Hello! We hope you are having a good week.
This week
In reception this week we have been learning about volcanoes. This came from the children’s discussions last week about dinosaurs and the world before humans. There were lots of questions about volcanoes and so during this week’s topic learning we have addressed these questions and also dispelled any misconceptions. We read the story of Escape form Pompeii by Christina Balit and we also read lots of non-fiction books to find information about why volcanoes erupt and what happens when a volcano becomes dormant. We ended the week with an exciting volcano experiment.
In Phonics, the children continued to apply their phonics knowledge by practising blending to read and write CVC+ words. We reviewed the Monster Phonics story ‘The Little Red Hen’ and throughout the story the children concentrated on the action words (bossy words) in the story including blink, stamp, grunt and sniff. We have also been revisiting the sounds ‘f’, ‘v’ and ‘th’ as we are noticing that some children are mixing these up when they are applying these sounds in their writing. Please point out and practise these sounds when you are reading at home.
In maths we have been revisiting sharing into equal groups and learning about odd and even numbers.
In Jigsaw, the children have been learning about ways to calm ourselves down when we feel angry. We talked about we may feel throughout the day and how sometimes we may feel angry. The children talked about how you may spot when someone else is feeling angry, for example they may not smiling, they may feel tense or say unkind words. The children thought of ways of helping themselves and other people feel calm by thinking about their breathing, counting to ten and thinking about what they are trying to say.
Next week
- Continuing with the children’s lines of enquiry about dinosaurs and the Earth, we will be learning about fossils and the influential figures Elizabeth Philpot and Mary Anning.
- In Phonics, we will continue applying our phonics knowledge by practising blending to read and write CCVCC words.
- In Maths, we will learning about number bonds to ten including the inverse operation.
Supporting your child at home
- To help your child explore the composition of numbers to 10, emphasise the parts within the whole number. For example: “There are 6 eggs in the egg box. 2 have spots and 4 have no spots.”
- Play hiding games with a number of objects in a box, under a cloth, in a tent etc. For example: “ 5 toys are in the box and I will take 3 out. I wonder how many are still there?” By doing this, you will help your child to automatically recall numbers for numbers 0-5 and some to 10.
- Support your child to orally rehearse a complete sentence before writing. This will help your child to write short sentences with known sound-letter correspondences using a capital letter at the start, finger spaces between words and a full stop at the end.
- Reading with your child at home will significantly help them to develop their understanding of letters and sounds, as well become better readers and writers. The Monster Phonics books are designed to support the children with their learning and it is important that the children read these regularly however, additional books outside of Monster Phonics books will also help. Please write comments in your child’s reading record to let us know how your child has got on with their book.
- Model how you read and re-read your own writing to check it makes sense. This will encourage your child to re-read what they have written to check that it makes sense.
Any other information
- WEATHER – The weather is very changeable at the moment. Even if it is lovely when you leave the house in the morning, please can children come to school with a jumper and rain coat. The children will go out to play, even if there are showers, and we had lots of children without coats on one particularly wet lunch time this week.
Have a lovely weekend,
Mrs Fisher and Mrs Murrell
Willow and Lilac class teachers
