- All of the children have been sent home with a reading book now. The majority of children are reading 'Pink books'. Your child will rely on using the picture clues and repetitive text. Be positive and support them.
- Before they start reading:
- Look at the words and pictures on the front cover - title, author, illustrator.
- Look at the back cover and read the blurb.
- Look at the title page and recap the title
- Look at the pictures and talk about what might be happening in the story
- Highlight any key words
- Introduce the repetitive text
- Read the story together
- As your child moves on to red books there will be more focus on sounding out words and blending them back together.
- It is then important that your child goes back and re-reads the sentence after they have decoded it.
- We will encourage the children to change their reading books every time we have 5 minute warning before tidy up time. It is your child's responsibility to change their books. If they fail to do this you can send them back into class at the end of the day to change them (once all of the children have been sent out). But we would be grateful if you could try and encourage them to do this during 5 minute warning.
- As the children are now moving on to 'reading scheme books' please can we ask you to return any books that you have borrowed from the book boxes we have put out each day.
- If you are able to collect and bring in leaves, sticks (small and big for den building), acorns and conkers we would be very grateful. It is very important that they have boots and a coat.
- Please could you bring in cardboard tubes. We need these for woodland learning and also for making rockets. We need tubes of all lengths please.
- We often fill one of our play trays with pasta and lentils. If you have any that you can donate for our use that would be fabulous (it doesn't matter if it is out of date).
- Don't forget that the Christmas card orders can be made online and the deadline has been extended to 24th October.
- Things to do...
- Listen to your child read everyday. Morning time is best!
- It is important that your child learns to be independent, please teach them to put on and take off their shoes, socks, coats and jumpers.
- This week the children have been segmenting words into sounds and blending them back together e.g. c-a-t. Please encourage your child to practise this at home.
Thank you to those of you who attended the Harvest Festival Assembly this week and for all the fabulous food donations. We had more than ever before and St Albans Feed were very grateful.
The children have started each day this week with finger strong. This has included threading, play dough, cutting skills and handwriting skills. The children worked quietly during these activities and are very focused.
This week the children have been focusing on the number 5 in maths. We watched a couple of super maths clips to introduce the number 5. Your child may enjoy watching these again.
The groups then rotated around 4 maths activities. The children used part-part-whole (as explained in the clip above) to make 5 in different ways. The children had to split 5 counters into the 2 parts below, exploring different ways to make 5.
The children used the Numicon (which are weighted in accordance to value). They made 5 by putting a 5 in one side of the scales and balancing the scales in different ways for example with a 2 and 3 Numicon and 5 x 1 Numicon. The children enjoyed exploring the possibilities in pairs.
The children practised counting 5 using linking animals and multilink pieces. They then explored the longest and shortest links of 5 that they had made.
The children then made 5 in different ways using the Numicon, verbalising what they had done.
In phonics this week, we have focused on blending and segmenting. The children played 'toy talk'. The children had to ask the soft toy a question. The soft toy then whispered the answer in the teacher's ear in sound talk which the teacher told the class.
For example: What do you want for tea? f-i-sh, p-ea-s, ch-i-p-s, h-a-m, e-gg, t-oa-s-t
What is your favourite colour? r-e-d, b-l-ue, g-r-ee-n
What do you like to play with? b-r-i-ck-s, b-a-ll, h-oo-p-s.
Together we sounded out the words and blended them carefully back together. This is a game you could play at home. You could answer questions using sound talk and see if your child can blend the sounds back together.
Together we looked at a range of pictures on the interactive whiteboard and worked out the first sound, second sound and final sound and we then revealed the word checking the sounds and blended the sounds back together.
We also played 'farmyard. The children were all given an animal and they had to listen carefully for when their animal was sounded out to put it into the farm.
The children have been out in all weathers this week. Please make sure that your child brings a coat and jumper to school everyday. We do try and get outside everyday during ChIL time. The children loved playing in the rain. The super heroes capes have been a hit this week. The big bricks have sometimes been converted into a prison for all the baddies that have been captured! The children enjoyed playing rhyming games, playing with the garage, the dolls house, making food with the sawdust, pasta and lentils, riding the bikes and using the guttering to make ramps for the cars.
The first three groups of children have loved their woodland learning session this week. First we talked about the rules which keep us safe in woodland learning, then we talked about Autumn and the changes we see with each season. We talked about hibernation and nocturnal animals and then the children had fun collecting leaves and looking at all the different colours and shapes. The other two groups will have woodland learning next week.
We've almost made it to half term. The children have done amazingly well as it has been a long one!
Have a lovely weekend.
The Year R Team
