Night Monkey, Day Monkey
We’ve been reading Night Monkey, Day Monkey by Julia Donaldson.
The story follows two monkeys who find themselves awake at their opposite times of day. They are very confused by what they see and need help understanding everything! Our word of the week is: nocturnal. We know that nocturnal means “active at night”
We’ve been writing about nocturnal animals and features of day/night.
Understanding the World- Science; shadows
We’ve been investigating shadows, by spotting them outside and by exploring a ‘dark tent’. We know that to make a shadow, we need a source of light. When that source of light is blocked, it casts a shadow. We explored using mirrors to reflect lights differently and used colour paddles to change the colour being projected onto the tent wall. We’re looking forward to continuing our dark tent investigations next week.
Maths; part-whole
In Maths, we’ve been looking at the ‘parts’ that make the whole of something. For example, the parts of us that make our whole body. Our head, eyes, legs etc. are the parts and our body is the whole. Here is a detailed explanation of how this understanding is a crucial knowledge base for later mathematical learning:
“Composition of number is a key area of mathematics … By investigating their own bodies and familiar toys they will begin to understand that whole things are often made up of smaller parts and that a whole is, therefore, bigger than its parts… As part of their work on subitising, the children have previously begun to spot numbers within numbers, and this skill of de-composing and combining numbers (taking them apart and putting them back together again) will build firm foundations for later calculation strategies”
-NCETM Mastering Number 2021/2022
Maths Stay and Learn
A big thank you to all the parents and carers who joined us on Monday for our Maths Stay and Learn session. We hope you enjoyed seeing a lesson in action and taking part in activities with your child. Hopefully, you have also come away with some ideas on how to support your child further at home. If you do have any further questions or would like any further advice, please don’t hesitate to ask the class teachers.
We’d Love Your Feedback
Thank you again for joining our Stay and Learn session. We’d love to hear your thoughts! Please scan the QR code to fill out our feedback form.
Expressive Arts and Design; Artist Focus- Howardena Pindell
We’ve been discovering the art of American artist Howardena Pindell. Take a look at our thoughts about some of her artwork.
In Reception, we are focused on the art process. We try and replicate the art we see through exploring different methods and mediums. We also make comments on what we like or dislike about the art we see.
Much of Pindell’s art is based around ‘the circle’. This week, we’ve been using hole punches to make a stencil in squares of card.
Next week, we’ll use a sponge printing method and our pre-made stencils to create our art.
Phonics
Autumn 2 week 3 has focused on the single letter phoneme z and digraphs zz, qu, ch
We’ve learnt the tricky words; go, no, to, into
Tricky words are words that should be read by sight.
In provision, we’ve been playing what’s in the box and reading the words to match pictures we find.
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 Basket of Apples.
We talk about how a poem sometimes has rhyming words and sometimes doesn’t. We also talk about how a poem can have a fast rhythm or a slow rhythm.
Click below to watch Rainbow class recite this week’s poem
Understanding the world; Snow much fun!
The turning weather and snow brought so much excitement this week. It was lovely to see the fascination and wonder, as we explored the snow and ice outside. The interest led us to creating our own ‘ice experiment’, leaving bowls of water overnight in the hopes that they would freeze!
Help at home; Stars
Next week, we’ll be looking to the skies again! We are reading How to Catch a Star and learning about the night sky.
We know this is a topic of interest for many children in Reception. If you have any books or resources to share that are linked to this topic, we would love to see them.
Reminders and Diary Dates
Learning Journey Drop in 01.12.25 & 04.12.25; 3.00-3.30pm – An opportunity to “drop into” school and share your child’s learning journal with them.
DT cooking
What a fantastic day we have had in 1A. The children have been making banana sandwiches as part of our DT Food. This is part of our curriculum and the children will be making two further recipes over the course of the year. We washed our hands and tied back our hair to make sure we were safe. After getting our ingredients together we used skills like cutting, slicing, spreading and sprinkling. Some of us loved the sandwiches, others weren’t keen. I am happy to say everybody had a taste! Well done for trying something new 1A!
Help at home by encouraging your child to join in with the preparation or cooking of food.
Design and Technology (Food) – 2C
We completed our DT Food learning for this term this week. This is part of our curriculum and the children will be making two further recipes over the course of the year. We made banana sandwiches using peeling, cutting, slicing, spreading and sprinkling skills.
Help at home by encouraging your child to join in with the preparation or cooking of food.
Marvellous Maths
This week our Year 1 children have been learning all about odd and even numbers.. They are incredibly secure at counting from 0-10 and fantastic at counting backwards.
We have been recognising the value of numicon and organising it into odd and even numbers.
‘Even numbers have a flat top’.
‘Odd numbers are made of pairs and one more’.
We did the same with numerals!
Help at home: by discussing numbers and how they reach their value. E.g. ‘4 is made of 2 pairs, 5 is made of 2 pairs and one more.’
We are artists!
We were developing our subject knowledge as artists this week. The children were given a range of different artwork ranging from paintings to sculptures. The children were great at recognising some of the artists and the names of the artwork. They sorted the images however they wished in their groups and talked about their choices. A lot of the groups categorised them according to figurative or abstract and they showed a great understanding of these terms. They were able to discuss their favourite pieces using accurate vocabulary.
Reading and writing
This half term, KS1 are reading ‘Not Now, Bernard’ by David McKee. Before reading the book, we had a good look at the front cover and made a few inferences based on the pictures. We had a discussion about what the book might be about before reading it. We used clues on the front cover to help us with this. We’re then using it to write descriptions using adjectives. We’ll write them about the monster in the book and our own invented monsters too.
The monster has sharp, pointy teeth. He is huge and purple. He is loud and scary.
Help at home by reading every night to your child. It is fine (and beneficial) to read and re-read books many times.
Design and Technology (Food) – 1,2B
We completed our DT Food learning for this term this week. This is part of our curriculum and the children will be making two further recipes over the course of the year. We made banana sandwiches using peeling, cutting, slicing, spreading and sprinkling skills.
Help at home by encouraging your child to join in with the preparation or cooking of food.
Reading – Varjak Paw by S.F. Said
In recent Reading sessions, Year 3 and 4 enjoyed reading an extract from Varjak Paw by S.F. Said.
We practised key our retrieval and inference skills – two key aspects of reading.
Marshall came in on Monday and said, ‘I’ve bought Varjak Paw over the weekend so I continue reading the whole book!’
Help at home by reading every day with your child.
Diving Below Zero in Year 5 Maths
This week in Year 5 maths we have begun our new unit on negative numbers, and the children have already shown great curiosity as they explored what happens when numbers drop below zero. We discussed real-life examples such as temperatures, lifts travelling underground, and money in a bank account to help the class understand how the number line continues past zero into negative values. The children practised counting forwards and backwards through zero, comparing and ordering negative numbers, and creating change stories with negative values. It has been brilliant to see so many children challenging themselves and explaining their reasoning with growing confidence.
Help at home: ask your child to explain how the number line works when it goes below zero and challenge them to give you a real-life example of a negative number.
Each Peach Pear Plum
We’ve had such a busy week! We enjoyed celebrating World Nursery Rhyme Week, marking Remembrance Day, taking part in Odd Socks Day and supporting Children in Need.
World Nursery Rhyme Week
Children loved taking part in World Nursery Rhyme Week, singing and exploring some of our favourite rhymes. Nursery rhymes play an important role in early years education for many reasons. Here’s an overview of a few of them.
If you’d like to find out even more, you can read about seven key benefits of nursery rhymes for young children on the BBC Tiny Happy People website.
Each Peach Pear Plum
Linked to World Nursery Rhyme Week, we’ve been reading the classic Ahlberg book, Each Peach Pear Plum. We listened for rhyming words and spotted familiar fairy-tale and nursery-rhyme characters hidden in the illustrations.
History: Household objects from the past
The illustrations in our focus story inspired discussions about household objects from the past and we learnt about some objects that we had never seen before. We 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 this picture from the story. Can they remember what they are called and what they are used for?
Phonics
This week, we focused on the new GPCs (Grapheme-phoneme correspondence) v, w, x, y.
We’ve also learnt some new tricky words; and, has, his, her. Tricky words are words that should be read by sight.
Help at home – Please continue to revisit this week’s sounds and tricky words using the ‘Learn at home’ sheets.
Poem Of The week
This week’s poem is called ‘Shoes‘.
Reminders
- It’s our Number Stay and Learn session on Tuesday 18 November (9–10am). We hope you can join us for a short maths lesson, followed by some time in the classroom taking part in maths activities with your child.
- Please make sure all uniform is clearly named. Please could you also double-check that your child has brought home the correct uniform, as jumpers and cardigans can sometimes end up in the wrong place!
- Rain, rain and more rain! Please ensure that your child has a pair of wellington boots at school so that they can enjoy learning outside in all weathers.
Next week:
We’ll read Night Monkey, Day Monkey and explore how the two monkeys experience the world at different times of day. We’ll also be learning about daytime and night time activities, including discovering some amazing nocturnal animals.