TERM 3 WEEK 4

Before I started typing this week - I had in my mind what I was going to say.....it was all going to be about the Maths. I thought we learnt Maths Maths and more Maths this week but as I looked through the photos I realised just how much we learnt about so many other things too! 

Lets get going then.....

In Maths a key focus this week was deepening our understanding of 5 as a quantity by linking the number itself to the 5 fingers on one hand. So we played our speedy fingers warm up game - I called a number and they held up the right number of fingers. 

Next someone else called out a number and we had to collect that number of objects - we certainly didn't go for the easy option (or the less is more option - bigger seemed to be better!!!).

Throughout the week we explored the Hungarian number patten to 5 whereby 5 is represented in the same pattern you would see on a dice. We rolled our dice and collected objects to match the number, some of us even tried to copy the pattern "my three is in a diagonal pattern", "My four has got a bear in every corner like a square shape".

The Robins having also been focussing on measurement. This week they continued using the language "taller" and "shorter". The children had to make towers taller and shorter than ones that had already been made. We measured to check that they had done this correctly by standing the towers next to each other. We discussed the facts that if a tower was too tall, they could take cubes off their tower and if their tower was too short, they could add cubes to it. The children also enjoyed counting their cubes that they had used. We discovered that taller towers had more cubes and shorter towers had less cubes.

On Wednesday, we went out and about for our first welly walk of 2026! It is at times like these that we come to realise just how lucky we are to be able to get out and about and just know that we are part of a most wonderful community. We headed up towards the park and of course, who did we bump into - Great Shefford Under 5s - there were squeals of excitement "It's Denise, it's Sarah" and when we got closer, the waving and smiling could not have been any bigger, from us and them! Next we headed towards the village hall - stopping off to say a quick hello to Mrs Williams who, like pre school was only too happy to say hello and introduce us to her dog Twig "It's Mrs Williams from my breakfast club." Then we reached the village hall and again, stopped off this time to say hello to Debbie. Now, not everyone went to the village pre school and yet Debbie made them all feel so welcome and special, she answered all (100) questions and very quickly got to know us all! On the walk back, the talk was all about the people they had seen - well it was more like the people that had seen us! We also took some time to learn about road safety and keeping our toes behind the kerb stone (new vocabulary).We returned to school with a few moans and groans about tiredness - a quick snack and into Pantomimus with Danielle who was happy to report back that there were certainly no signs of tiredness and that they had all participated in singing and dancing with their usual energy levels of a 4 and 5 year old.

In Art, we have been thinking about how artists are able to put lots of detail into their pictures. This week we learnt how to draw a face properly. We sang a song about the parts of our face and the children wanted to come up with extra verses about our eyebrows, our cheeks, they had some great ideas! The children then remembered the features that they needed to include on their face drawings. Once they had drawn a face, we checked that the faces had all the features that we had discussed. You have probably seen these pictures, as we photocopied them and sent them home with your children. They were all so proud of their work that they wanted to share their pictures with you!

In PSED (Personal, Social and Emotional Development) we have started our new topic "Dreams and goals". This week the children were introduced to the word "goal" it is like having a big wish or a dream, something that they would really like to do. The children listened to the story of "The Hare and The Tortoise" and we talked about persevering and not giving up.

In Phonics, we are continuing to use and apply all our knowledge to both reading and writing. We learnt that a "nonsense word" is actually called a pseudo word - we were able to read the word because we are great at phonics but the word itself made no sense at all e.g ip, ot. We played a game called hidden treasure and we each took it in turns to read the word and decide if it needed to go in the treasure chest or in the bin! 

So, with all of this fantastic learning going on we regularly change and adapt the learning environment so that the children can apply all this learning in their 'free flow time' if they so wish and that is exactly what happened on Friday afternoon. Within seconds of creating a new "writing area", some children quickly got stuck into "work". "Now, I am the teacher and you are learning these tricky words - just read them all but only when I point to them" was the instruction overheard - how wonderful!

Before we sign off for the weekend - just a quick reminder of the Candlemass Church Service on Wednesday morning and also Number Day on Friday (as per this term's Curriculum Map), children are welcome to wear anything number themed for lots of number fun!

Have a great weekend and see you all on Monday - with PE kits and Library books