Blog Week ending 24/06/22
What a sunny week it has been in Pear Class this week!
In our number work we have been busy revisiting first, then, now number stories and mastering our confidence when using subtraction. We were able to tell our number stories using small world characters and then attempted to record these stories numerically. We then moved on to skip counting in 2’s. We started by thinking about all of the things that come in 2’s and then lined up our shoes counting to twenty. We discovered that the whisper one number, shout the next was the best method to work out the numbers we needed when counting in 2’s to 20, eg whisper 1, shout 2, whisper 3 etc. We then created a numberline using numicon and placed a counter next to the numbers we used when skip counting in 2’s. This way we were able to easily able to see a pattern; the numbers without a counter next to them all had a spare hole – one left over without a pair. The children decided that these must be the odd numbers and the numbers we used when counting in 2’s were the even numbers. We will do more to consolidate our understanding of odd and even numbers and skip counting over the next few weeks.
In our topic work we have been reading the story Winnie the Witch at the Seaside. We enjoyed reading all about her disastrous adventure and then placed ourselves in her shoes and wrote a postcard to a friend in the character of Winnie, describing her seaside trip! In drawing club, we took this work further and drew Winnie’s adventure, writing in speech bubbles what we thought she might be saying. Our writing confidence has developed so much and we are beginning to use wow words in our sentences!
During carpet time we discussed what we would like to take on a seaside adventure, listing the items in order of importance. Some of us felt that a bucket and spade would be the most important item but some of us felt that to go on a real adventure we would need a boat! Following on from this we decided that we are going to make some boats that could carry us on this adventure, but first we need to decide the best materials to use. We enjoyed investigating some different materials in our water tray, thinking about what would be best to use to make our boat waterproof and to ensure that our boats float and do not sink! Next week we will begin making these boats, we have enjoyed discovering that cotton wool is not waterproof and that cork and plastic rather than paper will help our boats to float for longer.
Later in the week we continued our practise for Sports day in PE. We're getting very excited, only a few weeks away! This week we enjoyed having a go with the hurdles and trying out our throwing skills.
In music, we enjoyed listening to "The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Ballet. We talked about how the music makes us feel and had some great thoughts. We also enjoyed playing the xylophones and are getting really good at playing a rhythm.
We've really enjoyed playing outside too, but it is getting really hot and it would be great if we can all remember to send in named sunhats.
Thanks. Have a great weekend and see you all next week.
The Pear Class team