26th January

Well this week started off the same..... but different!

Myself and Mrs Brown had swapped our Monday and Wednesday - the children managed it all very well and took the changes in their stride but I have to say it confused me, a lot! I managed to re- programme my mind and get on with all that needed doing albeit on a different day to usual.

Before I forget - thank you to the parents that have already sent a message through regarding being one of our Wednesday Mystery Readers, we will soon get a rota out to you so you know when it is your turn. For those of you who may need a little more encouragement, we will catch you during parent appointments next week!  

Back to this week. 

I thoroughly enjoyed being part of the gymnastic session on Monday, it was fantastic to see how the children were able to control their movements through balance and agility. I also saw these skills being further developed during our balance bike session on Thursday. We set up a course in the hall and we had to weave in and out of the cones, carefully and slowly - at one point you could have heard a pin drop, there was almost silence as the concentration was intense - not like our usual PE sessions!!!!

We have been refining writing and handwriting skills this week. In the morning as they enter the classroom, the children are quick to settle down to some writing activities - sounding out CVC words and thinking carefully about how to form the letters - all this is done independently. We are aiming for at least 5 words and 5 matching pictures - well why not, most of us are 5 years old now so 5 seems to be a good number!

The Robins have really got the hang of cvc word writing, so much so, that during the phonics lessons, we have introduced some learning around caption writing. As well as reading captions and matching them to a picture, we have asked the children to write the captions too. They need to say the caption. hold it in their head, count how many words are in the caption and then try and write it by themselves. It is a really tricky thing to do and the more we do it the better we are getting. Take a look at the pictures below, can your child say a caption e.g the dog is in the mud, can they write the caption - have a go!

As Mr Withers entered the classroom and sniffed the air, it could mean only one thing, it was of course Tuesday and Mr Withers was of course following his nose...the scent of the butter biscuits had wafted down the corridor and brought him to Robins! Another delicious delicacy had been perfectly baked by the Robins cooking club and we simply couldn't wait to take our butter biscuits home to taste them! This was most definitely one of our favourite recipes to date!

Maths this week was all about consolidating the children's understanding of the composition of 5 using the part-part-whole model to deepen their understand that the whole of a number is made up of smaller parts, so for example seeing that 5 can be made up of 3 and 2. 

During the week the children really enjoyed learning the song '5 little speckled frogs' and had lots of fun using cubes to represent the frogs jumping off the log! As they sang the song the children could visually see the smaller parts that 5 can be made up of. Why not have a go at singing the song at home? 

Have a go at playing games involving the number 5 at home- For example get 5 balls and see how many of them you can throw into a bucket, how many did you get in the bucket and how many did not make it into the bucket?

It was lovely to see the children enjoying Pantomimus again this week and hear how well they are coming on with their musical skills! This week was all about dogs and cats, with the children singing songs about them and even playing 'Who's got the bone?' They had to listen really carefully to who was playing the instrument to work out who had the bone! 

The children then listened to the drum and moved to the music, thinking carefully about whether it was fast or slow, then enjoying having the opportunity to play instruments themselves!

We finished off our week with our usual welly walk. On our outward bound walk the children were very excited about the thought of stopping off at the park on the way back and having some running races. Myself and Mrs Langford exchanged rather knowing looks....yes you guessed it - by the time we started our homeward walk back to school, the Robins were exhaused, we heard quite a few little voices ask....."can we just go back and have our milk?" So we shelved the races around the park for another day.

We packed so much into this week that we can't possibly fit it all on this page!

Have a great weekend.

See you all on Monday (with your blue letter formation books)

Parent appointments next Tuesday and Wednesday

Library books on Thursday.....and Number Day on Friday.

(it's going to be another busy week)