Rabbits' blog 10
Date: 24th Apr 2025 @ 5:36pm
Thursday 24th April 2025
Spring is springing and so are my Rigorous Rabbits! They have come back to school full of life to the point that I think they should be renamed Vigorous Rabbits, especially the noise level! (I love their confidence, their companionship and their commitment to school life so am not complaining. Really. Much at all. 😉)
What I notice most about this time of year is their understanding of my expectations of respect and routine. They are truly working at Y1 levels of maturity and social well-being. I will be out a couple of times here and there this term (Phonics Screening Check, preparing for Hedgehogs’ transition, Lil W training etc) and I know that my notes to the teacher covering will be: ask the children, they know the way it goes! I missed them during the holiday.
So what have we been doing this week? It has been a short week in time only because we have been busy, busy, busy! The new chant is : ‘We are living and loving phonics’. We have started to look at alien words and how they could be read (eg we had ‘vol’ today which is expected to be: v-o-l rhymes with doll, but we need to discuss why it can’t be ‘v-oa’l rhymes with foal because it is a real word). The focus is always to look for the digraph first and then read (I know we have moved on from that in our ‘real’ reading in books but it is still a crucial reading skill for the test.) I tried to get them out today with the word- jair. I asked them: digraph? And we had all sorts of answers -air, ear, er (all possibilities); only one boy said ‘ai’. The puzzle: no digraph! It is a trigraph (3 letters, 1 sound). Haha!
Maths has been a very successful week of place value. We worked so hard last half term on the teen numbers and number bonds that the work should be paying off this term. We are fully acquainted with a 100-square and introduced to 'dienes’/base 10. We have counted and put into a place value chart to show we understand tens vs ones (units). Then we added a 10 to that 2-digit number and had to check using the 100 square. Humour them by playing ‘Who can count on 10 quicker?’. Someone chooses a number less than 90 on the 100 sq and then 1 person adds 10 in 10 ones (you) and the other person adds 10 by adding 1 ten. They think it’s a magic trick! Would you like a 100 sq for home?
My story book recommend this week is: This Is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen. It took us over 20mins to read and given there is little text, it shows how much an illustrator can bring to a book and how much deduction the reader is expected to do based on a slight change in a fish’s eyes! We loved it. (and sorry it made us a tad late for pick up!)
Extra homework this weekend? Discuss the difference between ‘endangered’ and ‘extinct’. There are several great kids’ websites looking at endangered animals they will recognise. We watched this clip (*warning- privacy settings on high to check advert content): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5cVr3HdLa4 so feel free to use.
This is also interesting: https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/discover/animals/general-animals/extinct-animals/
Here’s to a successful summer 1. Thanks for your brill support as usual. Let’s get back into the reading routine (Live and love phonics!) and I’ll push them as hard as I can to keep them growing their brain over the next 4 weeks.
Mrs H
