Week Ending 17/02/23
Date: 17th Feb 2023 @ 2:27pm
Happy Friday! We made it. We’re halfway through the year already and just look at how far our Dormice and Hedgehogs have come.
Dates for the diary for next half term!
- Thursday 2nd March – World Book Day (Bedtime story theme- wear pyjamas to school!)
- Tuesday 21stMarch- Imagine That Trip
- Tuesday 28thMarch – Hedgehogs class assembly (9am) Dormice class assembly (9:30am)
Little Wandle (Phonics)
This week we have been revising some Phase 3 sounds based on the assessment results from last week. The children have worked so hard this half term and we have enjoyed watching them blossom into fluent readers. We have some great news! Mrs Taylor and Mrs Lovelock have been very busy purchasing some new plastic wallets to continue to keep our reading books in a good condition. You will notice that these are clearly labelled with your child’s name and also match the colour of the house they are in in school. If these wallets are lost or damaged, we do not have any means to replace them. Please look after them! Please continue to read with your child as much as possible over the half term and record it in their reading record. This way we know which books you have read and which ones that need to be exchanged.
Kinetic Letters
Kinetic Letters is the first thing we do each morning as the children come into school. We focus on teaching the children letter formation and aim that it becomes automatic as soon as possible. This reduces the cognitive load when writing. Once we have rehearsed our letter of the day (based on ongoing assessments) we look at some spelling patterns and sentence structure. This session usually lasts 15-20mins. Please can you ensure that your child is in school by 8:45am so they are not missing out on this important lesson.
Maths
With it being Shrove Tuesday next week, we read the story ‘Mr Wolf’s Pancakes’ who had written us a letter asking for help counting out his money to buy the ingredients he needed. We showed the children a 1p, 2p and 5p and explained that there are not coins for every number and matched the numicon to each value. We used our number bond knowledge to 7 to find different ways to making certain amounts of money. For example, 6p could be 2p + 2p + 2p or 5p + 1p. There is more than one way! There are lots of opportunities to explore money outside of the classroom. Write a list for the next time you go shopping, set up your own role play and pretend to be the shopkeeper – use real money! The children have really enjoyed looking at the different coin values and using this in their play.
On Monday, we read the No Outsiders story ‘You Choose’ and focused on a key part of the Early Years Curriculum, Communication and Language. We asked the children to decide between two choices and to say what they think. We then played games that developed turn taking.
On Tuesday, it was Valentine’s Day! We discussed the history of St Valentine and the traditional ways we celebrate it and show people we love them.
On Wednesday, we read a story called ‘The Family Book’ and focused on a variety of families we found in our book. We talked about who was in our family and what we liked to do together. We then drew a family portrait and describe some of our loved ones.
On Thursday, we went into the hall and had our first rehearsal of our class assembly. The children can’t wait to continue practising after half term and putting on a real show for you. Please see above for timings of each class. This will be in the school hall.
On Friday, we learnt about the history of Pancake Day! We made an obstacle course outside where the children participated in a traditional pancake race and used spatial language to describe the route. We enjoyed eating them up as promised by Mr Wolf himself.
Congratulations to our Stars of the Half Term, Zachary and Penny!
Our mystery readers this week were Ola’s Dad and Joey’s Nan! 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 still have available dates next half term so please get in touch if you can help!
Have a relaxing and restful half term break! Thank you for your ongoing support in your child’s school journey. We look forward to seeing you again on Monday 27th February at 8:40am.
Miss Selwyn and Miss Nicholas
