Ducklings Newsletter 9/5/16

Monday 9th May 2016 Our News!

Thank you to those of you who attended the meeting about the Foundation Stage Profile and how it is reported to you. We have put the information from this meeting on the school website, on the Ducklings class page.

Last week, we enjoyed reading, ‘If Only…’ by Neil Griffiths. A story about a caterpillar that is envious of all the other mini-beasts that it meets in the garden. The children loved this story and were able to understand why the caterpillar was feeling sad. They enjoyed imagining what the caterpillar was thinking and this was a great stimulus for their writing.

On Friday some of the children brought home their bean plants, so that they can transfer them into their gardens at home and continue to watch them grow and change. It would be lovely to find out how they get on, whose grows the tallest and what the beans taste like! The children have spotted how quickly the tadpoles are growing and changing. Some now have legs and their tails are getting shorter!

We have found counting back to help us subtract quite tricky, so our mathematics has focused on this and will continue to do so next week. We have jumped up and down the number lines outside and have used mini-beasts to help us count back inside. We have been exploring how to count forwards and backwards in different steps, including 1s, 2s, 5s and 10s. Ask them to tell you!

We have used our funky fingers to thread beads and different pasta shapes onto wool and string to make caterpillars.

Outside we have been lucky with the weather to be able to start to practise the skills needed for our sports’ day races.

STARS OF THE WEEK Jack Rolley for being an all-round superstar in the Green Ducklings and Sienna Young for trying really hard with her reading and writing in the Yellow Ducklings.

Our next news letter will be on Friday 20th May 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 Our Gardens, Growing and Mini-beasts We are going to be reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. We will be retelling the story using props and puppets, as well as ordering the main events in the correct sequence.

This story will create lots of opportunities for independent writing, such as writing menus for a very hungry caterpillar, writing their own hungry caterpillar stories and writing letters to a worried caterpillar, explaining all about the changes that it will go through and to help put its mind at rest!

We will order the life cycle of a butterfly and label the different stages.

We then hope to read The Munching, Crunching Caterpillar and The Very Lazy Ladybird.

Outside we will continue to care for and look after our seedlings and plant our potatoes and other vegetables in our vegetable plot.

We will be learning lots of different songs and rhymes with a mini-beast theme and will be using our creative skills to produce our own symmetrical patterned butterflies, whilst recapping over shapes as we print them. In mathematics we will also continue with practising counting backwards to help us take away. We will explore moving up and down on giant number lines to help us and explore finding 1 more, 1 less, 2 more, 2 less and so on.

Our PE this term is focusing on developing our ball skills further and for those of us who need to, our hopping, skipping and jumping. We continue to develop these fundamental skills throughout EYFS and Key Stage One so that we are confident and secure in these movements.

Outside we will develop our kicking skills so we have more space and distance to become accurate. As it is Sports Day after half term we will also be learning the skills required for the races on that day. Everyone has a go at all the races until nearer the time when we choose our favourites to take part in. The hardest one so far has been using skipping ropes which requires a great deal of co-ordination. Perhaps this is a good one to have a go at home?

Funky Fingers work will continue to develop fine motor and handwriting skills. Activities will include; patterns, large scale mark making, fine motor craft activities and handwriting activities.

Please look on the BLOG for information about each week’s task.

Over the next few weeks we will be carrying out a series of phonics assessments during our daily phonics and guided reading times.

REMINDERS Warmer Weather Please can all children bring a water bottle to school each day? Sun hats and sun cream (clearly named) are also needed. Please show your child how to apply this carefully or apply a long lasting cream on them before school on days when it is needed. Thank you.

Junk Materials We are always in need of materials such as kitchen rolls, egg boxes, cereal boxes and so on for our work shop area!

Writing Please send in any examples of writing that your child does (independently) at home or out and about to share and celebrate with the class. We are encouraging all children to write independently now using their phonics knowledge and their knowledge of the tricky words to help them. We would not expect their writing or spelling to be perfect, but are wanting them to be confident to ‘have a go’ themselves.

Socks Grey, black or white socks to be worn for school please, especially as some of us have our shorts on now and our socks are in full view!

Donations of Wellies If you are having a sort out at home, please send in any old wellies so that we can use them as planters for our garden. Thank you.

Dates

Green Duckling Class Assembly Parents, Grandparents and Carers are invited to the Green Ducklings Assembly – Tuesday 24th May 3pm, in the school hall Gardening and Mini-Beasts - Open Afternoon Friday 27th May from 2.00pm Bring your gardening gloves and help us plant our meadow and bug garden, build a Bug Hotel and make a scarecrow, will be some of the activities (weather permitting!) on offer.

School Half-Term Closure School closes Friday 27th May at 3.30pm Re-opens Monday 6th June at 8.50am Sports Day Monday 13th June 1pm Healthy Living Week Class Photographs Tuesday 14th June

TALK HOMEWORK Talk for Numbers Make a symmetrical patterned butterfly Make a shape caterpillar, using a repeating pattern of shapes and colours Draw around shapes and make a shape bug Practise counting backwards from 20 to 0 Line up to 10 or 20 objects (e.g. raisins). Practise taking different amounts away, by taking one at a time and counting back to find the answer www.ictgames.com/numeracy www.iboard.co.uk Talk for Reading and Writing Please continue to learn any phonemes (sounds) and tricky words sent home as a result of our phonics assessments Read every night Draw and label a caterpillar or butterfly, write some facts about it, make a little book Complete your own food diary Write your own version of The very Hungry Caterpillar, changing the foods www.phonicsplay.co.uk Phase 3 and 4 www.ictgames.com/literacy TALK FOR TOPIC Have you own mini-beast hunt in the garden Research about a particular mini-beast and make a little book all about it Design and draw or make a shoebox model garden Take care of the bean plant you have brought home and keep a diary and take photographs of how tall it grows. Maybe yours will grow up to the clouds!!

Talk about everything!

Have fun!