Useful information and requests:
- The children are invited to dress as pirates for our Pirate workshop on Monday 22nd January. Please do not send your child in with a sword.
- We would be very grateful for any donations of lentils, rice and pasta (it doesn't matter if these are out of date). They will be using in our trays outside for sieving and pouring.
- As always we will gratefully accept junk modelling, including boxes, tubes and plastic tubs such as yoghurt pots.
Things to do....
- Recap this weeks sounds- j,v and w
- Read with your child
- Recap adding 2 small amounts together. Talk to your child about part-part-whole.
- Play board games using dice
- Play rhyming games
The children had lots of fun in their Circus training workshop on Monday afternoon. They learnt to: spin plates, use stilts, stack cups, swing a tooth brush on a stick and many other things.
Adult Directed activities have focused on Jigsaw this week. This covers Personal, Social, Health Education/ Circle Time. The children took part in five activities over the week based on 'Dreams and Goals'.
The children have been learning about the importance of perseverance even when they find something very difficult. The children were challenged to do things that can be difficult such as balancing on one leg for a minute. After discussing how they could make it easier they tried again this time supporting each other. The teacher demonstrated trying to build a tall tower and having a go at drawing an animal but she got frustrated and gave up! They discussed what would happen if we just gave up at things that we found tricky. They then thought about what they needed to do to help themselves if something was difficult. For example: working together, not giving up, asking for help and always trying. They listened to the story of the Hare and the Tortoise and agreed that the Tortoise, even though he is slow, keeps on going and wins. While the hare thinks he is so good he doesn't try and then fails to win the race. The children watched a clip about the stages a baby/toddler go through when learning to walk and how every baby has to have a go even though they start by falling over all the time. But with perseverance they learn to walk because they don't give up! The children realised that if they had given up trying to walk then they would not have got there.
Clip showing stages of development to walking for a baby/toddler
The children gave examples of things they have had to work hard at before achieving their goal, such as learning to ride a bike, or how to swim or the fact that when they came to school they could only write the first letter in their name but they can now write their whole name.
The children then all lay on the floor with their eyes closed and imagined they had zoomed into the future. They thought about what job they wanted to have and what they might need to learn in order to achieve their goal. For example they will need to learn to read, write and understand numbers! If they want to be a builder then they need to know how to measure etc. So they now know why we have to try hard to achieve their goals!
In maths the children have focused on addition this week. We first discussed what 'addition' means and the fact that when we add numbers or find a total the answer will always be bigger than the numbers that we are adding together. The children used part-part- whole to add two numbers. Rolling a dice to find two parts and then finding the total. The children all started doing this with practical equipment and then went on to recording pictorially and some also recorded their addition using a number sentence. In the final lesson the children used their problem solving skills to find different ways of making the number 10 and recording the answers on a part-part whole sheet or as a number sentence.
In phonics the children have been learning about the phonemes j, v and w. The children are now focusing on each sound for two days. One lesson is focused on reading and the second is focused on writing. See if your child can use their phoneme fingers or robot arms to sound out these words and their blending arm to blend them back together. They could then have a go at writing some of these words.
j: jet, jam, jog, Jack, jug
v: van, vest, vent, vet
w: wax, wig, wag, well, web
We are teaching the children little rhymes to go with each letter-
j: Oh no! Josie's got jelly and jam on her jumper.
v: The van visits the volcano
w:The wombat wears a watch
We also practised the formation of these letters:
j- is a ladder letter. Start at the top, down, down and curl. Lift and dot.
v- is a zig-zag monster letter. Down up.
w- is a zig-zag monster letter. Down up, down up.
Even though the weather has been rather damp and cold this week many of the children have enjoyed ChIL outside as well as indoors. In this weeks maths mystery box the children have been exploring repeating patterns. They have loved playing in our doctors/vets role play area and have also had fun playing board games.
The Year R Team
