Cygnus2017-2018: The end of term 1

I can't believe how fast this term has flown. Your children have settled really well and have adjusted from being EYFS 1 children to Early Years Foundation 2. The transition from nursery is huge as it involves working with more children, often with less adult support and even things like noise level is different. As an EYFS 2 teacher, I am looking for greater independence in children and making continuous assessments against what they can do independently. These contribute to the end of year assessments and are often an initial indication of achievement as the children progress through school. For some children there will be variations and challenges and for others it will be a straight pathway without any hiccups. All teachers, regardless of year group cannot not stress enough about the importance of home learning support. Children will be awarded with home learning certificates for returning completed work. I am hoping to award these in our celebration assemblies which happen on a Monday morning although some children received them on Friday. I have also given out Reading celebration certificates to children who have moved on to the next set of tricky words and will continue to do so. Children love certificates and stickers.

Thank you very much to Ethan's mummy Lou who kindly came in to talk about her role as a paramedic for the air ambulance. The children loved it (and so did I). Freyas auntie helped out, her role is to support fundraising and we will be seeing more of them both as Cygnus class would love to fund raise for the air ambulance in the near future. We will think of lots of different ideas. I could not believe that each air ambulance costs £3 million + a year, but what a worth while cause.

I am told by Mrs Dix that the children were very brave and thoroughly enjoyed meeting the strange and wonderful animals including my favourite; the Madagascan spitting cock roach. Not something I would like to see just roaming my house but fascinating.

I hope you all have a super long half term and your children recharge batteries for what is going to be a very busy term......KS 1 Christmas rehearsals have almost started. I am sure I heard the music in Y2.

Ordering numbers up to 20. Looking at 1 more, 1 less. Thinking about teen numbers being made up of a ten and ones.

Counting objects/ pictures and matching to the number. Using the number to help with recording.

We all loved our new bee-bots. We are learning to programme them to make them move in different directions as well as being set challenges to predict how many moves to reach certain points. Our biggest challenges involved getting the bee-bots back home.