Dance!
This week is our last week dancing with Mr Lynch. He’s worked us really hard over the last six weeks; working on our technique and our fitness. This week, we’ve mostly been practising and refining our Time Travel routine.
The Tin Forest update
Our Tin Forest will be heading home to you on Friday to see who can keep their herbs growing over half term and beyond. Here’s how they’ve grown since we planted them.
Friday 16th January 2015
Friday 30th January 2015
Thursday 12th February 2015
They’ll need plenty of water, warmth and light!
The Great Fire of London
Today, we took on the role of archaeologists and delved deep underground (our tables) to find clues about the past. We found pictures of Tudor buildings on fire; images of people with buckets of water; the date 1666; and a street sign for Pudding Lane. After a few more clues, we guessed what event might have happened in the past and suggested our ideas using the clues we’d found.
We had, of course, uncovered clues to The Great Fire of London, 1666. After watching a short video (another way of understanding what happened in the past) we moved on to maths for more information. We can use data recorded from the past to learn more about what happened.
Look how much you can find out from these…
Tricky words
‘Tricky words’ are those words which children cannot use their phonic knowledge to blend.
Once you’ve introduced tricky words and practised them, reinforce the words regularly when sharing picture books and reading together.
When helping your child to learn to spell the tricky words you may decide to use the ‘Look, Cover, Write and Check’ method. This involves first looking at the word and identifying which part is tricky, covering the word, writing it and then checking the spelling. Remember: if phonics can’t work, it’s not possible to sound out all the sounds, so you might want to start using the letter names.
Aim to make learning tricky words a fun and enjoyable activity, perhaps by writing the tricky words in sand, paint, shaving foam or glitter. Once your child has practised a few times in a less structured way, give them the opportunity to practise writing the tricky word on coloured paper with pencil colours or felt tips. The only way these words can be read and spelt correctly is by learning them and having plenty of practice.
The tricky words children learn in Reception are:
- the
- to
- I
- no
- go
- into
- he
- she
- we
- me
- be
- was
- you
- they
- all
- are
- my
- her
- said
- have
- like
- so
- do
- some
- come
- were
- there
- little
- one
- when
- out
- what
Thank you for coming to our class assembly…
…It was great to see a record number of parents at the assembly!
Here are a few of your comments:
- “Lovely poems. Very impressed with the children’s contribution.”
- “Fabulous timing – just lovely.”
- “Fantastic performance from the Reception class. Looking forward to the next one.”
- “Very enjoyable – great to see all the children contributing.”
- “Well done! Loved the interactions and the singing.”
Frozen!
Contraption Designs
This week’s homeworks are great! We’ve got loads of ideas to help us continue to build our contraption. Many of them are ideas we could use and a few are a bit more fantastical which we may struggle to execute. Here are a few highlights chosen by the children:
Forces homeworks!
Here are a couple of sets of fantastic forces homeworks the class have done this half-term:
These were all great but I did have a favourite: Ethan’s very scientific idea of getting his hamster to test the friction of different surfaces by getting him to walk across them. “His legs were splayed” was a comment I particularly liked about Rex’s difficulty walking across laminate flooring!
These homeworks are examples of our Forces in Action homework.
School council elections
Our current school councillors held their final meeting recently as we prepare to elect our new school council.
Children from every class, including Reception, are encouraged to prepare a speech to present to their class as part of the election process. Our whole school homework before the election date will give children the chance to plan their speech.
Thank you to our existing school council who have been involved with many decisions and discussions throughout the year. Most recently they have selected books for our library and pupil prizes as rewards in class.
Work on our plague masks begins.
Continuing on with our topic of Medicine Through The Ages, we have started making our very own plague masks. Plague doctors wore masks with a bird-like beak to protect them from being infected by the disease. We’ll be working on these over the next few weeks. Looking forward to the finished masks.
