Poetry Basket: Chop chop
Welcome to our first Poetry Basket performance! Each week our Reception pupils learn and perform a new poem. We practise throughout the week before sharing our performance video every Friday. This week, we’re kicking things off with Chop Chop! Enjoy!
Impressive adverbs
This week, to improve our writing, we’ve practised using adverbs.
Check out this list we collated as a class.
An adverb gives us more information about a verb such as how or when. Help at home by looking out for adverbs when you read together. First, look for what is being done, then you can spot how.
Which city state was the best?
In our second topic lesson this week, we had a debate about which city state was better: Athens or Sparta.
First, we wrote down some facts about the city state we thought was best based on its economy, education, government and how they treated both boys and girls.
When it was time to debate, we had to use persuasive language and clear, loud voices.
We also made sure to focus on the speaker, have silent voices and show positive body language.
Help at home by asking your child which city state they preferred (which is a word from this week’s spellings!).
Super spellers
This week, we’ve been looking at our core spelling rules.
- drop the ‘e’ for ‘ing’ eg making
- double up for a short vowel sound eg hopped
- drop the ‘y’ for an ‘i’ eg cities
Today, we used three strategies to make learning spellings more fun: rainbow words, jumping spelling and spelling tennis.
Help at home by looking out for these spelling rules when you’re reading together.
Maths – adding and subtracting decimals
The first three weeks in Maths have been focussed on decimals. We’ve learnt how to write, order and compare numbers with tenths. This week we were calculating with decimals using column addition and subtraction. We were able to apply our fantastic addition and subtraction skills we learnt in Year 4 to calculating with decimals.
Make sure you remember this top tips:
Line up the decimals so every digit is in the right column.
Don’t forget to put the decimal point in the answer!
Look carefully – you might need to place a zero tenths when you are subtracting a decimal from a whole number.
Here is a great example of how it should be laid out in our book.
We worked really hard on some difficult measurement problems involving decimals too. The children thought carefully about what operation they needed to use and calculated accurately.
Help at home by discussing when we would use decimals in everyday life.
This week’s poem – The Gruffalo
This week our poem was The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson. We were all very familiar with this poem so enjoyed focusing on our prosody and actions.
Our focus words were: knobbly, poisonous and prickles.
Autumn 1: Week 3
We’ve had a busy week in Reception! The child have coped really well with all of the carpet sessions. They’ve shown some fantastic listening skills and have been ready to learn during all of our carpet sessions.
Phonics
This week, we’ve started our Phase 2 phonics sessions. We’ve been working really hard to form our graphemes (a ‘symbol’ of a phoneme –it’s a letter or group of letters representing a sound and we use the letter names for this) and pronounce our phonemes (The smallest unit of sound you can hear in a word.) correctly.
For example, the word sat has three phonemes: s – a – t.
If you’re unsure how to pronounce the phonemes, there are some really useful videos on the Little Wandle Parent Page.
Help at home: Today, your child has come home with their first phonics home learning sheet. Please use this sheet alongside their phonics home learning book.
Poetry Basket
Every week, we’ll learn a new poem. Throughout the week, we’ll rehearse it, practise the actions and talk about the poem. On Fridays, we’ll perform our poem and Mr Wilks will post the video for you to watch at home
Help at home: Every Friday, your child will bring a paper copy of the poem home for you to keep practising at home.
History – Ancient Greeks
This week, in topic lessons, the children have explored timelines to locate the Golden Age of Ancient Greece where society was at its best.
The children learned about the differences in the way of life in the Ancient Greek city states of Athens and Sparta. The children decided whether they’d rather be an Athenian or a Spartan! Help at home by asking your child to recall the differences between each city state.
PE – hockey
This week, in PE, the children have played hockey.
They practised:
- holding the hockey stick correctly
- dribbling the ball
- passing the ball in different ways
- playing a team game involving passing the ball 5, 10 and 20 times
The children can’t wait for PE on Friday!
Living & Learning: manners
This week, our L&L statement is: I can use good manners.
Manners are words and actions that we can do to help us be kind and respectful to others. Good manners help us to get on well with others.
As a class, we thought about some examples of how we use good manners…
We read this poem about manners to reinforce this important aspect of Living and Learning.
Help at home: remind your children to use good manners at home as well as at school. Encourage your child to greet the adults on the gate as they arrive at school.
Also, have a go at this manners quiz to check your child’s understanding.