Autumn 1 Week 5
Hello everyone, the children have had a great week this week.
This week
Our week began with a poem entitled ‘Pirate Pete’ by James Carter. We used this poem as a starting point as we celebrated National Poetry Day. The children were challenged to used what they had been learning previously in their phonics about words that rhyme, to try and spot any rhyming patterns. As part of their learning, children had the opportunity to draw pairs of items that rhyme, match pairs of pictures that rhyme and draw what they thought Pirate Pete looked like from his description in the poem.
In addition to reading poems as part of our Literacy this week, the children have been enjoying the traditional tale ‘The Little Red Hen’. Each day we have been reading the story with the children. We have done this in order to help the children become familiar with the story, whilst also helping them to develop wide and rich story vocabulary that they can use to develop their own story telling skills. They have helped create a class story map as a way of remembering what happens in the story. A story map has picture prompts and some captions that follow a path from beginning, to middle and then the end of a story. The children suggested some fantastic ideas for what symbols and pictures we could draw to represent the characters and events in ‘The Little Ren Hen’. We have also been making puppets of the characters in the creative area and building windmills in construction.
We also spent time this week thinking about our immediate environment in the school. We went for a walk around the school, exploring the environment and trying to notice any manmade and natural features we saw. The children really enjoyed discovering just how big and exciting the rest of the school grounds are, especially seeing all of the other children in their classes. Using what they had seen on their walk around school, the children enjoyed making maps of the school. They drew large scale maps, small scale maps using squared paper, created 3D maps of the school using junk modelling and designed and built different features of the school including our own outdoor learning area. The children were very good at remembering all of the different features they saw in their environment and were practising using the past tense as they attempted to recall what they saw.
In Maths this week, the children were learning about repeating patterns. We used the following STEM sentences to help support our learning:
The children really enjoyed finding patterns in our environment, describing what they saw, extending existing patterns and attempting to create their own patterns as well.
In Phonics, the children started their Phase 2 phonics by learning the letters s, a, t and p. We practised forming the letters using our magic pens (fingers in the sky), we practised how to pronounce the sounds and used different actions to help us remember them. We also saw different objects that have those sounds in them and we practised blending to read simple words like as, sat, tap and pat.
Next Week
- We will continue reading the traditional tale ‘The Little Red Hen’.
- We will be learning about Homes and Houses and Ourselves. We will be looking at different types of homes and how they have changed over time. We will also be learning about human growth and how we change, as well as how the children have changed personally.
- In Phonics, we will continue in Phase 2 by learning the new sounds i and n. We will also consolidate what we have learnt previously in Phase 2 and continue working on blending sounds for reading.
- In Maths, we will be recapping all of our learning so far this half term as well as “digging deeper” with challenges in each area.
- We will continue learning about “the Zones of Regulation” and talking about the range of feelings that we experience.
- In Music, the children will continue to join in with the actions and songs taught.
- In PE, the children will continue to practise some fundamental skills involved in travelling.
Supporting your child at home
- As the colder weather draws near, practise with your child taking their jumper or cardigan on and off, practise putting on their coat and doing up the zip/poppers. Remind children to try it themselves first before asking for help.
- We will be sending home our first Phase 2 Phonics Home Learning sheet. Please use it to support your child in the Phonics learning we have been doing at school.
- If you have not already done so please could you send in some photos, either physically or via Tapestry, of your child as a baby and toddler. This will really help with our learning this week.
Any other information
- LITERACY AND MATHS INFORMATION EVENING – A big THANK YOU to those of you who were able to attend the information evening. We very much appreciate your continued support. If you were unable to attend for any reason and would like a copy of the supporting documents to help your child with Phonics, Reading, Writing and Maths then please speak to your child’s class teacher.
- READING BOOKS – Please can you ensure that your child’s reading record, wordless book and picture book are in school every day.
- COATS & WATER BOTTLES – Please ensure that your child has a coat and water bottle in school every day.
- PARENTS EVENING – We look forward to seeing you for our first Parents Evenings. They are taking place on MODAY 18th OCTOBER 5:00 – 8:00PM and TUESDAY 19th OCTOBER 4:00-7:00PM. This will be a brief opportunity for teachers to share with you how your child has settled into life at Samuel Lucas.
Have a good weekend.
Mrs Fisher and Mr French
Willow and Lilac Class Teachers
