Hello from Lilac and Willow, we hope you enjoyed your half term. Thank you to those parents who shared some of the half term experiences on Tapestry. We have enjoyed looking at these in class. It has been lovely having the children back in school, they have been busy with their learning.
This week
We continued learning about Autumn Festivals This week we learnt about Diwali. The children discovered that Diwali is a very important festival celebrated by many people all around the world. It is sometimes called the ‘Festival of Light’ and is celebrated in October and November each year. Diwali is a time for people to remember the story of Prince Rama and Princess Sita. In the story, Rama and Sita were banished from their kingdom and during that time, Princess Sita was kidnapped by an evil king Ravana. Thankfully, Prince Rama is able to defeat the evil king and rescue his Princess Sita. Everybody lit lamps to guide Rama and Sita home and to this day, people still light lamps as part of the Diwali celebrations. They also celebrate with making Rangoli patterns, visiting the temple, preparing and eating family feasts and putting on fireworks shows. The children really enjoyed taking part in lots of activities associated with Diwali.
We made the most of the wet weather this week and got busy in our mud kitchen, discussing capacity, ingredients and how much to charge for a meal at the ‘Mud Café!’
In Phonics, we learned the new graphemes o, c and k as well as the digraph ck. A digraph is where 2 letters combine to make 1 sound. The children revisit and review previously taught graphemes to start each session, then they are then shown real life objects or photos of objects that contain the daily sound. Children then see the grapheme (letter) and are subsequently taught how to pronounce the sound. The children will then practise making words using the sounds learnt throughout the week, as well as using those sounds previously learned.
In Maths this week, the children were learning about counting using the 1:1 principle. This involves children assigning one number name to each object that is being counted. We model this to the child by moving each object to ensure that each object is only counted once. We also learnt about different ways of representing numbers 1, 2 and 3 and we looked at number recognition to 10.
Next Week
- We will be learning all about Fireworks and Remembrance Day. – If you do see fireworks this weekend then you could upload some photos to Tapestry so that your child can share their experiences at school on Monday.
- The children will continue visiting the Library in small groups as part of our weekly local trips.
- In Phonics, we will continue learning new sounds in Phase 2, as well as applying what we have already learnt to continue segmenting and blending for reading and writing.
- In Maths, children will be comparing numbers 1, 2 and 3, using the words ‘more,’ ‘less’ and ‘the same.’
Supporting your child at home
- Encourage your child to draw a range of fireworks as a way of helping support their pencil control and establish a tripod pencil grip. Remind them to use the nip, flip, grip technique to emphasise good pencil control.
- Encourage your child to articulate their thoughts using whole sentences by modelling back to them a good example, e.g. (Child) “That’s a kite,” (Parent) “I can see that you have made a kite.”
Any other information
- NURSERY RHYME WEEK – We are taking part in National Nursery Rhyme week on week beginning Monday 14th November 2022. To celebrate we would like the children to come to school dressed as a Nursery rhyme character on Monday 14th November. In addition to providing the costume please could you spend some time singing the nursery rhyme with your child, so that they can share it with the class. Any questions please let us know.
- As the weather gets colder please can you please ensure that your child has a coat in school.
- On wet days it would be beneficial for the children to have a pair of wellies in school, if they come to school wearing their wellies then please pop their normal black school shoes in their bag for them to change into.
Have a good weekend,
Mrs Fisher and Mrs Murrell
Willow and Lilac Class Teachers
