Another busy week here in pear class...
This week we have been busy learning the sounds o,c,k,u and b. As we are working our way through the sounds we are noticing that some children are finding it tricky to remember some of the sounds. We are working to support your children by having fun and speedy sound sessions throughout the day. Please continue to recap all of the sounds we have learnt as well as practising new ones. Don't forget to practise blending too. This skill is quite tricky and needs to be practised regularly.
In our mathematical work we have been matching. We have been matching items into pairs looking at the colour, shape and size concentrating on the words same and different. Lots of children can easily match when asked to, but lots of us need some prompts to explain why things match. We enjoyed pegging pairs of socks onto a washing line and discussing what we could see. We know that certain socks are the same because they have the same pattern and colours on, but we found it difficult to explain how another pair of socks were different. It would be really helpful to play games at home like the odd one out, and allowing for lots of opportunities for finding matching pairs of items. Your child might match two spoons from the utensils draw but challenge them to think, are the spoons the same size ? The emphasis on maths in Reception is very much on the child to provide explanations, for example, why is this pencil not the same as all of the other pencils? (that pencil may be shorter, it might have a different pattern on it, it might have a different use). Next week we will continue to practice this skill and do lots of explaining and reasoning as we sort items into sets.
In our topic work we have been continuing our work around families - this time thinking about our extended families and our own family trees. One of the Early Learning Goals in Reception is for our children to have an understanding about the past and to be able to talk about people and places in their lives that are special to them. The past is a difficult concept for children and whilst many children could talk about their extended families- grandparents, Aunties etc, they did not understand that their own parents did not always live in the houses they now live in and that in the past their parents were also children! It would be fantastic if you could talk to your child about your experiences in the past and what you did when you were a child - referring to the idea that the past is something that has already happened and it might have happened a long time ago or just yesterday. We had fun drawing our own family trees and these are hanging in our classroom alongside our pictures of our families so that we can refer to them regularly and tell our friends stories about our family members. If you still haven't sent in a family photo, please do as the children really love to have that home-school connection.
Our drawing club story this week was Giraffes Can't Dance. Each week the children's drawings are becoming more elaborate and intricate. It is great to see! Our focus vocabulary for this story was courage. This word is one our schools three c's- courageous, caring and curious. Last week we introduced caring whilst reading The Smartest Giant in Town. Our three c's are the heart of the school and what we want the children to live by as they learn and spend time in school. Next week we will introduce curious.
Pear class have had so much fun celebrating European Languages Day! They explored the counties of Yorkshire and Northumberland and made flags with loose parts, decorated flags and found out lots about the accents and the best part was making Yorkshire puddings, tasting Northumbrian sausages and of course eating them! There’s more on this on the European languages day section of the Pear Class page!
In RE we talked about what it means to be a role model. We thought about our role models in school and how we could be role models to others. The children shared their ideas in a circle time and then drew a picture of their role model. Pear class are really developing their sense of ‘belonging’ to a group (Pear class) and community (Swansfield Park Primary).
It was Jerry Cat who helped us in our Jigsaw session this week. Jerry cat teaches children to ‘paws’ (pause) and think and reflect on the topic of discussion. Our questions were -why do we share? Is it important? How does it make you feel when people share with you? It is very clear to see that we have lots of kind and caring children in our class who are fantastic carer sharers!
Finding the pulse is something which the children are becoming increasingly confident in doing. This week they listened to ‘Sing’ by the Carpenters and found the pulse to the different rhythms in the song- and of course a lot of dancing too! Children were given the opportunity to perform their versions of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5… once I caught a fish alive- we had some excellent talent! Continuing on the musical theme, Pears have been ‘chugging’ along to Big Red Combine Harvester in our singing practice for Harvest!
As well as all of this, the children have spent time writing their names, developing their fine motor skills, singing and dancing and so much more!
We kindly ask you to encourage your child to leave their toys at home- we have plenty to play with in Pear class and don’t want to risk toys being broken or lost.
As the weather continues to change; please ensure your child has wellies in school for those damper days ahead!
Please let staff know if your child is being collected by someone different to who usually collects. This can be done by speaking to staff on the door in the morning, e mailing school or phoning the office. Many thanks for your understanding and co-operation.
Take care,
Mrs H-S and Mrs T