Ducklings Newsletter 13/1/17

Friday 13th January 2017 Our News!

Happy New Year and a big ‘Welcome Back’ to you all. We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.

The children certainly seem to have enjoyed themselves! All the staff would like to say a heartfelt ‘Thank You’ for all the lovely Christmas cards and gifts. They were very much appreciated. We are incredibly impressed with how the children have settled back into their routines. Well done everyone!

This week we have enjoyed developing our addition skills in Mathematics, by counting how many objects altogether in two different groups. The children have practised putting the first group number in their heads and then counted on from that to find the total. They have been adding spots on dice and groups of snowflakes.

During our Guided Reading time we have carried out a number of phonics assessments to find out which sounds the children know and how well they can confidently ‘blend’ sounds together to hear a word or can ‘segment’ or chop up the sounds in a word, ready to write them. We have also been playing a number of games to check which tricky words they can recognise. You may have noticed that your child’s teacher has commented in their reading record book, to let you know what they were able to do or to let you know what they may still need to practise.

In Literacy we have been talking about the Christmas holidays and all the things they have done. The children have really enjoyed reading different versions of The Snow Queen story, comparing and contrasting them. They have enjoyed retelling the story in their own words and used stick puppets to help with this. They were able to think of different words to describe the characters and enjoyed drawing their favourite character and writing all about them.

The children have enjoyed making snowflakes in different ways, using lolly sticks or snipping folded circles of paper and fir trees by cutting and folding paper for our Snow Queen display.

They have also helped to create and set up a lovely polar role play area.

STARS OF THE WEEK Jessica Smith for all the excellent adding she has been doing and Christopher Bromell for doing challenges and his determination.

Our next newsletter will be on Friday 27th January and will give details about all the fun activities we have planned for the new term.

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 Winter and Cold Places Next week in Literacy we will be reading a book called Jack Frost. We will find out what he gets up to at night to make the world turn white! We hope to use chalks to create our own Jack Frost characters and to write about they get up to! The following week we will read different non-fiction books about the changing seasons and winter.

We will be working together in groups to create winter collages using lots of different materials and media. We will explore mixing colours to make cold shades for our own Jack Frost pictures and practise our scissor skills to cut jaggedy frosty shapes. We will also learn some new songs with actions for our winter theme, including a song about Jack Frost.

In Mathematics we will continue to work on our addition skills, investigating different ways to make a particular total and recording our findings using simple sums. In our mental mathematics time we explore estimating, for example, how many snowballs we can see and to check our ideas by counting. We will then begin to look at taking away and making less, practically by taking objects away and counting how many are left, using dice to take away, playing skittles and singing subtraction songs and rhymes, also doing some winter themed subtracting.

We will explore how water changes into ice and investigate ways to ‘free’ some trapped animals from the ice as quickly as we can!

Every day for 5-10 minutes we will be working in different groups to further develop our fine motor skills at different levels. Some children will do a ‘Dough Gym or Disco’ activity, some will carry out a ‘Funky Fingers’ activity to develop their pincer grip or skills of using tools such as scissors and others will practise their letter formation either on a large or smaller scale.

In Phonics we will be learning the Phase 3 sounds, starting with j,v,w and x, followed by y, z, zz and qu.

REMINDERS Warm Clothes Please can children bring a hat and gloves to school each day to wear, as we do lots of outdoor learning? Thank you.

Polar Role Play Area Please send in any polar animals or hats, ear muffs, scarves, gloves and woolly jumpers for dressing up in. Thank you.

DATES Mathematics in the Ducklings’ Class Tuesday 21st February 9- 9.30am Come and have a coffee and find out about the mathematics that your child is learning.

All about me at home and out and about These booklets will be sent home shortly.

Please return the booklet about your child by Friday 10th February.

Thank you.

Open Afternoon Come and play and learn with the Ducklings Classes on Friday 10th February from 2pm.

Half term Friday 10 February School Closes at 3.30pm Monday 20th February School reopens at 8.55am th

TALK HOMEWORK Talk for Numbers Using toys, beads, snacks, pictures – ask the children to estimate how many things they can see and then to check by counting Find the total number of spots on a domino by counting on from the first number to find out how many there are altogether, for e.g.

“6…7,8,9,10.”

Roll two dice and find the total number of spots altogether Find the total of two amounts by saying number stories using real objects to help you count, for e.g. 4 cars in the garage, 2 more join them, now there are 6 altogether. Make sure your child understands words such as add, makes, altogether, total and plus when doing practical activities. www.ictgames.com/numeracy Talk for Reading and Writing Practise reading and writing the new sounds and tricky words sent home.

Make simple words with the new sounds and others previously sent home.

Write sentences or captions with words beginning with that letter in, for e.g. ‘j’ I like eating jelly and jam Write sentences with the tricky words in or look for them in your reading books.

Please try to read your reading book every night. www.phonicsplay.co.uk Physical development Fine Motor Practise singing the rhyme “Tommy Thumb” find each finger and make it move. A great work out for your FUNKY FINGERS and helps brilliantly when your child comes to write, cut, draw and paint!

TALK FOR TOPIC Find out how to make a bird feeder, to help the birds in wintertime Draw or paint your own Jack Frost character and write about what they get up to.

Make some different shaped ice cubes or ice balloons at home. Look at them carefully with a magnifying glass, add drops of food colouring on and watch what happens!

Talk about everything!

Have fun!