Welcome to Term 4 everybody!
What a fantastic first week back we have had, with the children showing determination and enthusiasm to have a go at the new and exciting learning that we have begun!
In Maths this week, Year One have begun exploring doubles to 10. On Monday they really enjoyed working in pairs to throw a dice each and record if both of them threw the same number! They were able to find all the doubles to 10 and then were able to apply this during their lesson on Tuesday to support them with working out doubles. On Wednesday we took this a step further and began exploring using doubles to work out a near double, for example if we know that 2 + 2 = 4, then we can work out 2 + 3 = 5, recognising that we need to add one more. Why not have a go at practising doubles to 10 at home - we have given you some doubles homework as well as spellings this week.
This week, our Reception children developed their subitising skills in increasingly complex arrangements, moving towards focusing on standard dice arrangements. We have been supporting the children to developing their visualising, looking at an arrangement of dots and then being able to discuss what they saw when the picture is taken away. The children have been amazing at beginning to see sub-groups within a larger number, so for example in the picture below they would see 2 and 1.
On Monday afternoon Year 1 began their Design and Technology topic. Throughout the term they will be exploring healthy eating choices and will begin to develop their own healthy wrap recipe. Then, at the end of the term they will make and no doubt eat their healthy wrap!. They showed an excellent understanding of what is meant by 5 a day, recognising that they should be eating 5 fruits and 5 vegetables portions each day.
We then went on to explore a range of different foods, which the children were asked to sort into those that we can eat everyday and those that we should only eat occasionally. Through this activity we sadly discovered that although we may love certain foods, they are not necessarily healthy for us!
“Burger is healthy, I love it!”
“Orange, I can’t eat that everyday so it’s unhealthy. I don’t like oranges!”
What a day we had on Tuesday, because of course it was “Pancake day!”. All of Robins were very excited to inform me straight away that it was Pancake Day, telling me all about how they were going to be having pancakes at home and what they liked on their pancakes.
“I love chocolate spread and banana.”
“I have lemon and sugar.”
Once we had calmed from the excitement of what today meant, we got straight into our learning and had almost forgotten about the pancakes until Mrs Brown revealed that Tuesday afternoon was in fact going to be like no other Tuesday afternoon that they had before! We watched a short clip of children from Olney, telling us all about how the pancake race had in fact originated from there and how in their school they have a pancake flipping competition every year! Could this mean that we were going to be making pancakes? Only time could tell……
The children were then taught the meaning behind what they understand as pancake day, learning all about Shrove Tuesday and why we have come to make pancakes on this day. They learnt that years ago people tended to give up eggs, milk, and sugar for Lent so they would use up all of these ingredients (and of course flour) to make pancakes. Then out came the mystery shopping bag, what could be inside it? Robins were amazing at recalling all the ingredients and even some of the tools that we would need to make pancakes and finally it was time to put all of our knowledge into action….yes that’s right, it was time to make the pancakes!
Well I think there is only one word that we can use to sum up Tuesday afternoon……..delicious!
On Wednesday, as well as our morning phonics and Maths learning, we entered the world of plants (Science theme this term!). This week we were naming and identifying a selection of different plants and thinking about their similarities and differences.
We were presented with images of many common plants and were asked to group them according to their characteristics. As a whole class we came up with three different groups - trees, flowers and plants we can eat. Next, we got into groups, there were three children per group, one had to be the scribe, one the cutter (responsible for the cutting out the image), and one the sticker (responsible for applying the glue and sticking it on the sheet in the right place!). What an amazing lesson full of scientific talk, the children in both year 1 and EYFS were engossed in discussion - I think this is a flower because it has a stem, leaves and petals. This is a tree because it has a bark and branches. We can eat onions and tomatoes and they have leaves but not branches. The Year 1 children supported the EYFS children in their learning by encouraging them to contribute to the discussions and by giving them an important role within the groups.
We ended our week with huge smiles on our faces…..the day had arrived when we were going to start writing our story - The Three Little Pigs. We have been sequencing it through pictures, we have been learning it off by heart, we have created a story map, we have a word mat to support our spelling and we had new books to write in - what could we not be excitied about! We set the timer - 20 minutes and they were off. Some wrote in absolute silence, some re read each part and some repeated the sentence over and over whilst they wrote - all techniques were effective - take a look at some of the results!
Next week, we will be continuing our writing - you may wish to support the learning at home (Year 1 only).
The first little pig made a house of straw. Unfortunately, a wolf came creeping by.
“Little pig, little pig, let me come in.”
“No, no, no not by the hair on my chinny chin chin, I will not let you in.”
“Then, I will huff and I will puff and I will blow your house in.”
So the wolf huffed and puffed and he blew the house in.
So the first little pig ran away to find his brothers.
EYFS - try and find things that start with the sh sound and the ch sound - it can be quite tricky getting your mouth into the right shape so that the right sound comes out!