Week ending 8th November

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!