Newsletter 9.10.15

Friday 9th October 2015 Our News!

Thank you to all of the parents who attended our first parents’ meetings this week. It was lovely to be able to feedback to you all on how well the children have settled in.

We have been enjoying learning all about the different parts of our body and finding out what our amazing bodies can do! We have been reading a non-fiction big book together called ‘All about ME!’ The children have enjoyed reading facts and identifying some of the features and punctuation found in a non-fiction book. We have been writing and drawing about how we look after ourselves and stay healthy. Through snack time we reinforce the need to eat and drink healthily. We have enjoyed drawing and painting our favourite meals that we love to taste! On Monday afternoon we enjoyed a visit from Emily’s mum and baby sister Abigail. The children were beautifully behaved and thought of some brilliant questions to ask about looking after a baby and what it needs.

In Phonics we have been learning the sounds s, a, t and p, practising writing them, looking out for these sounds around the classroom and sorting objects that begin with these sounds.

The children have been reading with their teacher in guided reading and will now all be bringing their first reading books home to share with you! Very exciting!

In Mathematics we have been busy counting carefully and recognising numbers up to 20. We have investigated how big our hands are by finding out how many cubes we can hold in one hand.

Outdoors some of us have been measuring how tall our friends are using building bricks to count.

On the Clever Touch board we have been busy playing games to find out what is one more than a given number.

In our physical activities we have enjoyed dancing to the Funny Bones song, explored different movements and actions that our amazing bodies can do, used our scissor skills to cut up paper straws and stick them down to make Funny Bones skeletons. A very active week!

A big thank you to those children who have already returned some of their Magic Moments certificates!

STARS OF THE WEEK Esme Benson for being helpful, polite and kind.

Joel Millerick and Tobias Carter for being superstars at getting dressed and undressed for PE Erin Lowe for persevering with gripping her pencil correctly James Shaw for being an excellent role model to others Our next news letter will be on Friday 23rd October and will give details about all the fun activities we have planned for the next two weeks.

Any questions please don’t hesitate to ring, email or come and see us.

Staff email: Mrs Lees s.lees@carletongreen.lancs.sch.uk Mrs Catterall m.catterall@carletongreen.lancs.sch.uk

OUR LEARNING Harvest and Autumn For the next two weeks our focus will be on Harvest and Autumn. We will find out how and why people celebrate Harvest time. We will be reading the traditional tales, The Little Red Hen, The Enormous Turnip and Chicken Licken. We will talk about the characters in the stories; discuss how the stories start, what happens in the middle and how they end. The children will then have a go at retelling, ordering and acting out the stories through role-play.

We are continuing with Phase 2 of the Letters and Sounds program.

The sounds we will be learning are; i, n, m, g, o, c, ck and k And the tricky words we are learning to read and write are; I, go, to, the and no.

We will continue to send home sets of letter flash cards as we cover them, so that you can use all the sounds covered to practise letter/sound recognition, reading words and making words.

It is important that they can hear the sounds for themselves in words and say them correctly.

In Mathematics we will continue with our counting skills but will begin to compare two amounts or numbers and say which is greater or fewer. We will also continue to recognise numbers to 20 through ordering and making number lines and tracks. We will investigate which numbers are missing from a sequence and practise saying which number comes next after a given number, what is 1 more.

Our Harvest and Autumn topic allows us to go creative!

We will be practising our autumn and harvest songs ready for our autumn open afternoon! We are going to do to lots of exploring with colour mixing to see which primary colours we can mix together to make autumnal colours for our leaf printing. We will make hedgehogs using different materials and techniques. We also plan to bake hedgehog shaped biscuits during snack time.

Now that we are experts on the senses, we shall use our senses to look for signs of autumn on our welly walks and collect treasures for our investigation table. Please ensure all children have a pair of wellies and a puddle suit in school. Thank you.

We always do a little bit of gardening each week. Last week we helped weed and plant daffodil bulbs. We would like to create a herb garden and would be grateful of any donations of herb plants. Thank you.

REMINDERS PARENT HEPLERS Please see Mrs Catterall or Mrs Lees if you are able to help in any way.

Gazette New School Starters Photograph The Gazette have not been very clear on the date that the photographs will appear in the paper. “During the first week in November” is as much information as we could get! We will try to keep you posted if we are informed further! Please let us know if you are able to get a more precise date! The photographs can be purchased from the Gazette directly.

AUTUMN Table

Please bring in as many items as you can for our Autumn table, for e.g. acorns, fir cones, leaves, sticks, conkers.

MAKING BISCUITS

We hope to make hedgehog biscuits in the last week, please could you see Mrs Moss for a list of ingredients or let your child’s teacher know if your child has any allergies that we are not aware of.

BOOK BAGS Please empty your child’s bags. We send letters, leaflets and learning home for you. It’s important you check them and empty them regularly. Please encourage your child to put their reading book and reading record book in the basket each morning. Thank you.

Girls and PE

Your child may find it easier to get changed for PE if they wear a skirt rather than a pinafore on PE days.

DATES Wednesday 21st October – Parents’ Talk about Phonics, Reading and Writing in the school hall 9.00-9.45am nd Thursday 22 October ~ Halloween Disco PTFA Event 6.30pm Friday 23rd October – Autumn Open Afternoon for parents, grandparents and carers in the Ducklings’ classrooms School closes for half-term at 3.30pm

TALK HOMEWORK Talk for Numbers Practise counting forwards and backwards to 20.

Look for the numbers 11-20 whilst out and about.

What number comes next? “ 11, 12, 13, ?”

Ask a grown up to use a puppet and to count, but make a mistake! Can you spot their mistake?

Collect two handfuls for e.g. of smarties or Lego bricks. Count each handful. Which is more?

Less? Greater? Fewer?

Talk for Reading When you are sharing a story together find the title and author and show the children where you are starting to read on the page.

Read another version of The Little Red Hen. Can they tell you who the main characters are?

How does the story start? Finish? Can you retell the story?

Bring in any different versions of The Little Red Hen that you have at home for us to share.

Talk for Writing Find objects when you are at home and out and about that start with the sounds i, n, m, g, o, c, ck and k Play I spy with these letters.

Have a go at being Metal Mike! Sound talk words e.g. Can you get your ‘c-o-a-t.’

Practise writing these letters in sand or with chalk Look for these letters in books at home.

Talk for topic Go on your own Autumn welly walk! What can you see, hear, feel, smell, taste?

Collect interesting objects.

Getting dressed and undressed for PE Nearly everyone needs some practise with these skills and also turning your clothes back the right way when they have been taken off and are inside out.

Talk about everything!

Have fun!