Living and Learning: Odd Socks Day
Well done to everyone who came to school in odd socks today. It was a great way to start Anti-bullying Week! We talked about what the odd socks represented and the importance of respecting differences and treating everybody equally. We watched an assembly to show what Odd Socks Day is about. Click here to watch it.
Phonics Home Learning
To support children’s phonics learning, we use a variety of online resources on a weekly basis.
One of the main phonics websites we use is Phonics Play.
The website is really simple to use and has lots of fun games for each of the phonics phases. Before playing the games, you can select which letters (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes) you want your child to focus on.
If you are unsure on which sounds to select, just look in your child’s book bag or sound book – they bring home new phonemes each week.
The login details are Sphere (user name) and Spher3 (password).
Other useful resources…
We also use the Jolly Phonics Songs when introducing a new phoneme. At home, you could listen and sing-a-long to them when tidying up or making tea.
The BBC Bitesize website has lots of phase 2 videos. These are short clips focussed on the phonemes taught in phase 2. Again, these can be watched at home to help boost your child’s phonics skills.
Phonics Bloom – another website full of simple, fun and exciting phonics games.
F1 Parents
Phase 1 concentrates on developing children’s speaking and listening skills. It supports tuning into different sounds and gets them ready to begin oral blending and segmenting skills. Phonics Play and Phonics Bloom have lots of phase 1 games. Please play these games at home.
Celebration certificates
We have had another busy week! Our certificates this week go to…
For great learning…
Noah – For great work in reading. You have concentrated well and shared your ideas.
For sport and physical activity…
Jacob – For determination in PE – trying to beat your skipping personal best.
For living and learning…
Ralph – For being considerate of others.
Our new class reward system starts next week too. For making good choices throughout the day, children can write their name on a raffle ticket. On a Friday, 5 winners will be drawn out and can choose a prize from the Raffle Reward box.
FANTASTIC FOUNDATION
Here are some highlights of another fantastic week in Foundation:
PE
On Wednesday, the children made safe risks when climbing and travelling on the big apparatus – Mrs Small was very impressed! They showed great determination and perseverance especially when climbing the ladder.
Living and Learning
Speaking of perseverance, it’s our Christian value for this half-term. Last Friday, Foundation made some perseverance stars in their Living and Learning session. They drew a picture of something they’d like to get better at. We discussed how we could achieve our perseverance stars.
Literacy
On Monday and Tuesday, F2 were authors and planned their own versions of the Three Little Pigs. The children changed the title, the characters, the materials and the ending. Check out their amazing planning!
Remembrance
On Wednesday, it was Remembrance Day. To celebrate the day, we made a poppy wreath. You might have seen it on our window next to the classroom door. The children also made poppies at the playdough table. Throughout the week, the children have shared their own knowledge and understanding about Remembrance Day.
Some more highlights of this week…
In Foundation, we love to observe children doing child-initiated writing. Here’s some great examples!
“I’m drawing my family. Now I need to draw my daddy.”
“I’m drawing the brick house.”
“I’m drawing the straw house.”
“I’m drawing the stick house.”
This week, the maths challenge involved counting and recognising numerals to 10. The children used 1:1 correspondence when counting their cubes to match each of the numbers. For the star challenge, they had to put(add) two towers together to find the total.
F1 Group Time
On Monday, they designed new houses for the three pigs.
On Tuesday, the children continued with their phase one phonics learning. They were asked to listen to the different percussion instruments and match the sounds with some animal puppets. E.g. Castanet sounds like a horse trotting.
Home-Link Challenge
Next week, is Nursery Rhyme week. Your child will have brought home some nursery rhymes. To help us great ready for next week’s learning, please practise these at home.
Nursery rhymes boost vocabulary and language development. They also support children’s literacy and early numeracy skills.
Children In Need
We’ve had such a fun day celebrating Children In Need.
Getting creative with clay
This week, we’ve been enriching our history topic with some clay work. We looked carefully at some pictures of stone age jewellery and how it advanced throughout the bronze and iron age.
We decided to use clay to recreate some jewellery from the stone age. We practised shaping the clay and created different shapes including bone and teeth shapes. Then we practised using a variety of tools to create patterns and add detail to each bead.
After that, we mixed some paints using similar colours available during this period. We’re looking forward to painting our jewellery to create our finished product.
Odd Socks Day
To kick off Anti-Bullying Week next week, we are taking part in Odd Socks Day. All you need to do is come to school wearing odd socks! This will help us celebrate what makes us all unique!
English – all about nouns
This week, we have been learning about how different words can have different ‘jobs’. We have talked about nouns this week. We learnt a song to help us.
NOUNS
Every person, place or thing,
Needs a name and so we sing,
Nouns means names.
We went on a noun hunt around our classroom – there are nouns everywhere!
Handwriting – a helpful video
The Year 1s we have started learning how to write letters using a lead-in line. We have practised ‘c’ and ‘o’ so far. Next week, we will be practising ‘a’. In year two, children are encouraged to join letters. A copy of the handwriting guide can be found here. Try watching this at home to support your child’s learning. (This is a YouTube link. Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog along the play bar and turn off autoplay – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip.)
Children In Need
It’s Children In Need this Friday and we are celebrating it by having a non-uniform day – the first one for Foundation!
Children can come to school in their own clothes.
Please remember that we enjoy getting messy in Foundation so make sure your child still comes to school in suitable clothing and footwear.
