Hello Red Class,

Well done children (and parents) for completing your first full-time week at school. From drawing different types of line and using a range of mark makers in Art to learning our whole school wake and shake (5, 6,7,8 by Steps), it’s been a very busy week.

It was lovely to see the children engaged in their learning in the outdoor area. We’ve seen children building dens, making a volcano in the sand, inventing machines, creating potions and drawing Krongelidongs. Have you heard of a Krongelidong?

A Krongelidong is a mysterious creature who lives in a deep, dark forest. We discovered how to dance like a Krongelidong and how to draw one in Write Dance. You can find out about the dance, marks and drawings here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QR1bps_xn0 This dance helps the children to develop curved, flowing lines ready for joined handwriting. At the end of the week, each child drew a Krongelidong independently.

Phonics sessions focused on rhyme and alliteration. We used songs and games to help the children to identify rhyming words and words starting with the same sound. For example, we used the ’Silly Soup’ song to link and generate rhyming words. You will need some rhyming objects or pictures to play the game, a bowl and a spoon. Here’s the song if you would like to sing it at home:

We’re making lots of silly soup,

We’re making soup that’s silly.

We’re going to put it in the fridge,

And make it nice and chilly.

In the soup we put a frog, dog, log…

We also played a robot game to help the children to hear and blend letter sounds. You can play this game at home too. Simply sound out an action e.g. j-o-g like a robot and ask your child to do the action. Remember to use letter sounds rather than letter names (from the alphabet) or you might see some blank faces. Can you c-l-a-p? Show me how to h-o-p.

Next week, we will learn our first four letter sounds (s, a, t, p). So, on Friday, we will send home your little blue Phonics books. This little book acts as a record of the sounds taught in class and the children can draw pictures to match each sound e.g. apple for ‘a’.

Our Maths sessions focused on number work and 2D shapes. We enjoyed drawing 2D shape characters for Mr Rectangle, Mr Square, Mrs Circle and Mrs Triangle. We listened to sounds and matched the number of sounds to our fingers. We used egg boxes to count a number of objects accurately and we started to make numbers in different ways. So, for example, we can make 2 with 2 fingers on one hand or 1 finger on each hand.

We spend the year helping the children to develop number sense using concrete apparatus. We use objects, ten frames, dice, egg boxes, dominoes and Numicon to help the children to build pictures of numbers in their mind. Using concrete apparatus will help the children to work mentally.

Just a reminder, if you’d like your child to leave at 1.40pm, please let Mrs Moss know on the gate or phone the School Office. Thank you for a lovely week at school. We hope you have a lovely weekend enjoying the sunny weather and we’ll see you all bright and breezy on Monday when it’s time for PE at big school!

Lots of love,

Mrs Webb, Mrs Hampton, Mrs Dyson and Mrs Flynn xxx