Week 9- Our first week back!

Welcome back and welcome to Term 2.

This term is the busiest and the most exciting - we seem to slide through November, enjoying celebrations and events such as Bonfire Night, Children in Need, the school Winter Fete, Remembrance day, St Andrew's Day etc and then BAM - before we know it, we are in December and all the festivities, crafts and excitement seems to happen all day every day - it really is a magical time of year to be in school - we can't wait!!!!

But as we say, before all of that, we ease ourselves into November. 

So what did we learn this week.......

On Monday morning as the children came back into the classroom, the first thing they noticed was the change in table top activities...where were the pom poms and tweezers? Where had the play dough gone? Had the loom bands been lost over the half term? All of the morning activities that they had been used to were now within our continuous provision for use everyday. Of course what the children don't realise, is this is all part of their progress and development and these are the next steps they are taking. Last term, the activities were focussed on really developing all the little muscles in their hands in preparation for holding and using writing tools such as pens and pencils. This term, the activities will help them develop the correct tripod grip and develop increasing control when mark making as well as control when applying their penmanship. Activities such as drawing (not just colouring), tracing over patterns and lines and letter formation are all fantastic ways to support this control. 

The mist and fog during the early part of the week seemed to hang around for much of the day on Monday and Tuesday but this set the scene for our discussions around the experiences that we had over the October half term, some of them filled with tricks, treats and pumpkins but also for some, we had already been treated to displays of flashing lights in the sky...what were these we wondered? Of course they were fireworks! Tuesday November 5th was Bonfire Night, so continuing with the mark making and use of writing tools we used different media such as pastels, chalks and crayons to recreate a firework scene above the Houses of Parliament! We also learnt a little bit more about Guy Fawkes, his role in the Gunpowder plot and what happened. Some questions you may wish to revisit at home.

What can you tell me about Guy Fawkes?

What is the name of the King that Guy Fawkes tried to kill?

How many barrels of gunpowder did they hide?

What is the name of the river in London?

The name of the clock tower in Lonon?

The name of the important building in London?

We also discussed that fireworks are often seen during the Hindu festival of Diwali, the celebration of the festival of light, which we had been learning about before half term. On Monday we got to see how well our Diva lamps had turned out after they had dried and used acrylic paint to paint them bright colours to represent that light shines over the darkness. We can't wait to decorate them with sequins! 

In Maths this week we were looking at the comparison of quantities and really focusing on describing the set of objects that the children could see. We focused on using the language 'more than' and 'fewer than', with the children using this to make comparisons between two sets of objects and describe how many there were in each set. We also discussed how it didn't matter that the attributes of the objects within the set were different, for example the size or colour and that we were purely focusing on the number of objects. Once we had explored which set had 'more than' or 'fewer than' the children then focused on using their number knowledge to give a reason why, for example.......

                        "Pat has more than Sam. 6 is more than 4" 

 

We even played games using our own fingers - you can try this one at home too.

2 players needed.

Hands behind backs

1, 2 , 3 - Show me

(each player holds up an amount of fingers)

Then using the sentence stem......

e.g. (Name A) has more fingers than (Name B) , (Name B) has fewer fingers than (Name A)

At the start of a new term, we introduce a new Christian Value, this term the value is 'Compassion' and we have spent some time talking about what this means. We have linked this to our understanding around the significance of why we wear a poppy on Remembrance day. Huge thank you to Mrs Bell and Mrs Kimber who have very generously and kindly handmade a poppy for every member of staff and pupil. During our discussion around Remembrance day the children have been thoroughly engaged and have asked meaningful questions and added some very insightful comments. We have watched a short animation to help deepen our understanding. You may wish to watch this again at home with your child and it may lead to further discussions.

As well as wearing the handmade poppies we have been making some of our own, even sewing the button on ourselves - on Friday afternoon when the children saw all their efforts come together in the pots, they were quick to admire how beautiful the poppies looked when they were placed altogether - and we completely agree!

PE is always one of our weekly highlights and this week certainly didn't disappoint! We loved learning our new pirate warm up game where we needed to following pirate themed instructions and once we had got our hearts beating we were ready for our PE lesson!

Today was all about jumping and jump we did! As we were each handed a cone we practiced jumping forwards over one cone and then over two! "Mrs Brown, this is hard work!" We practiced landing on two feet, which we found quite tricky but everyone persevered and what fun we had! We set ourselves challenges and even when we found it tricky we soon found that if we had a go together we could achieve anything! Great work Robins or should I say Kangaroos now??

Finally, we just wanted to say thank you to those of you who were able to join us on Thursday and Friday after school for a quick letter formation demonstration - you were all great and passed with flying colours!  Next week, on Monday, we will send home the blue letter formation books - to be returned by the following Monday - any questions, please just pop in and ask us we are more than happy to chat  through things.

Also, next Thursday we will be starting our Show and Tell sessions. This is always a favourite and well supported lesson. We have a timetable / rota and will let the children know a week in advance when it is their turn, there will also be a slip in the Home/ School book to let you know too. 

So, for Show and Tell, we welcome most things no matter how big or small. In previous years we have had favourite toys, costumes, special objects such as riding helmets, bikes, hobbies, certificates etc, videos of singing dogs (yes, we really have had Poppy the singing dog), holiday photos, family photos, even Rainbow the sparrow - he spent the day in our classroom (in his cage), previously, children have even found fluff in their pockets and have managed to turn it into something exciting for Show and Tell. If you wish to rehearse at home with your child (we encourage this) then please support your child in using full sentences and giving as much detail as possible - the more they say the more we learn and we just love learning!

Finally, finally have a great weekend and see you all next week!

(I will be seeing my in laws over the weekend so no doubt the junk modelling supplies will be topped up!!!!)