w/c 24.10.22
It was lovely to see you all in person for 'Parent's Evening' and we hope you all had a lovely half term break!
We will be starting our phonics this week with a re-cap on all the sounds covered so far and to check they've all been remembered after the holiday. We will all be working hard to help Fred the Frog to blend 3 letter words. Also, we will have a go at writing the letters to match the phonic sound with the correct letter formation. So this week we will only have 3 new sounds - sh (our first 'special friends' sound or digraph), r and j. The rest of our Literacy lessons will be based around the story of 'Room on the Broom' and the PTA Hallowe'en disco. We will send home phonic sheets for sh, r and j as well as the links for these.
In Maths we will be completing week 5 of the NCETM's Mastering Number programme.
The comparison of quantities is something that children begin to do as babies. The activities this week will focus on developing this innate skill as children are encouraged to look carefully and use the language of comparison to describe sets of objects that they can see. Language is a key focus and adults will model the language of ‘more than’ and ‘fewer than’ to describe how many objects there are in each set. ‘Fewer than’ is used rather than ‘less than’ because the focus is on countable things.
A key point this week is to think carefully about the objects that you choose to use with the children: consider what is the same and what is different. By varying attributes such as colour and size one at a time, you can draw attention to the numerosity as the attribute of the set that you want the children to compare.
Previously, the children may have had practical experience of observing when they had more of something compared to someone else. In their work on subitising and composition, they will have begun to develop an understanding of increasing quantity.
Moving forwards, children will learn that quantities cannot always be compared by ‘just looking’ and they will need to use pairing to compare. Seeing that objects in 2 sets can be matched without any being left over will help draw attention to situations in which quantities are equal. When children have a secure understanding of how to compare quantities, they will be better able to order amounts in KS1. In KS2, they will go on to compare multiple quantities and sequence them from the fewest to the most. An understanding of comparison will also help them to develop estimating skills, by allowing children to compare what they already know about quantity to an unknown quantity.
Thank you for discussing the menu choices each morning with your child before drop off - it is really helping us to speed through the dinner register and allowing us to make a quicker start to our learning. Please carry on with this, as it may help the children to try other meals as well as the jacket potatoes! If the children's water bottles run out, we do re-fill them for them and they also have a beaker of water in the dining hall.
In Art this week we will be learning about the work of Piet Mondrian and starting some whole class collage work!
In P.E. we will continue work on improving our core strength in our 'Big Moves' sessions and we will be finishing off a series on lessons in dance based around Autumn.
Of course, the highlight of the week will be the PTA disco! As Hallowe'en is fast approaching, we will have a go at an activity to keep our funky fingers moving by hammering golf tees into pumpkins - which we will then use to make our own pumpkin soup. We're sure there will be many other fabulous potions made in the mud kitchen!
We will be making sure everyone changes their bedtime story books and we would encourage you to read with your child as frequently as possible and pop any comments into their reading record. You can share comments about any books or comics that you have been reading at home in the record - it doesn't just need to be the school ones.
Remember to book an appointment to get your child's eyes tested at the Opticians. It is free for the children and they do not need to know their letter names/sounds for the test to be carried out. Also a visit to the Opticians will tie in really well with our new topic about 'People who help us.'
If any parents or grandparents are free and wish to volunteer in class, the outside play area or the school garden on a regular basis, please let a member of staff know.