Blog week ending 14th May

Happy Friday everyone!
These weeks seem to come and go with an alarming speed. 
It has been another productive week in Pear Class with lots of busy activity. 
In our RWI work, the children have been doing lots of writing this week, mainly based upon our book On The Bus.  The children thought of characters they might like to have on their bus and wrote their own phrase.  For example: 
 
a fox on my bus
 
The children focused on forming their letters correctly, sounding out the words they wanted to write and leaving finger spaces.  For children not quite ready to write short phrases, we focused on hearing and writing initial sounds in words.  This proved very successful this week. 
 
Our focus red words this week were: me, my, the
 
If you could read them, your challenge was to write them.  Maybe you could have a go at this at home!
 
In our mathematical work, we've continued to subtract and the children have been using 5 and 10 frames to create and record their own subtractions.  This proved very successful and we were particularly impressed with the children's ability to speak the calculations they were making.  Many children still need support to write some numbers, don't worry, this is normal.  The really important thing is to understand and talk about the process of subtracting. However, number formation practice at home is always a great idea  - 5 minutes a couple of times a week will really pay dividends! 
 
In our topic work we've been out hunting for minibeasts.  Why not ask us what we found and where we found them?  We talked about the key features of these minibeasts - wings, legs, shells - some had them and some didn't!  Next week we'll dig a bit deeper into habitats and why certain minibeasts favour a particular environment. 
 
We've got some caterpillars in early years at the moment and the really exciting news this week was that they went into cocoons.  Now begins the slow wait for them to transform.  We learnt a new word for this - metamorphosis!  Ask us about it!
 
Butterflies provided an opportunity to talk about symmetry - there's another great word we've learnt.  We found that symmetrical things are the same or equal on each side.   I wonder if you can look for symmetry this weekend. 
 
looking ahead to next week, it's National Numeracy Day on Wednesday.  We'll be celebrating in school by learning a new skill and having lots of fun with numbers.  We've shared some maths challenges that you might enjoy as part of National Numeracy Day celebrations. 
 
Wishing everyone a happy weekend, 
 
Mrs H-S
Minibeasts!
Magic Maths!