Saturday 28th January 2017
Hi!! Sorry about the gap!!
Christmas is just so busy!!
Happy New Year (better late than never!!)
Literacy (and Topic)
Our first three weeks back in the New Year have been rather odd as we haven't had more than 6 or 8 children in and often different children each day or week - so we have done some little short projects!!
We began by finding a note from Pirate Captain Killer Karen, who needed some new sailors (Deck-hands) to join her pirate ship - the White Shark.
One child said they were scared and didn't want to go, so another suggested we should just send all the Dads instead!!!!
Our new pirates made their pirate outfits and wrote a letter to their parents to say where they had gone - off on a new world adventure!! And we all now have a Pirate name!
We have read books and stories about pirates and learnt about a compass and the directions - North, South, East and West. We even made our own compass by magnetising a needle and floating it on water so it turned to point North.
This also led to a lot of play and investigation of magnets and which materials are attracted to magnets and which not!
We haven't managed to set sail for the new world yet as we are waiting for a few more of our Deck-hands to come back!!
But we have made pirate hats, eye patches and cutlasses!
We are now very good at knowing the days of the week and putting them in the right order, so we are now concentrating on the months of the year (very important as it means we can all talk alot!! about our birthdays!!!).
This week we have done a mini project after reading an excellent book by Julia Donaldson, called Stick Man.
We have written a letter, pretending to be Stick Man, telling his children he is trying to get home, and have all made our own Stick Man (or Lady), as well as a few extra stick people to put on our display!!
We have also watched the BBC animation of the Stick Man (which is very well done and definitely worth watching if you can watch BBC iplayer!!).
Maths
We have looked at and practised counting in 5s and noticed that all the numbers we say when we do this end in a 5 or 0!
We have learnt lots of new names for 3D shapes and can tell the difference between a 2D and 3D shape. We have counted faces, edges and vertices.
We had a go at making our own 3D shapes from the magnetic construction set and made labels for them on our display shelves.
This also prompted lots of building projects, where they were telling us what shapes they had used....
We have also started to learn about number sentences with missing numbers. First we looked at how the equals sign acts as a balance scale and we have to try to make it balance by making the numbers on each side have the same value.
This also prompted lots of exploration using the balance scales!!
We have also looked at how we can use a number line to help us add and subtract - but you have to be careful...... or Miss Karen might trick you and make you go the wrong way!!
Homework
Homework has changed a little bit - please check your child's folder for the letter!!
But it must still be returned on Thursday! This is the day when I have time to mark homework and check returned books.
Reading - Please note that we will only change/give new reading books if an adult has signed the form (in the back of the file) to say that the books have been read!!
Writing - we are now trying to help the children to remember how to write some of the tricky words, so the emphasis is more on remembering the correct spelling - but they do still need to think about their handwriting and the sizes of the letters.
Hi!! Sorry about the gap!!
Christmas is just so busy!!
Happy New Year (better late than never!!)
Literacy (and Topic)
Our first three weeks back in the New Year have been rather odd as we haven't had more than 6 or 8 children in and often different children each day or week - so we have done some little short projects!!
We began by finding a note from Pirate Captain Killer Karen, who needed some new sailors (Deck-hands) to join her pirate ship - the White Shark.
One child said they were scared and didn't want to go, so another suggested we should just send all the Dads instead!!!!
Our new pirates made their pirate outfits and wrote a letter to their parents to say where they had gone - off on a new world adventure!! And we all now have a Pirate name!
We have read books and stories about pirates and learnt about a compass and the directions - North, South, East and West. We even made our own compass by magnetising a needle and floating it on water so it turned to point North.
This also led to a lot of play and investigation of magnets and which materials are attracted to magnets and which not!
We haven't managed to set sail for the new world yet as we are waiting for a few more of our Deck-hands to come back!!
But we have made pirate hats, eye patches and cutlasses!
We are now very good at knowing the days of the week and putting them in the right order, so we are now concentrating on the months of the year (very important as it means we can all talk alot!! about our birthdays!!!).
This week we have done a mini project after reading an excellent book by Julia Donaldson, called Stick Man.
We have written a letter, pretending to be Stick Man, telling his children he is trying to get home, and have all made our own Stick Man (or Lady), as well as a few extra stick people to put on our display!!
We have also watched the BBC animation of the Stick Man (which is very well done and definitely worth watching if you can watch BBC iplayer!!).
Maths
We have looked at and practised counting in 5s and noticed that all the numbers we say when we do this end in a 5 or 0!
We have learnt lots of new names for 3D shapes and can tell the difference between a 2D and 3D shape. We have counted faces, edges and vertices.
We had a go at making our own 3D shapes from the magnetic construction set and made labels for them on our display shelves.
This also prompted lots of building projects, where they were telling us what shapes they had used....
We have also started to learn about number sentences with missing numbers. First we looked at how the equals sign acts as a balance scale and we have to try to make it balance by making the numbers on each side have the same value.
This also prompted lots of exploration using the balance scales!!
We have also looked at how we can use a number line to help us add and subtract - but you have to be careful...... or Miss Karen might trick you and make you go the wrong way!!
Homework
Homework has changed a little bit - please check your child's folder for the letter!!
But it must still be returned on Thursday! This is the day when I have time to mark homework and check returned books.
Reading - Please note that we will only change/give new reading books if an adult has signed the form (in the back of the file) to say that the books have been read!!
Writing - we are now trying to help the children to remember how to write some of the tricky words, so the emphasis is more on remembering the correct spelling - but they do still need to think about their handwriting and the sizes of the letters.
