Living and learning : Strong emotions
In our Living and Learning sessions we have been talking about our feelings, and in particular, strong emotions. We all have felt angry, sad and happy at some point. We identified different emotions and when we might have felt them. We talked about how emotions can feel overwhelming but will pass over time.
Let’s GO!
We’ve sprung into Spring 2 with great excitement for the term ahead! We are very impressed with how both Sunshine and Rainbow class have shown a readiness to learn. The children have been really excited to share with their friends all the adventures they have been up to during half term. Outside, it’s been pretty rainy and drizzly but we’re looking forward to spotting signs of the new Season.
The Train Ride
This half term is called Let’s Go! We’re starting with a focus on transport. This week, we’ve been reading The Train Ride by June Crebbin.
This story is about things that are seen out of the window, on a train journey. We noticed that the rhythm of the book’s repeated/rhyming lines start fast and repetitive (much like the sound of a train chugging along a track) and then as the train approaches the station, the lines become longer and the pace slows down until the train reaches is destination. Destination is our ‘word of the week’.
We’ve been discussing journeys that we have been on, either on trains or other modes of transport and what destinations we were going to. We’ve been writing about what we might see out of the train window.
The children wrote some fantastic sentences about what they can see out of their window. Lots of children remembered to add in finger spaces too – well done!
Historical links
We looked at pictures of the early steam locomotive- Robert Stephenson’s Rocket. We compared it to the trains we use today.
In the discovery area, we’ve been ordering images of trains from oldest to newest.
Maths: Comparison
We’ve been comparing groups of objects and toys, saying which has more and which has fewer. We’ve been using our mathematical reasoning to explain why size, colour and other factors do not matter when comparing ‘how many’.
No, Mrs Flynn, Sam still has more aeroplanes than Pat. It doesn’t matter about the size or colour. What matters is the amount you count!
In the classroom, children have been making 6 using Numicon frames.
ICT- Programming a BeeBot
We’ve been learning how to programme a BeeBot. This week we’ve been ‘having a go’ at pressing the buttons and making them move. We’ll be continuing our learning over the next few weeks, learning about algorithms and programming. We will learn to use sequences of instructions, to programme the BeeBot to reach a destination.
Phonics
Spring 2 week 1 has been a review of phase 3 sounds: ai, ee, igh, oa, oo, ar, or, ur, oo, ow, oi, ear, in words and sentences. We review tricky words daily.
Tricky words can be just that-tricky! We’ve previously introduced a few fun games you can play at home to practice tricky words. Here’s another you could try.
Roll and Read
You will need a die for this game. You may wish to print the boards or display them on a screen.
- Roll the die
- Count the spots, match to the correct row
- Choose a word to read on the row
- Cover the word when read correctly
- Repeat
Who will be the first to complete a row?
PE
We are excited to continue having both swimming and Foot-Tech this half term.
Here is another reminder of the swimming dates:
These dates are also stuck to your child’s classroom door or window to view whenever needed.
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 Pancakes by Christina Rossetti
Click below to watch Reception recite this week’s poem!
We talk about how a poem sometimes has rhyming words and sometimes doesn’t. Can your child tell you the rhyming words in this week’s poem? We also talk about how a poem can have a fast rhythm or a slow rhythm. Can your child re-tell this week’s poem to you?
Reminders and Messages
Monday 04 March- Class Trip to The National Railway Museum.
World Book Day 2024- Thursday 07 March Please join us in the classroom (9.00-10.00) where you can relax and read books with your child. We’d also like your child to share their favourite book with their friends. Please send your child into school with their favourite book and please ensure the book is named. As stated on the school calendar, this is a dressing up year. Dressing up is optional. Thank you.
Sponsored maths challenge: Please see the Sponsored Tens Frame Challenge letter, which has come home with your child this week.
Design Technology – Food
1,2B had our turn in The Hub this week completing our fruit salad recipe.
We peeled, chopped, sliced and segmented our hearts out! The best part is the tasting though, of course.
Help at home by involving your child in food preparation and cooking. It helps with sequencing, fine motor control, maths, science and so much more!
1,2B Class Reward
As part of our reward system at school, we work as a class to achieve a short term target. We have been trying to come in after lunch and work on our spellings quietly. It’s taken a bit longer than some other targets, but we achieved our 10 smiley faces this week. We all get a vote on what we’d like our reward to be. It was a landslide for the new adventure playground!
Help at home by helping your child choose a target they can work towards, with a reward at the end!
Arty Ideas
During weekly art sessions, we focus on different art skills, often in our ‘Arty Ideas’ books. This week, we were looking at regular and irregular patterns. We discussed what makes a pattern regular or irregular and then had a go at creating some of our own. It was great to see how each pattern is unique, just like the children!
Help at home by looking for patterns around your house or environment (eg wallpaper, flooring, walls, fences).
PE – dodgeball
We have been having a great time over the last few weeks learning lots of new dodgeball games. As a class, we are very competent players at the original game, however the children needed to test their skills at some brand new games. Dodgeball is a fast paced game that requires quick movements, good defence and an accurate aim. The children played games of ‘poison ball’ which is a ‘last person standing’ game. They played large team games such as ‘benchball dodgeball’. This involves losing your team to a bench on the opposite side of the court if they are hit. It’s a game of attack and defence. These new games have definitely been great fun and we are all out of breath by the end of our PE sessions.
Poem of the week: On The Ning Nang Nong!
Every week we have a different poem of the week. We read this every day in school. This week we are reading On The Ning Nang Nong by Spike Milligan.
Day 1 – Miss Young reads the poem to the class and models fluency.
Day 2 – Miss Young reads with the class and we focus on our prosody.
Day 3 – The class read it without Miss Young.
Day 4 – Children read the poem on their own and in a pair.
Day 5 – We all have a practise of saying the poem with our best fluency and prosody, without looking at the words. The poem is then sent home as part of children’s homework.
See below a video of 2C reading their poem of the week. This is day 3!
KS1 visit from our lovely lollipop lady, Sue
Today, the whole of KS1 had a very special visitor. Our beloved lollipop lady, Sue. She came along to inform our history learning and shared her memories of shopping as a youngster.
The children all listened carefully as Sue told us how there were not as many shops as there are now and how there weren’t any supermarkets. You needed to go to lots of different types of shops for your groceries such as a butchers, a bakery or a green grocers. Sue’s father was a green grocer and he started out his business by selling tomatoes from a box which he carried around on his head!
Sweets and pop were a once weekly treat and snacks weren’t really readily available. It was mainly just three meals a day. There was no choice of meals either – everyone in the family ate the same thing and you rarely got to choose what it was. This was the same at school. There was only one choice of school dinner or you could go home for lunch. Meals were seasonal. You had to wait until fruits and vegetables were in season to eat them. You couldn’t get them in the shops all year round like you can today.
The children loved that Sue passed through the gates today to join them in class and the session was very interesting and informative. Thank you Sue!
Help at home – Talk to your child about what shopping was like when you were a child. You could also ask older family members, friends or neighbours to share their experiences with your child just like Sue did. Questions that may help your discussions might be:
- What kind of shops did you buy your food from?
- How did you pay? Were you able to pay with your phone or watch?
- What kinds of foods were available? Was there as much choice as there is today?
- What was your favourite meal? Is it the same now?
- Did you get your shopping delivered?
- Do you have any photographs that you could share together?
Wanted! Baby photos
Next week, we’re learning about growing up and looking at how we change as we get older.
It would be great if we could look at some photographs of children when they were babies and toddlers. If you are able to, please send us an email with one photograph of your child as a baby and one photograph of them as a toddler. We’ll use these in group time and will also be adding them to our Home Corner family display.
Flavoursome Fruit Salad
What a welcome back to school! Yesterday, Class 1A spent the afternoon working on the latest DT project. We made fruit salad… and delicious they were too!
We started the same as we always do with a food project – by washing our hands and making sure that they’re nice and clean. Bye bye germs! The children then worked in groups to prepare fruit for a tasty fruit salad. We thought about the word ‘ingredients‘ and looked at the selection that we had… bananas, oranges, kiwi fruit, strawberries, grapes, tinned pineapple and tinned peaches and orange juice. Mrs Brown demonstrated how to slice the fruit safely and then we used the bridge hold to slice our own pieces of fruit. We also used other skills such as peeling by hand and segmenting fruit.
Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the process and we shared the resources respectfully. Nearly everyone devoured their fruit salad giving a huge thumbs up. Others gave new fruits a lick to see if they liked it. Mrs Brown was very proud of them all!
Well done for great careful listening Class 1A!
Help at home – under careful supervision, you could give your child experiences of helping to prepare their own foods for breakfast, lunch or dinner. They could help to measure out liquids that you need for a recipe for the family. They could use child appropriate knives to prepare fruits and vegetables for meals or snacks. Perhaps they could begin to help to prepare their own healthy snack to bring to school?