Whatever Next!

Friday 01 December 2023

This week, we listened to another of Jill Murphy’s stories about a family of bears, titled ‘Whatever Next’.  It’s about a little bear who went on an adventure to the moon. He used a cardboard box as a rocket, some wellies as his space boots and a colander for a space helmet. He packed some food and shot up the chimney into space. When he got there, he enjoyed a picnic with his friend owl.  What would you take into space with you?

In maths, we’ve been learning to compare quantities using language such as ‘more than’ and ‘fewer than’. E.g. The blue plate has fewer cookies than the blue plate or I have more cookies than you.

It is easier to compare sets when there is a big difference in the number of objects. Children will do this by perceptually judging which has more. Just by looking, children will notice that Big Bear has more apples than Little Bear, and Little Bear has fewer apples than Big Bear.

Image source: NCETM.

Help at home: Try and use some of this language at home. Children are often familiar with the words ‘more’ and ‘most’ but don’t often hear ‘fewer/fewest’.  Who has the fewest bricks?  Do we have the same number of grapes?  Who has more beads?

 

Next week’s learning: 

We look forward to reading ‘Stickman’ by Julia Donaldson in our story times next week.  If you don’t have a copy of the book at home, you might enjoy watching the BBC animation together.

In maths, we’re learning about length so will be using the words long, short, longer and shorter to compare different objects.

Nursery rhyme of the week – We’ll be busy learning songs for our Christmas show, ‘Santa’s Hat’ so please keep singing your favourite rhymes together at home.

Sound of the week – i for iguana

Reminders