Week 3- 14.11.22
Week Three done and dusted!
The weeks are rattling by and the big C is getting ever closer!
In RWI this week group A have reviewed ‘s’ and ‘d’ and Group B have reviewed ‘o' and ‘c’. Our children continue to make great progress with their blending confidence and we do hope that you enjoyed reading their first home readers with them over this last week. We read with the children on Thursdays and Fridays so please do remember to return the books on Tuesdays so we can hear your child read and exchange their book. For those children who have not yet been sent blending books, please do continue to read with your child and encourage them to re-tell the story.
Our topic work this week has centred around anti-bullying week and the story The Rainbow Fish. We all enjoyed wearing our odd socks on Monday – in Pear Class we are a bunch of odd socks but that makes us all so much more interesting! The theme for anti-bullying week this year is ‘Reach out’! We started off by thinking about what the word ‘bullying’ actually means. We know that saying mean things or hurting others is wrong and we all sometimes make mistakes but is this bullying? We decided that to bully someone you had to single them out several times either by excluding them, calling them names or physically hurting that child. We all discussed who we could reach out to if we were being bullied and needed help.
We enjoyed reading the story The Rainbow fish. The rainbow fish is a a unique fish with shimmering scales. Other fish admire him and request some of his scales because they want to share in his beauty. At first reluctant, Rainbow Fish eventually relents and finds he enjoys sharing his scales. We decided as a class that this week we would work on our sharing skills as we decided that anti-bullying week is about celebrating our uniqueness!
In maths this week we have been thinking about the composition of numbers 1,2 and 3. We introduced the children to the part, part whole model using number stories about the farmer and his field. The farmer started off with 3 cows in his field, 2 cows went to a different field with lots of grass and 1 cow went to another part with lots of mud. 2 and a 1 makes 3 altogether. Although we have introduced the children to the add and equals signs, the emphasis at this stage is still on the physical manipulatives with number so not all children are ready to record. Alongside this we played a bean bag game with a large scale part, part, whole model. The children had to throw the bean bags into the different hoops. They were able to see that 1 in 1 hoop and 1 in another equalled 2 altogether but they could also see 2 with 2 beanbags in 1 part and 0 bean bags in another.
Our music session this week required the children to listen and respond to 'Don’t Go Breaking My Heart by Elton John and Kiki Dee'. We had great fun finding the pulse together and talking about the song. We played lots of copycat rhythm games and continued to explore different pitches in music. There was some brilliant improvisation indeed! We enjoyed the action nursery rhyme 'Ring O’ Roses' and clapped to the beat. Listening, responding to and performing songs helps children's confidence to develop as well as increasing their listening and attention skills- we love to sing and perform in Pear! Continuing our musical theme, our P. E this week was learning and practising 'Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ which they performed in a 'confident' way and an 'angry' way as these were our emotions we were focussing on this week. We also looked at the hula style of dance this week and we all loved trying our very own hula dances!
In our R.E session this week we found out about the bible and that it is a special book for Christians which tells lots of special stories. We listened to and watched a simple Nativity story and made a story map as a class. We then made our own Nativity crib scene by using or fantastic cutting and sticking skills.
Our jigsaw session saw us continue to celebrate difference, focussing on different families. We sang our Jigsaw song ‘There’s a Place’ which we performed beautifully! We talked to each other about how we could sort photos of different families into groups. We decided that we all have some things that are the same but that we are also unique and very different from each other. We decided that our families were unique to us.
As today is Children in Need day, we have enjoyed a range of activities throughout the day and have been finding out about the very good cause of the day. We went on a shape hunt today too- looking for shapes in our environment. We also made some brilliant circles and triangles out of natural materials. We talked about the properties of these shapes as we did them.
We hope you are enjoying reading with your child at home. Please remember to return books on a Tuesday and your child will be given a new book to take home at the end of the week. Thank you for your co-operation.
Enjoy your weekend and we look forward to seeing you on Monday,
Best wishes,
The Pear class team