Our Christmas performance
We are so proud of the children’s Christmas performance so far. The children have been joining in with their singing and acting parts really well. We are looking forward to inviting you to watch the performance on Thursday 8 December (10.00-10.45) or Friday 9 December (1.30-2.15).
A reminder if you haven’t already – please ensure your child’s costume is in school. We will be doing a dress rehearsal next week.
Owl babies
This week in literacy we have been reading the book ‘Owl babies’ by Martin Waddell. We drew a story map and retold the story using words and actions. Some children were so inspired that they decided to write their own book about ‘Owl babies’. We shared the books during story time.
A book re-telling the Owl babies story by Mollie –
A book about a ‘fluttering snowflake and owls’ by Grace –
Every week, we look at a new adventurous word. We call this our ‘word of the week’. This week our word of the week was ‘nocturnal’. We looked at the definition – ‘active at night’, drew pictures to represent nocturnal animals and used the word nocturnal in our everyday speech.
“The owl is nocturnal” William said.
“Percy (owl) is nocturnal…he’s active at night!” Grace said.
“I was nocturnal when I was a baby! I was always up at night.” Esme said.
Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog (it’s along the play bar) and turn off auto play – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip.
Maths – accurate counting
This week, we have been focussing on accurately counting out objects and remembering to stop. The teachers had lost their counting skills and kept counting out too many objects – it was very silly and made the children laugh! Mrs Flynn tried to collect and count out 4 teddy bears but she forgot to stop and kept on counting. The children had to re-teach the teachers and remind them to STOP at the stopping number (the number of objects asked to collect).
Often, when counting out a number of objects, children will forget to stop at the correct number. The skill to stop at the correct number is something we focus on and call cardinality.
Ask your child to collect a number of objects at home. Can they STOP at the correct number?
Phonics
This week, the children haven’t learnt any new phonemes. It has been our ‘review week’ where we review all the phonemes we have learnt so far. They’ve also been practicing reading words with ‘s’ at the end. Can your child read the following words?
zips
ships
ducks
chips
We have learnt a lot of tricky words so far and it is a real challenge for your child to remember them all. To support your child’s reading, play the game below.
A tricky word is a word you cannot sound out – you just have to know it by sight!
Phonics home-link activity
Play tricky word BOO!
What you will need:
- the following tricky words written on individual pieces of paper; and, as, I, is, the, and, has, we, me, be, he, she and his.
- the word BOO written on a few pieces of paper
- cup (to put the words in)
How to play:
- Take it in turns to pick a word out of the cup.
- Read the word.
- If you pick BOO you have to put all of your words back!
- The person who has collected the most tricky words at the end wins!
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. This week’s poem is ‘wise old owl’.
We talk about how a poem sometimes has rhyming words and sometimes doesn’t. Can your child tell you the rhyming words in this weeks poem? We also talk about how a poem can have a fast rhythm or a slow rhythm. Can your child tell you if this week’s poem is fast or slow?
Stamps!
Next week, your child will be learning all about what happens to our post when reading the story ‘The Jolly Christmas Postman’. To enhance your child’s learning experience, we will be writing and then posting a postcard home.
If you would like your child’s postcard to be posted through the Royal Mail please provide a stamp in a named envelope by Friday 9th December. Alternatively, your child’s postcard will be brought home by your child.
