Crook Primary School
Crook Primary School
Everyone has been practicing their songs for the Nativity and the children are doing a brilliant job. The children have had their first experiences of performing on the stage and are working on remembering their lines. These have been sent home with children who have parts to say and thank you for your help with this!
In phonics the children have been learning some new diagraphs, 'ff', 'll' and 'ss'. We have talked about the spelling rule that these diagraphs are never at the beginning of a word. The children have been reading and spelling words with these new diagraphs. Their new tricky words are 'put', 'pull' and 'full'.
It has been a week of assessment in both maths and phonics and we have been working with the children individually. They have been showing us their careful counting and how well they can subitise and who can now segment and blend and which phonemes they can remember. We will be looking more closely at number bonds and the concept of 1 more and 1 less over the next half term and keep practicing the letter sounds they have learnt so far.
We had a fabulous day on Friday and it was a delight seeing all the children in their colourful and jazzy Christmas jumpers. We had a great time showing them to our friends and talking about all the patterns. It has got everyone in the mood for our big outing next week where we will be meeting Santa and enjoying time together exploring Hall Hill Farm. Everyone is so excited! A reminder that all children will require suitable warm, waterproof clothing and wellington boots as most of the day will be spent outside.
It's most definitely beginning to feel a lot like CHRISTMAS!
This week we have moved onto our Christmas mini topic and how apt has the weather been? The children have been busy learning about Christmas traditions and reminiscing on some of their Christmas memories from opening presents, giving, eating Christmas dinner and decorating the house. We have also been learning a little bit about the Christian celebrations for Christmas, this has worked well as we have been rehearsing for the Christmas Nativity.
As something nice to follow up our lessons the children have been creating their own Christmas decorations. They are so excited to take these home but not just yet! They have decorated a wooden decoration and they have also created their very own using clay. This was then put towards a Christmas tree competition in school.
Through all the madness we have been keeping to our timetable though and doing our maths and phonics work.
In maths this week we began the discussion of number bonds to 5. We moved away from the rote counting which is traditional for learning these and instead, encouraged the children to explore the numbers and to talk about what patterns they could see in the numerals and what numbers they found go together to make 5. The children have come up with some excellent explanations whilst using phenomenal mathematical language.
In Phonics this week we have learnt the phonemes 'f', 'l' and 'ff'. The double 'ff' typically comes at the end of a word and we only say it once - think of words like 'huff', 'puff' and 'off'. We have continued to practice our recognition of tricky words: is, I, the. We are going to be using all of our phonetical knowledge next week to start writing our letters to Santa!
Friday 8th December
Christmas Jumper Day - the children are welcome to school in a snazzy Christmas jumper.
We ask that all Nativity costumes are brought in by this date too as we record the following week and children must be dressed up ready for it.
Tuesday 12th December
Reception Christmas party day. The children are to come to school in their party clothes.
Tuesday 19th December
Reception Nativity will start at 9am. We will open our doors at 8:30 to give enough time to get the children ready as we must start promptly.
During our topic time the children went on an Autumn walk. They were thinking carefully about positional language as they went on their adventure. They went beside the obstacle course, passed the fire station, around the bush, found some mushrooms next to a tree, stood under the oak tree, found some holes that were dug by animals, climbed up the hill and waved to the children in nursery, stood in front of the house, went over the bridge and through the trees. Of course, they had a lovely time throwing some leaves in the air too! When they got back inside the children had a go at making their own maps of their Autumn walk and they looked incredible. It would be wonderful if you could keep emphasising the positional language to help reinforce this for them. Infront, behind, on top, next to, under, beneath, beside, forwards, backwards, inside and around.
Our magic numbers this week have been 4 and 5. We have been thinking about where the numbers are in relation to other numbers such as 'number 4 is in between 3 and 5' or 'number 5 is next to number 4'. They have investigated these numbers in so many ways!
The children are making great gains in their phonics and we are seeing more and more children grasp the skill of segmenting and blending. Taught phonemes this week are 'r', 'h', and 'b'. The children are working together to segment and blend to read words including all their taught phonemes and diagraph. The new tricky word this week is 'the'. I wonder if they can find 'the' in any of their stories this weekend?
We have sent home all the children's parts for their up-and-coming Nativity performance. If you have any questions about this, please speak to a member of the EYFS team.
We have started a wonderful book called, 'We're Going on a Leaf Hunt'. This story explores the changes that happen throughout autumn whilst looking at different types of leaves. It also takes the reader on an adventure through different landscapes and uses lovely language. We went on this journey this week, using delightful language and using the changes of autumn during our lessons. The children have enjoyed exploring the wonderful objects we might find such as conkers, acorns, pine cones and even fur cones. We have also looked at the different types of leaves, looking at their colours and thinking about why this might happen.
In maths, we are continuing our journey of numbers. We looked at numbers 2 and 3. These have been interesting as we have been able to look at shapes, clocks and even exploring the early stages of addition. It's lots of fun to find numbers in our environment because they can be EVERYWHERE! I wonder where else we might find these numbers? Please feel free to send any pictures through to us at our email address earlyyears@crookprimaryschool.org.uk or, you can send them through to the adults on dojo.
In Phonics we have learnt our very first digraph! A digraph is when two letters come together to make one phoneme so this one was 'ck'. We do not say the phoneme twice, we only say it once - think of words like sock, tick, pack, back. We also learnt the phonemes 'e' (elephant) and 'u' (umbrella). We even learnt a new tricky word 'I'. This week we will be starting to look at spellings - this is done during carpet time to see if the children can hear the phonemes that go into a word and is the starting block to write cvc words. Letters for Santa will be fast approaching so we will be encouraging the children to practise their own writing.
Wow, what a week we have had! This week has been full of celebrations and new learning and exciting opportunities.
We have had a revision week in phonics, please continue to practice the letter sounds taught so far at home, little and often is best, and it really does make a significant difference. The phonemes we have covered so far are, s, a, t, p, I, n, m, d, g, o ,c and k.
In maths we have begun looking closely at numbers. We started this week with magic number 0 and 1. The children are learning how to form the numbers with a rhyme to support them. They are recognising the value of each number, what numbers our magic number is next to and what comes before and after, they have also been thinking about the world around them regarding that number e.g. which shapes have that many sides or where the numbers are in their environment.
The children absolutely loved sharing their own experiences of Bonfire Night and they found out why we 'remember, remember the 5th of November' as they discovered why fireworks are lit and about Guy Fawkes. The children created a variety of firework art and some of them designed their own Guy Fawkes figures.
On Tuesday it was time to find out why people wear poppies at this time of year. The children have listened to stories and facts, learned a new song about poppies and asked so many questions. One of our children told all their friends about his mummy and daddy and how they are part of the military family and showed some real-life items such as helmets, photos and very special medals. Thank you to our family for supporting this important topic!!
On Wednesday it was time to find out about the Hindu celebration Diwali 'the festival of light'. They made links with how this is similar and different to other celebrations and decorated their own divas.
On Friday the children put their new learning, from their visit to the fire station, into practice as we lit a real fire pit. They were reminded of how to stay safe around fire and had the delicious opportunity to toast and eat their own marshmallow. It was a wonderfully sticky time!
What a busy week we have had!
In maths this week we have been learning about the concept of 'more'. This is when somebody has a bigger group of objects or a bigger number. We have explored this in lots of different ways and then children have been able to tell us why they have 'more' as well. Next week, we will be moving on to the concept of 'fewer'.
This week rounded off our time of celebrating 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'. The children have enjoyed retelling the story and now have a fantastic skill of being able to sequence the story too. Using the very hungry caterpillar as their hook, the children learnt about the life cycle of a butterfly with Miss Dickinson. They were able to act this out before adapting their sequencing skills to create their own life cycle.
Thank you so much to all of you who braved the storm today. It was wonderful to see so many of you and we would like to think that our first stay and play was a huge success. The children looked so happy showing you their classrooms and we hope you had fun exploring the different activities as well as enjoying some yummy hot chocolate!
On Monday we will be going to the fire station. Please make sure your child has appropriate clothing for the weather as we will be walking there and back.
On Wednesday we will be celebrating Halloween. We are so excited to see what your child dresses up as. This will also be the last day of your child's first half term at school. I would just like to take the opportunity now to thank you all for your support and it has been lovely to begin to get to know you all.
Mrs Wessels
Mrs Armstrong
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