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Well what a week after the chaos of the snow and the storm! Nativity rehearsals started this week and the children are very excited. Please support your child to learn their lines and help them to learn their cue (who come before them). Reading parts of the script counts as a different type of reading and can be recorded in reading records too! Remember to discuss with them the difference between a stage direction and a line! Thank you. Monday-phonics, followed by Drawing Club (Willo the Wisp), followed by maths, followed by Nativity songs and independent learning and French. Marion continued her volunteering and the children had a great time. Remember you can book into her after school club if you wish! Tuesday- phonics, followed by Drawing Club and handwriting, followed by art, followed by PE then our first hall time rehearsal. Wednesday-Florence taught our class today and she continued with phonics and Drawing club, followed by a maths lesson about addition and subtraction followed by Science and the different food groups, followed by Nativity songs. On Thursday it was Mrs Ware teaching. Year one followed up on our phonics this week by reviewing the set 3 sounds 'aw', (yawn) 'are' (share) and 'ur' (turn). We also did some extended writing about the troll in Billy the Kid. Reception wondered what they would invent to get Moog out of the sky! In the afternoon we learnt about how people survive in places that are extremely hot or extremely cold. We also had some time to practise our Nativity - it's looking really promising even for the second run through. Friday was a day of phonics, drawing club, some independent learning and P.E. in the afternoon. We did some more nativity practise and are busy creating lovely decorations to sell at the Christmas Fayre on the 13th. Have a lovely weekend everybody. A busy week as we start looking forward to Christmas... As we have spent a lot of time on termly assessments, the blog will be a little more brief than normal this week Monday
This week has been another busy week in Chestnut Class. Monday (Armistice Day) Year one began their phonics lesson with their weekly spelling test and then we learnt our new set 3 sound for today which was o-e as in home, note and phone. We then read our new story for the first time 'Red Ken'. Reception children have begun to learn more sounds including those which are 'special friends' (sounds made from 2 letters like 'sh' , 'th' and 'qu'). At 11.00am today, the year one children took part in a minutes silence with the rest of the school and back in class we learnt a bit more about why and how we mark this special day. We had a special visit from The Bookery, the Crediton bookshop, who provided a special book fair for all children across the school each of whom received a free book. In the afternoon, our Geography lesson focussed on the features of hot and cold places and the children tried to identify and sort pictures showing hot and cold places. Marion came back to volunteer with Year 1and teach us some more French. The children really enjoyed this. We were all excited to start learning our songs for the Nativity 'A Bundle of Joy'. Words and music for these are on the link on this page for the children to practise at home. Tuesday Year one's new sound today was i-e as in like, nice and smile. In maths, year one tried to identify eight facts in a fact family - quite a challenge as this includes not only facts like 4+5=9 and 9-5=4 but also 5=9-4 and 9=5+4. Reception are continuing to practise their subitising skills as well as activities focussing on developing the skill of comparing. The children were encouraged to compare the number of objects in 2 sets by matching them 1:1. Seeing that objects in some sets can be matched without any being left over will draw the children’s attention to instances when the quantities of objects are equal. Language is a key focus and we reinforced the language of ‘more than’, ‘fewer than’ and ‘an equal number’ to describe how many objects there are in each set. In our computing lesson in the afternoon, year one used 'Paintzapp' on Chromebooks to have a go at reproducing a Mondrian style painting with great success!! Reception children were also inspired by Mondrian to use rulers to draw squares and lines and paint in primary colours. Wednesday On Wednesday we continued with phonics, learning the sound u-e in huge, brute, cute and applying it. We then continued with our phonics story about Red Ken. After this we took part in maths where we learnt about subtraction by telling a story about how many are left (first there were 10 apples on a tree, 5 fell down in the wind, 5 were left). After lunch we took part in art where we turned our maps from last week into 3D relief maps using different resources such as paper, card, tissue paper, string. After art we carried on with our Christmas singing for our performance, 'A Bundle of Joy. Thursday On Thursday Year 1 reviewed the sounds learnt this week and then spent a lot of time focusing on the story of Red Ken and writing sentences about it. Reception continued learning special friends. In maths Year 1 continued with subtraction, learning how to write subtraction sentences. During the afternoon all the children took part in science and we investigated the effect exercise has on our bodies. We did some physical activities and then sorted activities into ones that raised our hearts rates and ones that didn't. After Science, we carried on with our Christmas singing for our performance. Friday Our day started with phonics where we continued to review the sounds and spent the morning writing about Red Ken. As it was Children in Need, we had some fun Pudsey style activities planned including painting our own Pudseys, and adding spots to his bandana. We learnt about why we raise money for this charity and why it is so important. We learnt about some of the fundraising activities famous people are doing to raise money. Thank you all for your support so far this half term. Miss Ruby and Mrs Ware Welcome back to what is probably the busiest half term of the year. Hope you all managed to have a restful break over half term. Phonics and English This week we regrouped all our children into their new phonic groups following our assessments at the end of last half term. The children have adapted quickly to these new groups and are all continuing to make progress. As part of their lesson, we are focussing on handwriting and letter formation. We ensure that the children are sitting correctly to write and are using the correct tripod pencil grip. It is important that the children form their letters correctly and don't get into bad habits - we have attached the guidance for letter formation on this page and will also send via Dojo so that you can practice and ensure children apply this to their writing at home. Reception children have had their phonics lessons and also have had drawing club linked to the story A Dark, Dark Tale. The children are becoming very creative with their ideas and very clear with their drawings. Wow! In maths... Reception children have been engaged with activities that underline the purpose of counting – to find out ‘how many’ objects there are altogether. They practised their 1:1 correspondence skill, by counting numbers at the same time as moving or tagging objects. A key focus this week is deepening their understanding of 5 as a quantity by linking the number itself to the 5 fingers on one hand. Year one children have been exploring odd and even numbers and recognising that even numbers are made from pairs. We watched a Numberblocks episode which describe them as odd tops and even tops. Year one have also been learning to add more to a number and represent this using a number sentence. They have found 'part's' of a number using part whole models and began to look at subtraction too. Wider Curriculum Year one have begun their first Geography topic which is all about hot and cold places around the world. We started this unit by remembering the continents of the world and then went on to learn about climate zones across the world. the key bit of knowledge in this lesson was that the countries closest to the equator are the hottest and the countries furthest away are the coldest. Both Reception and Year one children learnt a little about Diwali this week which was celebrated last weekend. We learnt that during this celebration Hindus (and people from other religions too) welcome the Goddess, Lakshmi, to their homes by making colourful Rangoli patterns. The children had a go at making Rangoli patterns with various materials including chalk on the playground outside the classroom. We also used various mediums to create firework pictures on Tuesday including paint, chalk, colouring pens and even used technology in our computing lesson to create firework pictures on 'Paintzapp'. In Art the children have begun their new art topic called 'Map it Out'. The first part of this involved the children drawing a map of a memorable journey. We read the book, "Martha Maps it Out" and designed our maps in a similar style. In Science the children also started their new topic, 'Human Lifestyles'. During this lesson we discussed the human skeleton, muscles and important internal body parts. The children then used their learning to cut and stick body parts in the correct places. Both Reception and Year 1 learnt about the story of Guy Fawkes! They learnt about why we remember this event, how we celebrate it and firework safety. We have also begun to think ahead to Christmas and our music has been focused on singing the songs to our Nativity, "A Bundle of Joy"...more details will follow. A busy first week back at school! Enjoy your weekend! |
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