This week in literacy we have been reading different versions of the well-known story of Little Red Riding Hood. Throughout the week we read books together, encouraging the children to read along. The story gave us a chance to talk about keeping themselves safe by doing what their parents tell them and of course not talking to strangers
The children made the puppets and need to try and use the familiar refrains from the story and think of some of their own words for their character to say. Performance is a skill to learn as there are a lot of things to think about. Speaking in a loud voice, keeping the puppet upright for all to see and projecting the voice to speak to an audience. Using a special voice for their puppet comes more naturally to some. All of these skills will be practised more in the coming weeks as we visit and retell familiar tales.
In phonics the diagraphs taught and practised were ‘ay/ai’. We looked at words and stories with these sounds in and practised writing words on the white boards. Please continue to practise recognition of these diagraphs daily and point them out to your child when they appear in a word in their reading book or word box.
In maths we have been doing lots of practical work to develop our understanding of taking away. The children have been solving formally written sums using equipment to find the answers. We will continue this work next week. At home you could tell your child number stories so they can use their adding and taking away skills to solve the problems. For example: A man had 6 sheep, 2 ran away how many were left? I have 5 sweets in one hand and 3 in the other, how many altogether?
In our ‘Understanding of the world’ the children were learning more about plants. They looked more closely at the bulbs planted in October and tried to name the different parts. They made 3-D models of the indoor hyacinths.
Show and Tell was interesting with some lovely baby and toddler pictures sent in. Next week the children will be expected to do more talking as they show their family pictures and tell us about their families. Pictures of the extended family could also be included.. Please get the family pictures out for next week and talk to your child about whose parents the gran and granddads are so that they have a bit more to say other than this is granddad!
On Friday afternoon the company who provides fruit into school came and introduced the reception children to some new kinds of fruit and gave them the opportunity to try them. There were some old favourites such as apples, strawberries and grapes but some that were more unusual such as figs, grapefruit, physalis, limes, kumquats, papaya, passion fruit, pomegranate and star fruit. The children had the opportunity to try them all and then to sample the smoothies made on the blender bikes!
In ICT we practised programming Bee-Bot to move around a Little Red Riding Hood grid. Counting on the correct number of squares from where the robot was, to where we wanted it to go, caused a few problems for some children and remembering to clear the memory before putting in a new command. More practise next week with a Goldilocks and bird recognition grid.
Apologies once again for our meagre selection of photos. We will try and do better next week!
Next week we are preparing for the ‘Little Schools Bird Watch’ so look out for more details and pictures as we learn to recognise different birds and prepare to go bird watching.