Spring 1- week 1- 7.1.22

Welcome back everyone! Happy New Year! Here's hoping this year is going to be a healthier one for everyone!
 
Our first week back has been a chilly one in school, can I please remind everyone to wrap up warm each day as we have to have lots of windows open (regardless of weather) for ventilation. Please remember to bring a hat, scarf and mittens everyday and spare clothes to keep at school. 
 
This week week we have already got off to a flying start with our learning!
 
In RWI, Mrs Hammonds group are going to continue to recap and secure set 2 sounds. We noticed lots of children to have gaps with set 2 sounds at the end of December and so this will be a continued focus this half term. Please practice saying, writing and reading set 2 sounds. You can find these on our class page on the website under " Teaching materials to support your child's learning at home"
 
Mrs Snowdown's group will also continue to consolidate set 2 but will move onto split sounds. Again, please practice reading and writing at home regularly. 
 
In reception, we will be looking closely at ditties (short sentences made up of set 1 sounds). We will focus on sounding out and blending short words to help us read the sentence, holding the sentence in our heads and then writing it down. This takes lots if practice and so please have a go at blending words, reading short sentences and  writing short 3/4 word sentences at home. Soon your child will bring a ditty home to practice this just as they would at school.
 
Our maths this week has been all about subtraction. In year one, we have been learning how to tell number stories using subtraction language. For example, first there were 9 birds in the tree, then 4 flew away and now there are 5 left. We then had a go at drawing our own number stories and writing the number sentence. We will continue with this next week with more emphasis on the take away symbol. 
 
Reception have focused their subtraction language around the song "5 currant buns" with emphasis on one less and the number line getting smaller. 
 
As part of our shape work, this week we have continued to learn more about 3D shapes and their properties. We have looked closely at the shapes: sphere, cone, cylinder, cube, cuboid and pyramid. Please reinforce the names of these shapes at home... why not go on a shape hunt around the house!? Some of us often mix up 2D shapes with 3D. We teach 2D are flat and 3D are fat.
 
In our topic work, we have been super busy learning about the 3 big R's. "Reduce, Recycle and Reuse". We have watched lots of videos to help us understand more about this. Why not watch them with your child and get them to explain what they already know....
 
 
 
In circle time we looked closely at different materials and talked about whether they can be recycled or not. We enjoyed sorting the materials and all week we have tried hard to put the right materials in plum class recycling bin!
 
We enjoyed making some posters to encourage people to reduce, recycle and reuse for our big trash to treasure display.
 
My challenge for the children was to find out what colour their bins are at home and find out what they are used for (food, glass, garden waste etc). Lots of children weren't sure. I'd love to find out on Monday at morning carpet time.
 
If you don't already, why not encourage your child to recycle at home and talk about what materials around the house can be recycled, have fun! 
 
If you're in reception, please add any pictures to your learning journal!
 
Next week we will be learning more about recycling as well as birds and winter.
 
Have a great weekend everyone!
Miss Freeman