Headteacher: Anna Moss

6.11.20

Hello Red Class Families,

I would like to welcome Miss Barber to the Red Class team. Miss Barber is a student teacher training through our teaching school. She joined the children for their first week at school and she can’t believe how much they’ve changed over the last half term.

It’s been a colourful rainbow week in Red Class. From learning a rainbow-themed song, written by Christianne Cutler, our virtual ‘resident’ musician, to learning a rainbow dance inspired by Mrs Hampton’s yoga. The children were surprised to discover indigo and violet as they created beautiful rainbow collages for our display. We look forward to sharing our rainbow project with you soon.

Maths learning focused on 6, 7, 8 and 9. We discovered how to write each numeral and how to match it to the correct number of objects. We also compared each number to 5 and 10 and explained how many more or how many less we would need. For example, 9 is one fewer than 10 and it’s easier to make 10 in our ten-frame and take 1 away. We also discovered that 5 and 4 more also make a total of 9. The children are growing in confidence to find doubles when making a number. For example, putting 4 and 4 in their egg box to make 8. Well done Red Class.

Phonics sessions were based on ‘h’, ‘b’, ‘f’ and ‘l’. We’re encouraging the children to read the following words automatically: I, the, to, no, go. We also encourage the children to read some CVC words by sight. So, if they see ‘can’ several times on a page, they should blend the sounds together and then read the word automatically next time. This will support the children’s pace and fluency.

Next week, it’s time for our ‘Tell Me a Story’ topic. As part of dilemma-based learning, the children will meet a new friend who will pose a problem for us to solve as a class. Dilemma-based learning helps the children to feel invested in the topic. It provides purpose and meaning to their learning. Further information will follow next week. During this topic, we will learn knowledge and skills to make a story sack for the Nursery children.

Please keep your little blue phonics books in your book bags so we can add new letter cards each week. Well done to all those children drawing pictures to match their letter sounds. We’ve changed the reading books early this week. We will change them every Monday, but you can keep the book given out tonight a little bit longer. It’s an early Christmas present! Some children, who would benefit from revisiting some of our earlier sounds, will receive a second book on Monday.

Enjoy a peaceful weekend and we look forward to seeing you on Monday.

Best wishes, Mrs Webb, Miss Barber, Mrs Hampton, Mrs Dyson and Mrs Flynn xxx