What a lovely first week back!

Well children what a week...
The children have all work really hard and I don't know what they had on their pancakes in the holiday but it must have been brain dust!!  The work that has been produced has been fabulous.

Literacy

Reception - have been writing Newspaper articles about ships sinking in the sea and what might be sinking them.  This was linked to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.  The ideas have been lovely and their knowledge of sounding out and writing the corresponding sounds has really developed.
Year 1 -  Have been learning about Captain Cook and his early life. The children had to write a recount about him.  The facts they remembered and their attention to detail was brilliant.   We will be revisiting this next week as they learn about him in later life.

Maths

Reception - Have been developing their capacity skills and using the language full, nearly full, half full, nearly empty and empty.  They have been using these skills in the mud kitchen, sand pit, the water puddle and through indoor activities.  

 Year 1 - Have been involving their maths skills this week through science and answering the question 'Does the person with the longest arm throw the furthest?'   They all went outside and threw a bean bag, their throw was measured and then recorded.  The children then had their arm measured and discovered that with the year 1 children in our class this statement was true, but with the reception it was not.  They will conclude this lesson next week.

Creative and DT

Reception - a continual activity this week and next is to make their own boat to test if it floats. Some children made their boat and discussed how they could improve it before we test.

Year 1 - Have designed their ship and thought about the materials they want to use, they have labelled it and will use this design to help them make it in the future weeks.

Homework

Group 1 - Phonics worksheet based on this week's sounds, 

Group 2 - Phonics worksheet based on this week's sounds/syllables, 

Group 3 - Phonics worksheet based on this week's sounds/alternative sounds.

Group 4 - Phonics worksheet based on this week's sounds/plurals, 

Also their will be bug club and active learn.

Please can I also ask that for Monday...

* all children bring in some plastic bottles (Empty and clean with a lid).

*If you have any bubble wrap, please could we have it.

*For RE (on Wednesday) all children need to bring in ONE thing that is special to them.

*Lastly any plastic or card recycling.

What a lovely week

Homework

All the children have a selection of sounds to focus on over the half term.  They are all sounds that they have found a little trickier than others.  Please help them to play games with them or even build words using them. 

Year 1 – for half term we decided to set you a CHALLENGE!!!  This will be to create your own fact poster about a city in Australia.  Your poster must have drawn pictures, printed pictures (only if possible) and you must write on the poster yourself and not print the information.

Reception – using an empty egg box, we would like you to produce a Diorama, this is a world in a box.  Basically, we are asking you to create an under the world scene in your egg box.   It needs to be the correct colours and have sea creatures you have drawn stuck in.  If you wish to extend your learning,  then please label the diorama.                          

RE & Literacy

In RE we have been learning about messengers.  Last week we talked about St Francis of Assisi and this week The Prophet Muhammad.

‘He was a messenger for Allah’  - Charlotte and Maddy

‘The bible is read by Christians’ - Bobby

‘Muslims read the Qur’an’  - Harry

‘The Bible and The Qur’an are special books’ - Oliver

The children have been drawing and writing about Muhammad and the Ants this week, it was a lovely short story which produced some lovely speech bubbles and annotated work. The children also produced some lovely art of St Francis.

Maths

Reception – have been making repeating patterns with Lego, Duplo, paint  stammers and on the computer.  They have been finding the answer to different calculations using Numicon and also buying their own snack in the travel agents.

Year 1 – Have spent a lot of the week discussing 3D shapes and the features of each shape.  What the children have found hard is identifying how man of each 3D shape is in pictures.  The have also been counting  5 and 10.

Have a lovely ½ term.

This week

Homework
.
Group 1 - children have to find all the 'f' sounds.
Group 2 - sounds ear, er and air.  children are to practice their handwriting.
Group 3 - to write words that use the ew, a_e, ph sounds
Group 4 - using all the different 'or' sounds they must find the correct one for each word

There are also bug club books and active learn maths for all children this week.  Year 1 children also have a days of the week ordering sheet and counting in 5's.

Literacy 
Year 1 - This week we have been doing visual literacy.  With this the children have watched part of Furn Gully about Rainforest.

'We had to write a letter to Crysta the fairy' Amelie
'We had to ask her a question about what happened in the film and we had to write about how beautiful the rainforest was' Nina

Reception - This week the children have been writing their own Goldilocks stories.  They had to use their new character to write the end of their story.

'The turtles went up the stairs and Goldilocks went down the stairs the turtles said shoe shoe.  They made some more sea weed soup' Edward


Thinking Things Through Maths.
'Using Numicon we filled the paper so it had no gaps.  we worked so hard with a friend' Aiden and Lacey Fae
The children had to learn to work together and listen to one another to complete the task.  They also had to think that if a piece did not fit a certain way round could they turn it over and fit it another way.

listening was important

Working as a team

We completed this 3 times.  We worked well together.

'We have been using numbers to take away' Maddison.
They have been learning the basic skills they need to subtract, this has been through number sentence and using Numicon.

Year 1 - 'Had to make a rectangle using Dominoes and the number pattern had to make an even number.  We worked in partners.' Charlotte

Outside Area
We have had many activities linked to maths and literacy this week.  We have had calculations around the outside area where we have been using different equipment to help us find the answers. Writing in the mud kitchen Cafe and the walls of the fort has had them all interested.

Lastly this week we have been working hard as a small team in PE to create our own section of an assault course. The children had to use listening skills and learn to take turns in voicing their ideas.  They were good at all this and the assault course lesson was very enjoyable.

Have a lovely weekend