Ducklings Newsletter 8/2/16

Monday 8th February 2016 Our News!

Thank you to all of the parents and carers that attended the parents’ evenings. It was lovely to be able to share all of their fantastic learning with you. Please see your child’s class teacher if you have not yet made an appointment The children have been very busy reading an A-Z of toys, comparing old and new toys. They have enjoyed sorting toys into groups of different materials. We have looked at some of the old toys and favourite toys which they have brought in as a speaking and listening activity.

We have been thinking of ‘wow’ or describing words to describe our favourite toys.

The Naughty Bus has arrived at our school this week and the children were very excited to learn more about its adventures and what it will do next. They have enjoyed creating questions of their own to ask the Naughty Bus. We have enjoyed reading the Naughty Bus story and it has inspired us to write our own adventure stories! We hope to put them all together to make our own story. We are looking forward to the Naughty Bus coming to visit us at school and take us on a ride later on this week!

In Mathematics the children have been solving lots of subtraction problems, using the toy shop, playing skittles, singing lots of different taking away songs and problems with the Naughty Bus to help them. They are really good at recording their number sentences now.

The children have been using their observational skills to sketch some very old dolls and teddy bears.

Outside the children have been exploring which surface a toy car travels the furthest on and practising applying our phonics by using chalks to write different sounds and words with them in.

STARS OF THE WEEK David Cazaku for super attempts with his writing and Daniel McClaren for super progress with his writing independently Mamie Walker for a super effort with all of her learning and Oscar Croft-Waterhouse for trying really hard and persevering with his fine motor skills Our next news letter will be on Friday 25th February and will give details about all the fun activities we have planned for the next few weeks.

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

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

OUR LEARNING Naughty Bus, Shrove Tuesday and Chinese New Year We will continue to have lots of fun with this story.

We will explore using different vocabulary to describe the position of the Naughty Bus, wherever we may find it!

We will have lots of opportunities for writing about the Naughty Bus. We hope to write stories, wanted posters and make maps of the bus and the journey that it takes us on.

Outside, we will investigate other objects that sink in water like the Naughty bus and those that float. Also the Naughty Bus liked to look at its own reflection, this has encouraged the children to want to find materials that are reflective or not.

In Mathematics we will continue to work with money, paying for our bus tickets when we go on our bus ride and paying for our snacks at snack time. We will also be practising writing our numbers correctly, ordering numbers and counting on and back, to find more and less.

Our PE has focused on throwing and kicking and you can see some of our work on the BLOG. We have been practising throwing underarm. To ensure our throw is accurate we have been stepping forward with the opposite leg and looking at where we want the bean bag to go. We also need to remember to release it at the right time too. Our kicking is becoming more controlled and we have been kicking at targets and goals with less force and more control.

Our Funky fingers work has been to build up our finger strength to help us develop and our “pencil pinch”. This is essential to enable us to hold our pencil correctly, form our letters properly and write for longer amounts of time. Some things we have been doing are; singing finger rhymes to learn how to isolate our fingers, pinching pegs with different fingers and our thumb, ripping and scrunching paper. We will also be threading and weaving to again build up our strength.

This week we will be very busy finding out about why people celebrate Shrove Tuesday, make and eat pancakes! Also, how the Chinese celebrate New Year. We will taste some noodles during snack, try our hand at Chinese writing and dragon dancing, try a chopstick challenge, make lanterns and monkeys (after all it is the year of the monkey!), celebrate and dress up in our decorated home corner. We will also read ‘The Big Pancake’ and a Chinese story called ‘The magic Paintbrush.’ At the end of the week the children can come dressed in an item of red, as red is considered a lucky colour!

REMINDERS Naughty Bus Trip Please remember to send the £3.10 contribution to school via parent pay for the trip on Wednesday.

Thank you.

Reading Please try and read a little every night with your child. It really does make a big difference!

Class Blog Don’t forget to go on the school website and have a look at the class blog and photo galleries which show examples of what we have been doing in school.

Junk Materials Please send in any empty boxes, bottles, yogurt pots and tubes, etc. for our work shop area. We have completely run out, due to such enthusiastic model making!

Snack Please be mindful of how you cut up your child’s snack that is sent into school, to avoid choking, for e.g. cutting grapes in half lengthways and so on. Thank you.

Food Tasting This week we will be trying pancakes and noodles during snack. Please see your child’s class teacher if you have any questions or concerns.

Role Play Vet and Pet Shop Our new topic for next half-term will be Our Pets and other Animals. Please send in any items that would be of use to us in our role play area such as soft toy dogs, cats, mice, etc., pet carriers, pet food leaflets or posters, empty pet food bags or boxes, photographs of you and your pet, information books and stories about pets.

Dates

Open Afternoon Friday 12th February 2.00pm onwards, in the classroom Come and celebrate Chinese New Year with the children.

The children are welcome to wear something red with their school uniform on this day, for good luck!

Half term th Friday 12 February School Closes at 3.30pm Monday 22nd February School reopens at 8.50am Thursday 24th March – Finish at 2.30pm for Easter break.

TALK HOMEWORK Talk for Numbers Give toys different prices. Add up and find the cost of two toys altogether.

Find out how much change the toy shopkeeper would give you if you had 10p and bought one of the toys.

Find different sizes of toys. See if you can put them in order of size, height or length. Use the vocabulary – longest, shortest, tallest, shortest, largest, biggest, and smallest.

Place a toy in different places and positions. See if a grown up can describe where the toy is using positional language, for e.g. on the chair, beside the bed, amongst the cushions.

Practise number formation on an iPad. www.ictgames.com/numeracy www.adamup.co.uk www.nrich.maths.org www.tesiboard.co.uk Talk for Reading and Writing Practise the new sounds and tricky words sent home, reading and writing words with the new phonemes in.

Practise letter formation on an iPad/tablet Read every night.

Imagine and tell you own Naughty Bus story.

Write your own Naughty Bus story and bring in to share with the class Describe what you can see out of the window next time you travel on a journey. www.phonicsplay.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies www.ictgames.com/literacy

www.oxfordowl.co.uk www.ictgames.com/phonic_fighter4.html

apps – Twinkl Alphabet Cards and letter formation Apps in my pocket – Pocket Phonics apps – Writing Wizard

TALK FOR TOPIC Go on a bus ride together Find out more about Chinese New Year Make Pancakes on Shrove Tuesday and find out why?

Talk about everything!

Have fun!