Blog week ending 14/01/22
Another week gone by already! We are continuously working really hard during RWI sessions. We are continuing with reading ditties, reading and writing green and red words and having a go at writing short sentences. All of us need to practice letter formation at home where possible. Many children are mixing up the letters b and d and not starting at the top of the letters for formation. You will see that we have sent home a Ditty to work on at home this week. We will send one home per week and we would ask that you do a bit of this little and often to develop the children’s sentence reading confidence and also to practise their ability to write captions and sentences.
In maths we have been mastering our understanding of composition to five by playing a fun game. We enjoyed trying to throw 5 bean bags into a bucket. Each time we threw, some went in and some did not. However, this allowed us to see how 5 is made up. For example, 2 landed in the hoop and 3 did not. 2 plus 3 equals 5. Have a go at home. You could even extend this activity up to 10 bean bags.
In our topic work we have been extending our learning about birds. We started the week reading the story Lucky Duck and thinking about all of the different types of birds there are and how they all have special features. We had a competition to see how many birds we were able to name and spent some time reading and watching Non-Fiction programmes to learn about their features, habitats, what they like to eat etc. We produced some wonderful line drawings of our favourite birds, using our phonic knowledge to label their claws, beaks and wings. We added further detail with colour and patterns using small paintbrushes and watercolour paints. Our painting skills have developed so much this term!
Alongside this we enjoyed time outside building bird hides and creating large scale nests, working on our team work skills and enjoying searching the sky for our feathered friends using our home made binoculars. In Drawing Club this week, we read the story The Ugly Duckling. We discussed how in the story the Duckling was considered ‘ugly’ because he was different. We all shared something about a friend that we thought was different and fantastic! We then drew our own Ugly Duckling – but we decided to name him The Different Duckling and although every single picture produced was different – they were all equally special!
Later this week we have continued thinking about birds. We've re-read the story of Lucky Duck - our attention skills have come in useful when sharing this story as we have concentrated on listening out for particular words. We have used our creative and artistic skills to create our own birds, have developed our fine motor skills through making nests and have explored nesting materials outdoors.
In PE, we have continued to develop our balancing skills. It was exciting to learn how to use different parts of our body to balance in different ways and to create different shapes. In our music session we enjoyed listening to different songs and finding the beat. We particularly enjoyed listening and joining in with some of the nursery rhymes.
Over the next few weeks we are looking at Dreams and Goals in PSHE. This week, we thought about how challenges make us feel and how to keep on going if things are difficult. It was fun sharing "We're Going On A Bear Hunt" and looking at how they kept on going and didn't give up when they faced the different challenges. Why don't you talk about some of the difficult challenges you've faced at home and how you have overcome these?
A busy week had by all! Don’t forget to help your child to complete their Numicon Challenge on the new tab on the website and have a go at reading the homework Ditty. Take care,
Have a lovely weekend and see you next week!
The Pear Class team
Mastering Mathematicians!
Exceptional Explorers!