Ducklings Newsletter 26/2/16

Friday 26th February 2016 Our News!

Firstly a big thank-you to all of the parents and carers who attended the open afternoon at the end of the half-term. The children thoroughly enjoyed celebrating and finding out all about Chinese New year. The Naughty Bus trip was enjoyed by all and was made even more exciting with the sun shining and the fantastic views we had from the top deck! We amazed the bus driver with our maths skills when we all counted out the right coins to pay for our bus tickets!

We drew some super maps of our journeys and labelled them on our return. The children were a pleasure to take out on a trip! Have a look on the school website at our class blog for the photographs.

The children have enjoyed the start to our new topic of pets and other animals. They have enjoyed reading the ‘Dear Zoo’ story and have used its simple pattern to write their own letters to the zoo asking for a pet. They have been writing adjectives to describe each pet. They have been helping to set up our vets and pet shop role play area, ready to open next week. Thank you for all of the lovely resources that have been sent in for us to use. Other writing opportunities have been drawing and labelling pets and spelling words with the new sounds in, that we have been learning in phonics.

The children have learnt some fun songs all about pets. Ask them to sing them for you! They have worked closely with their friends to create pet homes using junk and other materials. To do this they have had to work together cooperatively, sharing and discussing ideas and taking account of one another’s ideas.

In Mathematics the children have been comparing numbers, saying which is less and which is greater. They have been gathering information and collating it together to make pictograms of our pets, hair colour, favourite snacks, favourite colours and birthday months! They were able to answer questions about the information they collected.

The nice weather has meant that we have been out and about in the garden, getting it ready for planting some of our seeds. The children have enjoyed using watercolours to paint spring flowers. They will make a lovely spring display.

With our funky fingers the children have been picking up pegs, but trying to use their ‘Tommy thumbs’ with each of their other fingers to help strengthen their muscles for writing.

Our next news letter will be on Friday 11th March 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 Lees s.lees@carletongreen.lancs.sch.uk Mrs Catterall m.catterall@carletongreen.lancs.sch.uk

OUR LEARNING Mother’s day and Our Pets and Other Animals We will read a story called, ‘My Mum is Fantastic’ by Nick Butterworth and will all have the opportunity to tell our class why our mums are fantastic to us! We will be learning a song called, ‘My mum’s one in a million!’ The children will also be making a surprise to bring home for their fantastic mums!

Our Pet topic will continue with us reading ‘The Great Pet Sale’ by Mick Inkpen and a non-fiction book, ‘Guess My Pet?’ We hope to gain lots of opportunities for writing from reading these books, such as writing lists of what a pet needs, writing lost pet posters and making our own ‘Guess My Pet?’ books.

In mathematics we will explore and use the different vocabulary associated with size, length and height. We will put a range of objects in order of size and identify the biggest, smallest, longest and shortest. We will then try our hand at measuring using cubes and building blocks to find out how many cubes long different objects are.

We will explore the difference between living and non-living things and find out what our pets and other animals need to stay alive and healthy. We will look around our environment for living and non-living things. We are hoping to arrange for a Vet to come to school to talk to the children about their important job.

Our speaking and listening skills will also develop as we bring in photographs of our pets to show and talk to the class about. We can’t wait to hear all your expert knowledge! Who will be first to have a go at this?!

We will complete programmes on the ipads and Clever Touch boards to sort the living and nonliving things and to help look after a number of virtual pets by giving them all that they need.

In PE we will be learning to move like the animals in “Dear Zoo”. We will practise being big heavy elephants, tall elegant giraffes, hopping frogs, crawling caterpillars, scampering puppies and cheeky chimps using the space around us and trying hard to look where we are going and not bump into anyone. We will be learning how to balance too pretending to be a monkey on the branch. On the mats we will be learning how to; egg and pencil roll without using our hands to turn over or get back up (trickier than you think!) and to land safely from a jump. We will continue to develop our throwing skills becoming more accurate; aiming at a target and throwing to a friend. We will learn to control a football with increasing skill and kick with more accuracy too. It’s not all about the force! We will practise these skills outside so perhaps you could have a go at home as well.

Our fine motor will continue to develop our finger strength and the activities will help us learn to cut, spread and use a knife and fork correctly during snack and lunch times. This is a very important life skill and will certainly help the dinner ladies. Our finger strength is also very important to help with our handwriting and we will continue our work developing letter formation, patterns and cursive handwriting so your child is able to write neatly and for increasingly longer periods of time.

REMINDERS Junk Modelling Any recycling of cardboard boxes, yogurt pots, lids, cartons, etc, would be much appreciated for our pet homes.Thank you.

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.

Pet Photographs Please send in or email photographs of you and your pets, so that you can tell your class all about them.

Bring in your Pet! Do you have a pet that is suitable for bringing in to show the class for a day, for example, a hamster or a goldfish? Please see your child’s class teacher if this is something you would be able to do. Thanks.

Coming into School Please use the entrance on the playground for coming to school in the morning and not the main entrance. Thank you.

Dates

Mathematics in the Ducklings Class Tuesday 8th March 9-10 am in the Green Ducklings’ Classroom Come and have a coffee and find out about the mathematics which your child learns.

Class Trip to Old Holly Farm Wednesday 16th March – Letter to follow shortly Cost of the trip £12 Easter Holidays Thursday 24th March School closes for Easter at 2.30pm

TALK HOMEWORK

Talk for Numbers Order different objects according to their length, size, height and so on, for e.g. socks, toy animals, toy cars, skipping ropes, teddies, shoes, pieces of string.

Ask questions that you can try to find the answers to, such as, Who is the tallest in the family?

Who is the youngest? What colour hair do most people in my house have?

Which colour car is the most popular in my street? How many houses on the way home have a red door?

How can you record these answers? Can you draw a picture or a chart? Can you count the numbers?

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 Read every night.

Share a story about a pet animal.

Draw and write about your pet or an imaginary pet.

Draw your pet and label it.

Make a poster for a lost or found pet.

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 www.phonicsplay.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies Talk for Topic Call in at a Vets or Pet shop and ask for some information or leaflets.

Look at what you can see in the vets or pet shop.

Find out more about your pet or a particular pet. What does it eat? Drink? Need to stay healthy and clean?

Talk about everything! Have fun!