Year 3,4 Skipping School
This week, we all enjoyed a skipping workshop where we practised our skipping skills, including the single bounce and double bounce. We all got the chance to skip using the large skipping rope.
We will continue to practise our skills over the next few months and some of the year 4 children will have the opportunity to take part in a skipping festival in the Spring.
Help at home by challenging your child to practise their skipping skills. It’s a great way to keep fit!
Design and Technology: food
Cooking has been on the menu for 5,6 again! The class enjoyed spending time in the hub creating a whole new recipe. This time, they were turning their hand to chickpea curry. All the recipes that the children make are designed to develop food preparation skills, be healthy, reflect seasonality and be easy and practical to try at home. The recipe included ingredients such as chickpeas, onions, mushrooms and curry paste. The children applied skills such as weighing, peeling and using different knife grips such as the claw grip and bridge hold. The children really enjoyed the cooking and enjoyed eating it even more.
Help at home: Follow the recipe with your child at home. Can you make any variations to the recipe to make it even more delicious?
Adjectives are amazing and awesome
We had a fabulous day learning about word classes yesterday and, in particular, adjectives.
We all dressed up as an adjective, learnt a song about adjectives, labelled objects with adjectives and made some interesting expanded noun phrases.
Help at home by talking about your favourite adjectives. Mrs Latham’s is flummoxed, Mrs Brown’s is picky and Miss Young’s is squishy!
English – The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig
Our focus book at the moment is The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig by Eugene Trivizas.
We are linking it to learning about nouns and adjectives in our writing. We are also using our retrieval and inference skills in reading and thinking about the author’s choice or words and phrases.
We have also compared this story to other versions of the Three Little Pigs too.
What’s your favourite rhyme?
We always sing lots of rhymes in Nursery, but as it was World Nursery Rhyme Week, we sang even more than usual! Nursery rhymes are a great way to increase children’s awareness of rhyming, which is a key part of phonological awareness.
Research has shown that children who learn nursery rhymes go on to become better readers. This is only true when they learn these rhymes with an adult – please avoid only letting your child watch nursery rhymes on screens as it doesn’t have the same impact.
This week, lots of our areas of provision were linked to popular rhymes. We used our fine motor skills to Wind the Bobbin Up. Incy Wincy Spider was washed down the spout in the water tray and we created our own spiders remembering to count their legs carefully.
Currant buns with cherries on the top were on the menu in the playdough area.
Outside we made lots of cups of tea, pouring carefully so that we didn’t spill any tea. We enjoyed using lots of different sized teapots.
As always in Nursery we follow children’s interests. Fire engines and fire fighters has been an interest that started after Bonfire Night. We have found out about firefighters using our small world area. This week we helped to put out some “fires” of our own using water sprays. It was great fun and also helped to strengthen the muscles in our fingers. This finger exercise develops the muscles needed to hold a pencil.
Help at home
Here’s a link to lots of popular Nursery Rhymes – pick your favourite to sing along at home, or find a new one to learn together.
Top tip -Leave gaps at the end of the line for the children to complete the rhyme, for example ” Hickory, Hickory dock, the mouse ran up the ……..”
What’s your child’s favourite rhyme?
Send us an email to let us know and we’ll make sure we sing it in Nursery. scholesnursery@spherefederation.org
Reminders
Don’t forget to book an appointment for our Parent Teacher Consultations, you will have received a message about this. On this occasion it is via zoom, next time it will be in person.
Next week, we’re going to read ‘Peace at Last’ by Jill Murphy. In the story Mr Bear hears lots of sounds in his house and he can’t get to sleep. We’ll continue with our Phase 1 phonics learning, listening for environmental sounds around us and we’ll talk about ‘night time’.
Nursery rhyme of the week – Hickory Dickory Dock
Sound of the week – Tt – tiger
Open your lips; put the tip of your
tongue behind your teeth and press
t t t
World Nursery Rhyme Week
This week is World Nursery Rhyme Week. Here are some reasons why nursery rhymes are so valued in early years education.
Across the classroom, children have focused on a range of different nursery rhymes and we have been singing them (even more!) at carpet times.
Each Peach Pear Plum
Linked to World Nursery Rhyme Week, we’ve been reading this classic book by Jane and Allan Ahlberg. The children loved listening carefully for the rhyming words and spotting familiar characters on each page.
Our word of the week is: rhyme
History; Household objects from the past
The pictures in our focus story inspired discussions about household objects from the past and we learnt about some objects we had never seen before. We then compared these to objects we might have at home, in the present.
In addition to pictures, we looked carefully at some old household artefacts and had a go at sorting past and present objects.
Ask your child which objects from the past they can spot in the story picture below. Can they remember what they are called and what they are used for?
Odd Socks
I know how to STOP bullying is our school living and learning statement this week. On Tuesday, we wore odd socks to signify our differences and share the message that we are all different in some way. We discussed how important it is to celebrate our differences and respect everyone.
Stay and Learn; Maths 1
On Wednesday, we had a wonderful morning exploring maths with our adults.
Thank you to all of the parents and carers that were able to join us in the classroom to watch a short lesson, partake in some activities and listen to a teacher presentation.
As always, any feedback on the session is much appreciated to help us know what we are doing well and consider what we might adapt to make our sessions even better in the future. Please use the QR code below to provide your feedback.
If you’d like to access the teacher presentation, please click the link below:
Parent copy SE Maths Mastery presentation stay and learn 2024
Children in Need
Thank you for joining in with non-uniform day, to raise money for Children in Need.
Phonics
This week, we focused on the new GPCs (Grapheme-phoneme correspondence) v, w, x, y.
We’ve also learnt the tricky words; and, has, his, her
Tricky words are words that should be read by sight. We start by identifying which part of the word is ‘tricky’.
Please continue to revisit this week’s sounds, by using the learn at home sheets. Thank you.
Poetry Picnic
Each week we will be learning a new poem. We will recite this poem each day. By saying the poem out loud, we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers. This week’s poem is called A Basket of Apples.
click here to watch Reception recite this week’s poem!
Classroom snapshots
Here are some more snapshots of our learning this week…
Swimming
Children in Need
Today we are celebrating Children in Need. This morning, each teacher has spoken to their class about Children in Need including what it is, what the charity is for and how we can raise money.
Each child has come into school wearing their own clothes and we have raised lots of money as a school which will be donated to Children in Need.
Here are most of our reception and KS1 children after dancing to 2 songs during WUSU.
Maths : ‘1 Minute Maths’ app
We often use the White Rose 1 Minute Maths app in school. It has 1 minute challenges to help children develop their quick recall of maths facts. It’s free to download on tablets or desktop devices.
Class News – Gymnastics and Art
This week in gymnastics, the children explored different ways of jumping and performed a sequence of jumps to the rest of the class.
In Art, we have started our Architecture topic. The children created collages using photographs of buildings designed by famous architects Christopher Wren and Zaha Hadid.
Help at home by listening to your child read regularly and providing opportunities to go on Times Tables Rock Stars.
PE – Gymnastics
All Year 1 and 2 classes are focusing on gymnastics in our PE lessons this half term. We have learnt that it is just another way of moving and balancing, which can keep us fit and healthy.
We have worked on low and high movements, balances and jumps so far. We are looking forward to getting the large apparatus out next week!
