w/c 17.04.23
We are looking forward to seeing all your 'Not a box!' creations - please bring them or a photograph of them with you to school this week. Don't worry if you forget on Monday, just bring it in any day and we will find the time to 'Show and Tell' them all!
This week we will be assessing the children's phonics individually, in preparation for new groups the following week.
Our focus in Maths is on cardinality, ordinality and counting. We will be completing week 21 of the NCETM's mastering number programme.
This week, the children will continue to engage with activities that draw attention to the purpose of counting – to find out ‘how many’ objects there are. The children will also revisit the concept of cardinality – the idea that the last number in the count tells us how many things there are altogether. They will be given further opportunities to hear, join in with and develop their knowledge of the counting sequence, and, once they have become secure with their counting skills, they will be able to continue the counting sequence and be able to identify missing numbers within it. While consolidating their understanding of the word pattern embedded within most of our number names, the children will also be given opportunities to hear and practise key differences in the number names e.g. between ‘teen’ and ‘-ty’ numbers.
A key area of focus this week will be to develop confidence in counting strategies, including counting on from different starting numbers. The children will also consider strategies for counting larger numbers of objects, including those that cannot be moved. Practical activities – such as using counting wands and helping a puppet to develop their counting skills – will help to embed these key areas of understanding. During classroom routines, the children should also be given further opportunities to hear, and join in with, counts beyond 20. Adults should continue to draw attention to the pattern of the counting numbers beyond 20, e.g. by pausing and giving children time to anticipate the repeating pattern by saying, ‘twenty, twenty… ONE, twenty-two…’.
The children will have previously heard and joined in with counting activities. They will also have ordered numbers to 10 and explored cardinality by focusing on the ‘stopping number’.
As they move towards Year 1, the children will develop their counting skills by organising and counting larger sets of a wide range of objects. They will be able to use counting skills in a range of contexts, including counting things that cannot be seen (for example, the number of beats on a drum) or using counting to measure time (for example, when playing hide-and-seek).
The children’s growing understanding of ordinality will develop into a generalisation that every whole number is ‘1 more than’ the previous number, and ‘1 less than’ the following number. This will begin to provide a depth of understanding about our counting system, and will support activities such as positioning numbers on scales and number lines as the children move through Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2.
In Literacy we will be writing about our Easter holidays and working really hard on our handwriting.
We are looking forward to warmer weather. Please remember to bring your named water bottles and as it gets sunnier don't forget to apply long lasting suncream before school and to bring a hat. Children may bring their own suncream to school, but need to be able to apply it themselves.