w.c. 16th December 2013

Well, what a week we had! The children looked amazing in our 'A Little Bird Told Me' production. Thank you so much for providing such fabulous costumes. Their singing was superb and well done to all children who had speaking parts. We are so proud of them as I am sure you are too.

This week is all about Christmas. We will be learning about what Christmas is and why we celebrate it? We will be finding out about Christmas celebrations in the past and how it is celebrated in other parts of the world. We will also be singing festive counting songs and action songs. We have our party on Wednesday afternoon and our theatre trip on Thursday morning so it will be another packed week!

Look forward to seeing you tomorrow.

Reception w.c. 9th December

Hello everyone!

Our rehearsals for the Christmas production have been going really well. We are very proud of all the children and can't wait to perform it on Thursday and Friday. The dress rehearsal is on Wednesday. Thank you all for organising the costumes - the children will look amazing!

With all the rehearsals taking up lots of time during the day, we have not had much time to set aside for readers. Please bear with us as we are doing our best. We appreciate that we haven't listened to the children read as often as we would like, or updated their bookmarks, and we thank you for your continued support at home.

In maths we will be learning about money this week. We will be sorting and naming coins, buying items, working out how many 1p coins are needed to pay for items and finding out how much two items cost. 

We look forward to seeing you all at the end of the week.

Reception w.c. 2.12.13

Hi,

In maths this week we will be focusing on counting. We will continue our learning on one more and one less through finding missing numbers on a number track. We will be learning to count on from a given number - a very important skill to develop! We will be learning to recognise the size of a set through looking at regular patterns, such as on spotty dice or dominoes, and moving on to irregular patterns. This is called subitizing and is the skill of instantly seeing how many and there are some interesting articles online if you care to google. Here is one link to get you started. http://gse.buffalo.edu/fas/clements/files/Subitizing.pdf We will also be estimating small groups of objects.

You can help your child at home by playing dominoes and dice games.

Rehearsals for the Christmas performance are well under way and in phonics we are continuing to consolidate our blending for reading and segmenting for spelling skills.

See you tomorrow.

Reception w.c. 25/11/13

Hello,

This week we will be learning about time. We will be thinking about the question 'What if there was no time?' and talking about how and why we measure time. I am looking forward to hearing their ideas and suggestions! We will be sequencing events, ordering the days of the week, measuring short periods of time in simple ways and looking at clocks to begin to recognise o'clock times. 

I am looking forward to looking at all your time photographs.

We are also continuing to blend and segment simple words to read and spell and will be learning the tricky words - 'said' and 'you'.

See you all tomorrow :-)

Reception w.c. 18.11.13

Phonics

This week we are revising all sounds learnt so far. We will particularly be focusing on the diagraphs: ch, sh, th, qu, ng & nk. We will be blending cvc words and learning the tricky words: was & my. We will be segmenting using our Fred Fingers to spell words.
Please continue your great support at home by reading the sets of words and books. Also try writing simple cvc words, e.g. 'red' by saying the word a few times, then saying the individual sounds while pointing to fingers r-e-d (one for each sound from left to right) & finishing by writing down each of the letters.
Here is a link to a you tube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNSSU1O3KU8

Maths

In maths we are learning about shape. We will be naming and describing 2D & 3D shapes, e.g. circle, triangle, rectangle, square, cube, cuboid, sphere, cylinder, pyramid & cone. We will be exploring a range of everyday objects. Talk with your children about shapes they see at home
 :-)

We hope that you enjoyed the stay and play sessions last week. As always, if you have any questions please feel free to ask.

Reception w.c. 11.11.13

Hi everyone, we are really looking forward to seeing you at stay and play this week. We hope that you will enjoy joining in with the teaching sessions and playing with your children :-)

Phonics

In phonics we will be revising all the letter sounds learnt so far but our main focus will be on blending for reading and segmenting for spelling. We will be learning how to write CVC words using our 'Fred fingers'! So far we have learnt the tricky words - I, go, to, the, no. This week we will be learning - we, me, be, he, she.

Maths

In maths we will be learning to solve problems involving one less. Please continue to count backwards with you child at home from 20 to 0 and play games involving saying the number that is one less than a given number.

A letter about the Christmas production will be coming your way this week - rehearsals have already begun!

Nursery - week beginning 11th November 2013

We hope you have all had a lovely weekend and are ready for our first stay and play week of the year. Here is and overview of what we are doing this week.

Letters and Sounds

We will be focusing on general sounds discrimination and playing lots of sound games. This will involve children listening carefully to sounds and guessing what they think they might be. We also have a group of children who will be practicing oral blending and segmenting. They will be playing games that involve sound talking words and finding the correct picture or object.

We also be continuing with squiggle whilst you wiggle and having fun exploring different ways to mark make.

Number

This week in number we will be focusing on representing numbers using our fingers and representing qualities with the right number. We will also be singing Dr Knickerbocker, which you will be able to join in with during stay and play.

Our story focus this week is Brown Bear, Brown Bear what do you see?

Please feel free and ask any questions you may have.

Thank you
The nursery team

Reception w.c. 4.11.13

Hello everyone! We hope that you've had a lovely half term and we are looking forward to lots of exciting learning coming up over the next few weeks!

Phonics
We have two more letter sounds to learn then we will have completed set 1. Everyone is doing amazingly well! We will doing some individual assessments to check any sounds we need to revisit and we will be focusing on Word Time! in our phonics teaching sessions. This is where the children practice their blending to read skills and we will also be pushing on with segmenting for spelling. Ask your children to show you Fred Fingers!

Maths
We will be learning to compare numbers, saying which number is more, e.g. 13 is more than 6, and which number is less, e.g. 8 is less than 19. Here are a few interactive games for you to try (the last one gets quite challenging!)
http://www.ictgames.com/moreless.htm
http://www.toytheater.com/more-less.php
http://www.primarygames.com/math/moreorless/
Keep practicing recognising numbers 11-20 and also ordering numbers to 20. The children need to be secure with this in order to recognise more and less. If you child struggles with remembering bigger numbers, focus on numbers to 10 to begin with.

Following on from our learning about Harvest and where our food comes from, we are going to continue  by learning about healthy food and healthy living.

Oh, and if you went 'trick or treating' please send us a postcard via Orbit. We would love to see!

Nursery!!!

Just a quick welcome message to all our new nursery parents! On here you will find up to date information about everything that is happening in our foundation stage, both Reception and Nursery. You are also welcome to leave us a comment. We hope you are all having a fab half term and look forward to seeing you all next week!

Watch this space.........

The Foundation Team :0)

Reading Week

This week is reading week! We have got lots of great activities planned based around the story of 'The Gingerbread Man'.

• We will be having a visit from the Library and will be talking about what a library is, providing opportunities for the children to talk about their visits to the library.
• children from Key Stage 2 will be reading with our children which will provide a great opportunity for the children to share their favourite books.
• a theatre company will be performing the story of 'The Gingerbread Man' and we will be talking about the features of the story, such as the characters and the setting. The children will be able to sequence the story.
• A story teller will be coming in to school.
• In maths we will be continuing our learning on adding one more through the story of 'The Gingerbread Man'. We will also explore weighing and measuring when we make salt-dough Gingerbread Men. We will also play 'Where is the Gingerbread Man?' focusing on positional and directional language, such as under, over, behind, next to, etc.
• On Friday we will all be dressed up as characters from the story. We can't wait to see everyone's costumes! The adults will role-play the story in the morning, followed by the children acting out the story in the afternoon.

We are really excited about reading week. Here are some things you can to at home:

• Read the story of 'The Gingerbread Man'.
• Read other traditional tales.
• Go to the library with your child.
• Talk about stories - characters, settings, sequence of story, what happens next, etc.

Enjoy

Reception

Hi everyone,

Apologies for the lack of posts over the last couple of weeks. I had some technical issues which I am hoping have now been resolved.

Phonics

We are whizzing through the set 1 letters which is fantastic. Here are a couple of suggestions for how to help at home:

• after saying each letter sound in a word, always blend the sounds together immediately to read the word, e.g. c-a-t, cat or m-a-n, man.
• get your child to point to each letter as they say the sound, then run their finger underneath the word when they blend. They practice doing this in Word Time every day. Please do lots of modelling of this.
• please focus lots on comprehension - who is the main character? where does the story take place? what happens at the beginning/middle/end of the story?

Your support with reading is invaluable and we really appreciate it :-)

Maths

Over the last couple of weeks we have been learning about shape and measure. We have particularly been focusing on the language we can use to describe shape and measure.

Here are some examples:

Shape

straight, curved, bent, side, edge, corner, zig zag, tucked in, curled

Measure

small, tall, fat, thin, short, shorter, shortest, long, longer, longest, medium

This coming week we will be revisiting counting skills - counting accurately with one to one correspondence - and we will be investigation number problems - exploring how we can share out objects equally by adding one more to each group.

We have also been learning about Harvest and where our food comes from. When you are at the shops, talk with your children about where different food types come from. We have learnt lots of Harvest songs which we are looking forward to sharing with you on Wednesday.

Hope to see you all there!

Sorry, the last two posts are out of order! 

Reception news

Hi everyone,

We are half way through our second week and everything is going really well. 

On Monday your child brought home a reading book. Please try and listen to your child read for a short time each day. Remember to write a brief comment in their diary. We change books on Mondays and Fridays and we will listen to your child read in school each week.

In phonics this week we are learning the sounds m, a, s, d, t. We are following the Read, Write, Inc program which we will be giving you lots of information about at the parents reading workshop on Tuesday 1st October. We hope you can make it!

In maths we are continuing number recognition and formation covering the numerals, 6, 9, 2, 3 and 8. Remember to look at Shonette Bason's Digit Dancing clip on You Tube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh7whodf3RA

On Friday we are celebrating Roald Dahl Day, focusing on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We have already started exploring chocolate! We have been making chocolate cream in the messy play and painting with chocolate! It smells yummy!

Reception w.c. 16.9.13

Phonics

Next week we will be learning the sounds i, n, p, g, o. Every Friday we will send home handwriting practice sheets for you to do at home with your children. We hope that you will find them very useful. These are for your use at home and do not need to be returned to school. 

Maths

In maths we will be learning to order numbers and count out corresponding amounts of objects. The children will be ordering complete sets of numbers, e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and random sets, e.g. 3, 7, 2, 4. They will use number tracks and lots of reciting of numbers as strategies to help them order. At home please look at numbers and put them in order and please carry on with counting objects with one to one correspondence - one number for one object!
Here are some fun interactive games you can play online.
http://www.ictgames.com/caterpillar_slider.html
http://www.topmarks.co.uk/Flash.aspx?f=order

Reading

We are pleased that so many of you have enjoyed sharing your child's reading book with them. Please remember to date and write a brief comment each time you hear your child read. We will change the books on a Monday and a Friday if there is evidence that the book has been read. 

See you on Monday!

Welcome

Reception

Welcome back everyone and a special welcome to the new children, mums and dads! Last week was great. The children have settled in amazingly well and we are very proud of them all
:-)

In phonics we have revised oral blending and segmenting and in maths we have been learning to recognise and write the numbers 1, 4, 7 and 5. 

Looking forward to seeing you all next week!

Nursery w.c. 15/4/13

Phonics

This week we will recap the letter <i> & continue developing our oral segmenting skills.

Segmenting

Choose one of your child’s soft toy with your child to name as Toy Talk. Use the soft toy and ask your child to talk the toy in sound-talk, for example just before dinner time:

Let’s tell the toy what we eat our dinner with: eg a f-or-k

Let’s tell the toy what we drink out of:eg a c-u-p

Encourage scenarios which they could tell the toy or let them give him instructions. Then model the sound-talk for them to repeat. This is teaching them to segment words into their separate sounds. They will soon start the segmenting themselves. Leave the sound-talk toy freely available for them to practise and experiment with.

Say the sounds

When your child is used to hearing the toy say words in sound-talk and blending the individual sounds to make words, you may like this game.

Choose some objects with three sound/phoneme names that your child knows hide them in a box or bag. Let them pick an object out, and then ask them to try to say the separate sounds in the name of the object, just like the toy does (e.g. d-u-ck). Then blend the sounds back together to make the word duck.

* New letter *

Next week we will be learning to recognise, write & say the sound for the letter <l>.

Maths

This week we will be continuing our learning of numbers, recognising & ordering numbers 1 to 5, then 1 to 9.

Understanding the World

We will be talking about seasons again & looking at Spring. Look at the natural environment with your child and talk about what happens at this time of the year. 

We will also be looking at similarities and differences between different people, e.g comparing hair, eye or skin colour, height, etc. Talk to your child about some of the similarities and differences in relation to friends and family.

Here is an old post that Miss Atkinson prepared which I hope will be very useful to Nursery now!

Here is an old post that Miss Atkinson prepared which I hope will be very useful to Nursery now!

Meet The Characters....

Here is some background information I thought you might like about the characters......

 

 

Kipper is five years old and the baby of the family. He is very mischievous and is always getting into scrapes. He has a good imagination and loves the world of make believe. He takes his teddy bear 'Teddy' everywhere with him.

Biff is seven years old, like her twin brother Chip. She has good ideas but is sometimes bossy. She is an action girl but can be very clumsy; if there is a hole to fall into, she will fall into it!

Chip is seven and Biff's twin brother. He is quieter and more cautious than the others but is good at stopping their quarrels. Chip likes to take time to think about a problem. He is artistic and funny.

 Mum is the practical one of the family; if something needs fixing she is the one to do it whether it's unblocking the sink or building a new shed. She is patient and kind and can tell if any of the children are unhappy. Mum can often sense trouble coming before it happens!

Mum calls Dad the 'fourth child of the family'. He's always messing about and loves practical jokes.
Things often go wrong for Dad and he's a bit of a bodger around the house, but he's great at telling stories and organising games.

Floppy is a clever dog. He is called Floppy because he looks floppy and flops down to sleep when tired. He often gets muddy and likes to chase cats. Floppy carries 'The Magic Key' on his collar but would rather be burying a bone or having a nice snooze than going on adventures; he knows there will always be trouble, with a capital T!

Gran is an energetic, eccentric and wacky grandmother and can be a bit of a rebel. She lives in a cottage in the country and the children like to stay with her. She can be a worry to Mum and is sometimes embarrassing; she often acts as if she is a child herself!

Wilma is eight and the oldest of the children. She is very determined and likes to boss the gang around. Wilma is practical with bright ideas and common sense, but she always thinks that she is right. She likes to try to do things in the neatest possible way.

Wilf is seven years old. He is clever, in fact he is a walking encyclopaedia of facts! - but not a know-it-all. Wilf has a good imagination and likes to perform; this can be useful if the children find themselves in a difficult situation!

Hope this helps :-)

Nursery

Hi everyone,

Welcome back. I hope you had a great Easter. 

Just a quick update on the chicks:
They spent their Easter holidays at Mrs Smiths house. She looked after them well & they came back over double the size (and also very smelly!). Tomorrow, their new home is being constructed, and I am sure they will love the bigger space.

Last week we settled back in to the routine. In maths we were digit dancing & digit doodling. We looked at the number 3. Check out Shonette Bason's Digit Dance clip! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh7whodf3RA#
In phonics we continued to practice segmenting by playing 'Clapping Sounds' & we learned to recognise, write & say the sound for the letter <i>. Ask your children to tell you about my pet mouse 'Inky Mouse'!

Nursery w.c. 11th March 2013

The children have begun to practise writing their name each day. I am really pleased with the way they have now settled in to this new routine and many children have come on leaps and bounds. This has had a great impact on mark making in general and children are showing a real interest in writing and drawing. When practising at home it is important that they use lower case letters except for the initial letter.

Maths

The children will be learning early calculating skills this week. For most children this will involve separating a group of 3 or 4 objects in different ways, beginning to recognise that the total is still the same. Some children will continue to make comparisons between quantities, saying which group has more/lots, and some will be finding one more from a group of up to 5, then 10, objects. As with many number/counting objectives, these can be reinforced through many everyday activities at home, e.g. by comparing amounts, using language related to more and less, asking 'If I have one more... how many will I have?'

Phonics

We are continuing with oral blending activities. Most children are able to blend body-coda words, e.g. ca-t, pe-g, so we will be breaking words down into their individual sounds for the children to blend, e.g. c-a-t, p-e-g. Here are some activities for you to try:

Oral blending

Make time for your child to listen to you modelling oral blending before they are introduced to letters. e.g. when asking questions or giving instructions you could segment (break up) the last word into separate phonemes and then immediately blend the sounds together to say the word (e.g. It’s time to get your c-oa-t, coat! or Touch your t-oe-s, toes! Can you stamp your f-ee-t, feet?)

Use oral blending when sharing books, particularly rhyming books where the last word in a rhyming couplet could be segmented (broken up) into three separate sounds and then blended by the adult.

•  a fish on a d – i -sh

•  a goat on a b – oa – t

•  a dog on a l – o – g

Clapping sounds

Think of words using the letters ‘s, a, t,’ ‘p, i, n’ (e.g. sat, pin, nip, pat, tap, pit, pip) and sound them out (segment/ break up) clapping each sound with your child, then blend the

phonemes to make the whole word orally.

As they develop their confidence, ask them to show  this activity to friends or family.

Nursery wc 4th March 2013

Maths

This week we will be looking at measure through the story of 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears'. We will be making porridge, looking at the language involved in comparing size and sorting objects according to size. Try to use lots of different words for big and small at home. Choose an object and see if you can find objects that are bigger than/smaller than it.

Phonics

We are moving on to Aspect 7 which is Oral Blending and Segmenting. This week we are focusing on blending sounds together to make words.

Children who can hear sounds in words and sound them out will develop the skills they need to be successful readers and writers. Segmenting and blending individual sounds can be difficult at the beginning so we will begin by segmenting and blending syllables. Once the children are familiar with this we will practice with individual sounds.

Rhyme is an important aspect of blending because it is essentially the blending of a new onset to an old rime, e.g. c-at and h-at. So keep sharing rhyming stories, songs and rhymes at home.

However, for blending, it is better to divide the syllable in a different way, e.g. di-ce, swee-t,

ca-t. When doing this, make sure that after you have segmented the word you blend it together so that your child hears the complete word, e.g. Would you like a swee-t, sweet?

Here are some activities you can do at home to support your child's learning:

Play toy talk with your child where the last word in an instruction would be said in toy talk.

Eg, stand u-p, tap your fee-t, pat your ba-ck, touch your hea-d, wiggle your chi-n, pinch your chee-k.

Try and use toy talk at different times of the day. For example:  if you are on your way out you could ask your child to go and get their coa-t or when they are in the bath ask them to pass the soa-p, before bed ask your child for a ki-ss or a hu-g.

As your child becomes more confident with this you could move on the breaking up the words into their individual sounds, e.g. c-oa-t, k-i-ss, h-u-g.

Top tips for listening:

•  Your child may already be interested in hearing the initial sounds in words and know that sounds the letter makes when written down are called so you can help them by making the links with print in the environment.

•   It is important only to segment (break up) and blend (put back together) the last word in a sentence or phrase and not words that occur at the beginning or middle of the sentence. Over time and with lots of repetition, your child will be able to orally blend and segment words. eg: put your hands on you h-ea-d, touch your f-ee-t.

•  It is very important to pronounce the sounds very clearly and not to add an ‘uh’ to some (e.g.‘ssssssss’ and not ‘suh’, ‘mmmmmmmm’ and not ‘muh’).

 

Come and speak to a member of staff if you want to know more about this. 

I hope you find this useful :-)

 

Reception Planning wc 25th February

Phonics
We will be learning the new sounds ur (as in hurt) and ow (as in town). We will be learning the sound of the digraphs, how to write them and also applying them to words and sentences. Activity sheets and word lists will be handed out this week for you to practise at home.

Tricky word - THEY.

There are some great free games on www.phonicsplay.co.uk that your child can play at home to help with their reading and writing. Look at the Phase 2 and Phase 3 games. If you would like to make some flashcards etc or prin some things off to support your child's learning, there are some great resources on www.sparklebox.co.uk At the top of the website, click on literacy, then click on DfES Letters and Sounds.

Maths
We are continuing to work out number addition sentences using pictures to support. You can try different problems at home by getting your child to count objects at home e.g. I have 4 forks and 5 knives, how many do I have altogether? Your child can then count out 4 forks and 5 knives and then count how many they have altogether. Encourage them to write it as a number sentence 4+5 = 9 when they have worked out the answer. Again their are some great resources on sparklebox.co.uk. to help support your child.

Another great website that has interactive games for your child to play is
www.ictgames.com

Reading Books
We will be changing reading books on Monday for those children that have read at home and who have a comment in their reading diary (so don't forget to comment on how they have done). If your child is not ready to change and needs to spend a bit longer on their book, please write this in their reading diary.

Nursery

Week beginning 25th February 2013

Maths

Now that the children are becoming competent at counting with one to one correspondence and counting out a number of objects we are able continuing with our work on counting by looking at more and less. There are lots of opportunities to compare groups of objects at home. Here are just a couple of ideas:

• building 2 towers, which has more/less?
• have we got enough spoons for everyone? Do we need some more?
• ask your child to take the bowl with more sweets, grapes, etc. & leave the bowl that has less.

Please carry on counting at home and try to use the vocabulary of comparison whenever you can!

one, lots, more, less, fewer

Phonics

We are beginning to learn about voice sounds (Aspect 6 Letters and Sounds). Here are two activities which will support your child's learning at home.

Voice sounds

Show your child how they can make sounds with their voices, for example:

Make your voice go down a slide – wheee!

Make your voice bounce like a ball – boing, boing

Sound really disappointed – oh

Hiss like a snake – ssssss

Keep everyone quiet – shshshsh

Gently moo like a cow – mmmoooo

Look astonished – oooooo!

Be a steam train – chchchchch

Buzz like a bumble bee – zzzzzzz

Be a clock – tick tock.

This can be extended by joining single speech sounds into pairs (e.g. ee-aw like a donkey).

Target sounds

Give your child a target sound to put into a story when they hear a particular word or character (e.g. make a ‘ch’ sound when they hear the word ‘train’ or woof when they hear the word dog).

Start with a single sound when they hear a target word, then try adding more. Remember to prompt and leave pauses in your reading to make it obvious where the sounds are required.

Welcome back!

Welcome back everyone. I hope you had a good break!

Phonics

We are continuing with Alliteration this week to consolidate our learning. Here are a couple more activities for you to try.

Sound box/bag

Collect some household objects and toys with names beginning with the same sound.

‘What have we got in our sound box today, sound box today, sound box today? ‘What have we got in our sound box today, shall we look and see?

Mirror play

Play at making faces and copying movements of the lips and tongue in front of the mirror with your child.

After you have warmed the muscles in your mouth up, start making sounds in the mirror and talk the way lips move, for example, when sounding out ‘p’ and ‘b’, the way that tongues poke out for ‘th’, the way teeth and lips touch for ‘f’ and the way lips shape the sounds ‘sh’ and ‘m’.

Maths

Our focus this week is on counting. We will be doing lots of practical activities involving counting out a small number of objects, extending to counting out up to 6 objects from a larger group. The children will also be comparing two groups of objects & recognizing when they have the same number in each group. So keep counting at home! The following website has some ideas:

http://www.havingfunathome.com/2011/10/looking-for-fun-and-simple-ways-to.html

Squiggle

This week's squiggle is all about Dinky Dodgem cars at the funfair. The foundation movement is meandering movements & looped lines. The meandering movements help the children to manage the many changes of direction from which handwriting emerges. Most letters & join-ups consist of round & rounded writing movements. Many children find this difficult & move round curves in an angular fashion. These krongelidong wriggles help to make letters nice & round. At home children can 'drive' a little car along a wriggly road drawn in chalk; sing transport songs, such as 'The Wheels on the Bus'; or run a car along their own body or somebody else' - fast, slow, with more or less pressure.

Enjoy!

Reception First Week Back

I hope you all had a lovely half term and are looking forward to coming back to school on Monday.This week in Reception we shall be learning the following......

Phonics Phase 3
We will be practising writing words for all the previous sounds we have learnt. The new sounds we will be learning this week are oo and ar.
**Remember that oo has 2 sounds; b-oo-k and s-oo-n. Children will be taught both sounds, when they apply this to their reading they will need to sound out unfamiliar words and apply both sounds. They will then need to work out which sound is correct by listening to which version of the word sounds 'right'. 
We will be practising the sounds these digraphs make, how to write them and also applying them to words. Please practise these at home with your child. See how many words they can make.
Along with the activity sheets we have been sending home your child will also be given a word list containing the new sound to practise reading and writing at home (as well as our general word lists on Mondays). When your child can confidently read the words see if they can spell the words.

Tricky word - this week we will be learning the tricky word YOU. Tricky words cannot be sounded out so we teach the children to recognise the word as it is. Please encourage your child to do this when reading. If they start to sound out the word please prompt them by saying "that's a tricky word we can't sound it out" Don't just correct them straight away, allow them to try and work it out themselves first.

Numeracy
This week we are carrying on with our ordering numbers 11-20. Practise this at home with your child. When they can confidently order 11-20, take away the first few numbers and order from a different starting point e.g. 13-19, 12-17. This will mean your child becomes confident dealing with numbers in any order. We will also be looking at missing numbers. At home you could try this by arranging numbers 11-20 and turning one or two over so the number is face down. Can your child tell you which number is missing? Can they write the number without needing to turn the card back over?

We are also looking at our + and = signs and solving number problems. The children still need a lot more practise at this before we move on to subtraction. If your child can confidently add any 2 numbers up to 10, extend this to look at numbers which add up to 20. You can then challenge them further by adding 3 single digit numbers together e.g. 3+2+1=?

**Remember to support them with objects if needed as numbers are an abstract concept. to children. So have the objects ready for the children to count e.g. 3+2=? Allow your child to count out 3 objects then count out 2 more and seperate the two piles. Now they can count how many they have altogether to find the answer.

Reading Books
We will be changing reading books on Monday so please make sure your child has read their book and you have written a comment in their reading diary detailing their progress, any words they have really struggled with, things they have done well with. This will help us to support your child further when we listen to them read in class.
When you have finished your reading book, always question your child's understanding of the story to ensure they have understood what they have read and not just decoded the words. Ask them questions such as how they think certain characters are feeling? Why do they think that? How would they feel if it happened to them? etc. Ask them to retell the story in their own words.

If your child is confident sounding out words whilst reading, start to encourage them to read known words and only sound out unfamiliar words. They could also start sounding out words in their head and saying the whole word out loud. If they are not ready to do this then continue to sound out each word and blend it back together, but then encourage them to re-read the whole sentence.

See you all Monday morning
Miss Atkinson

Nursery

Hello everyone! 
I am posting 2 weeks worth of news in one, including what we learnt last week and what we will be learning this week.

Squiggle

Last week we learnt the last squiggle in the series called 'Straight, bent, cross, happy'. The squiggle combined a mixture of straight lines and right angles, curves and dots and dashes.

We will continue with Squiggle Whilst You Wiggle during the shorter teaching sessions before lunch and at the end of the day and will revisit these skills regularly.

Phonics

We have started Aspect 5 Alliteration where the children learn to recognise words that begin with the same sound. Here are some activities you can do at home to support this learning.

Top tips for listening:

Don’t worry if your child cannot tell you the beginning sound in a word, just make sure you have gained their attention  before you look at objects beginning with the same sound or sing tongue twisters so that they can experience the initial sound pattern as you say it.

 

•  Have a look through your children’s toys and find the ones that begin with same sound. eg bus, ball, book, baby, balloon.

•  Do not add an ‘uh’ to the end of sounds:

              ‘ssss’ not ‘suh’

              ‘mmm’ not ‘muh’

              ‘t’ not ‘tuh’

              ‘sh’ not ‘shuh’

 

Come and speak to a member of staff if you want to know more about this! 

Think of alliterative ways to positively  describe your child such as: Amazing  Anna,  Beautiful Bella, Cool Kacey, Excellent Edward, Happy Henry, Caring Kate, Juicy Joel, Icing Isaac, Nifty Nathaniel,  etc 

Make up your own silly alliterative questions: Do you like beetles in your bed? Spiders in your spaghetti?” Peas on your plate? Jelly in your ‘jim jams’? Beans in your bath? Hamsters on your head?

When walking to school or driving to places, play I spy something beginning with….. and talk about things that begin with the same sound.

In the bathroom, talk about things that begin with the same sound such as bath, bubbles, boat or toothbrush, teeth, toilet, taps, and towels.

Tongue Twisters

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
Did Peter Piper pick a peck of pickled peppers?
If Peter Piper Picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

She shells sea shells on the sea shore.

I’m sure that she sells sea shells for sure.

 

Tongue Twister Website

www.fun-with-words.com tong_poems.html

Maths

Digit Dancing/Digit Doodling! We have returned to recognising and writing numerals. Last week we covered 1, 4 and 7. Next week we will be doing 6 and 9. Watch Shonette Bason's video clip to get a taste!

 

Phase 3 Phonics for Reception

PHONICS
This week we will be learning a trigraph (3 letters that make 1 sound) /igh/ and the digraph /oo/. When we learn our sounds we will look at the sound the letters make, practise writing the sound and also applying the sound to words/sentences. I will be handing out the activity sheets for these sounds as well as a list of words to practise at home that contain the sounds. Practise sounding out and blending the word list and then see if your child can write the word by you sounding it out to them. Eventually move on to you just saying the word and your child writes it. Can they write any sentences that contain any of the words? (Remember finger space, capital letters and full stops and writing in a line from left to right).

When we learn /oo/ there are two different sounds - /oo/ as in zoo and /OO/ as in foot. There will be 2 different word lists sent home to practise these sounds.

The activity sheet for /ee/ /or/ will be sent home on Monday as this was not given out last week.

A few parents have asked me if it is ok if your child spells words incorrectly and whether they should correct them. It is perfectly fine if they spell them wrong if what they have written is phonetically plausible. Some examples we have had in class are;
aip for ape
choak for choke
thoas for those

We have not yet learnt the split digraph o_e .

This demonstrates your child's understanding of phonics and their application of the sounds we have learnt so far. It is ok to point out to your child that we actually spell those words differently (if it won't confuse them) and explain that they have not learnt those sounds yet, but always praise them for using their phonics knowledge to have a go at writing those words.


READING BOOKS
We will be changing reading books on Monday provided there is a comment to say your child has read their book over the weekend with no problems.