A busy week

Gosh, it is only Thursday but it seems as if we have crammed so much into the week. We started Monday with Cygnus class celebration assembly. This was a sharing assembly and we show cased  our Funny Bones learning as well as singing a song. We then handed out lots of certificates for tricky words and home learning. I am going to try and make Monday celebration assembly a time for handing out certificates as it makes the occasion even more special. From next week, we will collect home learning in on a Thursday. We will remove the whole folder from the book bag and hand the folder back on the Friday with the new learning in. 

Next week we will not be hearing readers or tricky words as we will be assessing phonic progress, looking at the learning and progress made since I base lined the children in September. We will however change books for those children who have read and it is recorded in their reading record. A few children are waiting for set 3 tricky words. Unfortunately we are waiting for the cursive font to be installed on my new computer and I don't think it has arrived in school yet. Hopefully I will have them by Monday.

Parents have been asking about the letter formation and where they could find it. The curly caterpillar concept comes from www.sparklebox.co.uk  and the resources are free to down load. I also use Twinkl; www.twinkl.co.uk although there may be a cost element for joining or using certain resource ideas.

Tuesday and Wednesday are parent evenings.I will try and keep to timings but sometimes it doesn't work. This parents evening is really an opportunity to talk about settling in, attitude and approach to learning so far, any concerns and possible next steps.I will leave out their writing journey books for you to look at although not their learning journals just yet. These are in the process of being put together with photos and assessments being added and there will be a morning or afternoon opportunity at some stage for your child to share their special learning. These are special moments as it gives the children opportunity to talk about what they have been doing and how.

 Our first sharing assembly

 Celebration certificates

   News writing. We encourage the children to share a sentence verbally and repeat it until confident. We then break the sentence into singular words repeating the word carefully. Children have a go at recording the sounds they hear and have a phonic/ sound card in front of them to help with letter formation. At this stage children are supported 1 adult to 2 children as we want to encourage the have a go approach. Children are always encouraged to share what they have written to see whether they are giving meaning to marks made.

 Counting objects and recording the amount. There are number cards to support the recording process

 

 Exploring 2d and 3d shapes

 Free flow child initiated; relationships and imagination

 We overheard some super language about height.

 In Religious Education we started to think about presents we would like to give a baby. We sorted gifts into presents for baby and another group of objects that silly Mrs Bq had bought by mistake, or so the children thought. We then did some thinking about what special present they might give a baby and why. This leads nicely into the Christmas story and presents baby Jesus was given.

 Talking with their learning partner about gifts they would choose. Learning partners are chosen randomly from our named pick a pot lolly pop sticks and we change learning partners about every 2 weeks.

 We are celebrating how divers Daisy is becoming with her taste. In September she loved just apples but now is eating satsumas, carrots, pears and today it was a banana. We are really proud of you Daisy.

 These are just photographs for the front cover of their learning journal but I thought you might enjoy them any way. I still need to get someones photo.

 We used the presents as part of our maths. We were learning to weigh and use language such as heaviest and heavier, lighter and lightest. The scales will now go into the post office for the children to use as part of child initiated learning.

 On Wednesday we read the story of the Jolly Postman visiting the three bears house. We then read a letter Goldilocks had written to apologise for what she had done. We talked about the choices Goldilocks had made and how it had made the bears feel. This led to a discussion about times when we might have made poor choices and how we turned them around. We then wrote our own letter on a writing frame to minimise what they had to write. It is important to encourage children to have a go at writing on a daily basis and in a variety of forms although normally we would only expect the children to be sittiing for 5-10 minutes.

 Today Mrs Dix was in and the children loved tasting the delicious crab apple jelly that Mr Bq had made. I won't be suggesting they taste his pickled onions though. The children then made models of birds out of plasticine,

 Finally it was time for music.