of your child's starting point in their writing which has been uploaded to Tapestry today. Please do take a look and speak to myself or Mrs Line should you have any questions or need any help in supporting your child in this area.
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! We have been using our number bonds to 5 to work out some subitising problems (say an amount to 5 without counting it). For example, a two dots on one side and two dots on the other side of the page. We would instantly recognise this as 4 because we know that 2 + 2 = 4. We've really been impressed with the language and reasoning skills the children have been using to explain how they know it is that number. I have uploaded a few activities should you want to practise having a go at home! Subitising can come in all forms not just on a dice which is a really important skill.
Numberblocks episode: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08dnngm/numberblocks-series-1-stampolines
On Monday, we started to learn about Diwali. We learned about some traditions and tried to think of any other celebrations where we might have fireworks, sweet treats, special family meals, candles and decorations. We began to make our Diya lamps using clay and developed our fine motor skills as we manipulated it to form the base of our lamp.
On Tuesday, we began reading this week’s book, ‘Dipal’s Diwali’ and learnt about the important preparations Dipal and his family made to celebrate this time. We learnt that Dipal and his siblings gave away toys to children who need them which led us to think about the word ‘generosity’ and how we could help others.
On Wednesday, we listened to the Diwali story that tells of a Princess called Sita and a Prince called Rama. We then participated in THE RAMAYANA: Diwali dance workshop to bring the story to life. Try asking your child what they remember and retell the story in their own words.
On Thursday, we continued learning about Diwali through our story and talked about Rangoli patterns. Some of us even tried to create our own! In the afternoon we explored India and located it on a map and compared it to where we live. We then got to try some traditional Indian food.
On Friday, the time of year has come again to start rehearsals for our Christmas Nativity. We went into the hall to practice our songs and listen to the different characters we will be playing. We also dressed up for Children in Need and discussed ways in which we could raise money for charity.
REMINDER
Today your child found out what they will be in their first Nativity. A tradition in the Early Years is to ask the children what they would like to be. Although we cannot always guarantee everyone can be Mary or one of the Three Kings we do try to ensure your child is closely matched to something of their choice. We asked all the children if they would like a speaking role to then assign them their roles. This afternoon I have sent an email to specific roles that require some help with their lines. Not all parts are speaking roles. The EYFS Nativity will be on Wednesday 13th December at 2pm at St Helens church. School provide the costumes but a note will be sent home in the next couple of weeks asking for a base layer for underneath. The children walk down to church for a 2pm start (dressed in costumes) and then we walk back to school to change back into uniform (we need the costumes back for the KS1 performance that evening!) and then they will be dismissed from school at 3:20pm as normal.
Our Mystery Reader this week was Maxwell's Mum, thank you for coming to share a story with us!
Congratulations to our Star of the Week, Maggie!
Have a wonderful weekend!
Miss Selwyn
