- Next Thursday is Sports Day. The children all need their PE kit in school if it isn't already here. The children will also need trainers or plimsoles from Monday. You are invited to come and watch. Sports Day starts at 9.15 promptly and Reception start at the track races.
- Please can we remind you to ensure that your child has a water bottle, a hat and please apply sun cream before school. This is very important on sports day!
- Thank you to all of the parents who came to Jossie's fund raiser last night. It was fantastic to see so many of you there. The Silent auction has started and will be available before and after school soon and the online auction has now started and closes on 30th June at 11pm. We have a huge range of prizes. The online auction is open to people outside the school community so please feel free to pass on the link. It should have been sent home to you today.
- We are still looking for natural materials to be used in the mud kitchen including fir cones, small sticks, shells and stones.
- We are also in need of more lentils, rice and pasta for our trays.
- We are now collecting empty Heinz tomato ketchup/salad cream (400ml) bottles to use for paint.
- Things to do...
- We have revised the phase 3 sounds - oo (moon), ur, or, ar
- Please read with your child. Encourage your child to first tell the story using the pictures, identify high frequency words on each page and then encourage your child to sound out and blend words together. Once your child has decoded a sentence it is important to encourage them to go back and re-read the sentence to gain fluency and work on expression.
In literacy this week the children have been writing. Some of the children wrote a story based on 'Monkey Puzzle'. Some wrote a story based on the 'That's not my....' books.
Children working on 'That's not my....':
We read one or two of the short story books of ‘That’s not my Puppy', 'That's not my unicorn’ We discussed the books with the children. Every page is about the same animal and has
a describing word on it. We asked the children to think
of some describing words. Together we made a list – shiny, smooth, rough, blue, short, long, hairy,
furry, bright, colourful…….
We asked the children which creature they would write about if they
were making the book. It could be anything from insects to dinosaurs. The children gave their ideas
and thought of two sentences which could be used in their book. For example: That’s not my butterfly. His wings are too shiny. That’s not my horse.
Its eyes are too bright….
Every writing session this week we reminded the children of the books
and sentence/list of characters we had already made. We emphasised to the children that this is
going to be the best piece of writing that have ever written! We modelled to them what they needed to do. They then chose a piece of
material with a range of textures to stick onto their piece of paper so they can write their sentences. We kept reaffirming that they need to use their phonics, remember their finger
spaces, capital letters and full stops as well as using their key words. They had to write two sentences each day.
Children writing a story based on 'Monkey Puzzle':
We started by reading the book ‘Monkey Puzzle’ . We discussed the book with the children. What happened? The monkey couldn’t find his mum so he had
some help from the butterfly and then they found his mum. We explained to the children that all stories
have a beginning (The monkey was lost) a middle (the butterfly was trying to
help) and an end (he found his mum).
We asked the children if we could do a similar story with other animals? The children gave ideas of animals and ‘helpers’ We then modelled writing the start of the story.
The children wrote the story over three days splitting it into the beginning, middle and end.
Every session of writing we reaffirmed that they needed to use their
phonics, remember their finger spaces, capital letters and full stops as well
as using their key words. They were reminded to write slowly in their best
handwriting.
This week we have been revisiting addition and subtraction.
Activity 1: We modelled making a ‘staircase’ out of rods, we showed
the smallest rod and explained that this was a one. If this is one, what’s this
- 2 and so on. We emphasised the colours relating to each number. We then modelled filling in the gaps to make 10
Ask what two numbers are in this line 1 and 9, so what do 1 and 9 add up to? The children then completed the staircase making the number bonds to ten.
Ask what two numbers are in this line 1 and 9, so what do 1 and 9 add up to? The children then completed the staircase making the number bonds to ten.
Activity 2: The children had a range of tens frames with different
numbers up to 10. The children chose two frames and placed them on the whiteboard. They then found the total and recorded their number sentence on a white board. They also practised their ICT skills and took at photograph with the Ipad of their work.
Activity 3: The numbers 1 to 10 were written in the middle line of the 100 square. The tables were in a long line with pencils and strips of paper. The whiteboard had their names on (like a scoreboard). The children stood with their partner either side of the line.They took it in turns to throw their bean bag into a square and together they took the smallest number away from the biggest. They ran to the table and wrote the number sentence on a post it and then put it on the scoreboard.
Activity 3: The numbers 1 to 10 were written in the middle line of the 100 square. The tables were in a long line with pencils and strips of paper. The whiteboard had their names on (like a scoreboard). The children stood with their partner either side of the line.They took it in turns to throw their bean bag into a square and together they took the smallest number away from the biggest. They ran to the table and wrote the number sentence on a post it and then put it on the scoreboard.
Activity 4: The children worked with a partner
They each spun a spinner and wrote the two numbers in the recording sheet (biggest number first) either mentally or using apparatus they took the smallest number amount away and recorded the answer on a recording sheet.
This week in phonics we have recapped: oo, ar, ur and or. We practised reading and writing these words.
oo: moon, spoon, noon, soon, balloon, tooth, food
ar: car, cards, start, park, mark, dark, harp
ur: burn, turn, curl, surf
or: fork, storm, sport, torch, corn
In ChIL The children have enjoyed using natural materials to build small dens and in small world play. They have practised their gymnastics and had fun dressing up. They have also made mini beast homes.
Have a super weekend. The Year R Team
