Week Ending 22.1.16

This week we have started our topic 'Let's Pretend..'. We have been pretending to be pirates.

We went on a pirate treasure hunt where we had to travel through swishy grass, over soft golden sand, through a dark cave and across the ocean. The children even had to escape a crocodile but they eventually found a treasure chest.

The children drew their own treasure map and labelled it, trying to hear as many sounds in each word.

In maths we have been working on subtraction. We used to number line and counted backwards and also have pirate coins to be able to solve subtraction number sentences e.g. 10 - 4 = It would be great to practise subtraction at home - the children can use their fingers and do subtraction by putting their fingers down to find the answer. We used the vocabulary subtract, minus and take away so the
children get used to all of these different words.

We have put the children into phonic groups so that they are being taught the sounds they need to know next or recapping on sounds that they haven't retained yet.

Week Ending 15.1.16

This week we had the story 'The 3 Little Pigs' and the children were able to retell the story verbally. They also wrote a sentence about the story. The children also had a go at writing another sentence using simple cvc words, this was to encourage them to think about the sounds they could hear in the words, work on letter formation and remember finger spaces and full stops. The children tried really hard with this. The children can practise writing at home too - please encourage them to remember about listening to the sounds and forming the letters correctly.

We have learnt the tricky words the, I, to, go and into. these are words that the children need to learn to recognise as they cannot be sounded out. Please feel free to write these on cards and have them up at home to practise.

In maths we have been revising one more and one less than any given number to 20. the children have looked at numberlines to help with this and they have have used objects so they can do the activity practically.

We also assessed what sounds the children have remembered so that we can give out sounds games, blend games or reading books depending on how they got on with the sound checks.

Week Ending 8.1.16

Happy New Year!

We're pleased to see all the children settle back into school after the Christmas holidays - we hope you all had a good break.

Thank you for helping with the handwriting homework - this will really help this term when we start to do more formal writing.

This week we have discussed our holidays. We talked about the things we liked doing with our families and about the presents we got for Christmas.

We have been assessing how much progress the children have made with their maths. Thank you for the maths work you are doing at home as it is making a difference!

We introduced our new topic 'Let's Pretend' and the children discussed what they would like to learn in this topic and what they wanted to pretend to be - some very interesting ideas came up!

Don't forget next week the children will be starting PE so they will need a PE kit but they will not need PE shoes until the summer term.

Have a good weekend!