The children welcomed their teddy bears into school last Monday as we embarked on a day of ‘bear centred’ activity. The teddy bears were measured to find out which one was the tallest and who had the shortest.one. Salmon’s teddy was the tallest with Ciaras being the shortest.
When we measured the waists of our teddy using the ‘links’ we were not surprised to find out that the tallest teddies were also the fattest, or most ‘rotund’ as the children politely say! There were ten different coloured teddies altogether with the most popular colour being the peachy/cream.
The written descriptions and pastel pictures of the bears were done well and we thought of a ‘word bank’ of words to describe them.
On Tuesday morning we all enjoyed reading and re-enacting the story of the Bear Hunt ready for our class assembly. The children are doing well learning a song and poem and then there will be a sentence each to say about bears. Watching Michael Rosen read the story of ‘The Bear Hunt’ on Wednesday inspired some great paintings and fabric pictures for the afternoon session. Michael Rosen reading the Bear Hunt can be viewed on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gyI6ykDwds&safe=active
On Wednesday morning we had Paul Priestley our visiting artist who dressed up and acted out the life of Kandinsky. We had a work shop and tried to produce some work in his style. On Thursday morning we learnt about the life and work of Banksy.
Friday was our Key Stage One activity day and the reception children in Oak coped really well with all five activities. Their indoor athletic skills were put to the test and Ruhi and Henry were the top athletes of the day.
Cup speed stacking was a skill of coordination and helped the children to think about using both hands which in turn makes both sides of the brain work. We tried the 3-3-3 and the 6-stck and if you are interested look at the video clips and invest in some cups for your child’s next birthday. Emily was our champion at this sport. https://www.speedstacks.com/learn/?lang=en
In maths we have been practising our adding and take away sums with a number track. A few children are finding this difficult because they are counting their starting square as their first jump. Playing board games such as Snakes and Ladders will help with adding. A copy of this game can be down loaded from ‘Sparklebox’ if you don’t own it. We will be making track games so that the children get better at counting on and back, skills which will be used a lot in their maths next term. I hope that some of you can made time to try out the number bonds websites.Henry and Hannah managed 10 sums in 1minute so that is the target to try and match or beat!
This week we have learn about ‘old toys’. Parents and grandparents did well and sent in lots of their old toys for the children to look at and we set up a museum for the children to look at toys from the 1960’s onwards.
Kate from Stevenage museum came in in to talk to the children about old toys and she brought with her a variety of old toys from the museum collection. The children were allowed to handle and explore the toys and compare them with their modern equivalent.
In maths the children practised finding the correct coins to pay for toys. Why don’t you make a toy shop at home and practise selling and buying toys to provide experience of using real coins to pay for items. Try the Toy Shop money Game: http://www.topmarks.co.uk/money/toy-shop-money
http://www.topmarks.co.uk/Flash.aspx?f=payusingonecoinv3
For adding and taking away try:
http://www.iboard.co.uk/iwb/Simple-Addition-Stories-721
http://v7.k12.com/sample_lessons/activities/images/swfs/building_expressions_final.swf
http://www.arcademics.com/games/mission/mission.html
It was great to see everyone at parents evening and hopefully I answered any questions that you had and you had the opportunity to look at your child’s work and see how they are doing in class. Many of you asked what you could do with your child over the holiday.I would suggest that you all try and read on a daily basis using the Bug Club books, practise the diagraphs we have learnt so far and get your child to write a few sentences to tell us what exciting things that they have been doing. Some of the web sites above may be of interest to practise adding, talking away and money skills. I am sure that you can find many more and if you do please share on the class Facebook page and of course with me
World Book Day is on Thursday 2nd March. The children are invited to dress up as a character from any of the Julia Donaldson books e.g. Room on a broom, What the ladybird heard etc. This is optional. Uniform must be worn if the children don’t want to dress up. We will be looking at her stories throughout the day.
I hope that you all have an enjoyable half term and that the children return well rested and healthy and ready for another six weeks of fun filled learning!