Ducklings Newsletter 27/1/17

Friday 27th January 2017 Our News!.

We have had some very cold and wintery weather to go alongside our winter topic!

The children have enjoyed reading a story about Jack Frost. They have enjoyed writing their own Jack Frost adventures and thinking of words to describe him! Ask them to sing the Jack Frost song to you and all the other winter songs they have been learning! We have been reading non-fiction books to find out about the changing seasons, the weather in winter, the clothes we wear, how we keep warm and what happens to plants and animals in the winter months. Some children have written some funny sentences to explain why their snowmen have melted and others have written instructions for how to make a snowman.

The children have worked together to make a lovely giant wintery collage using a selection of materials and it looks stunning with all of their snowflakes on, that they made using their cutting skills. They have enjoyed exploring mixing colours to create different shades of cold, wintery colours.

Everybody loved making chocolate Krispy cakes to explore what happens to chocolate when it is heated and cooled! Ask them about the changes they saw! They also spotted some changes to the materials they used when making bird feeders for the birds in our winter gardens.

In Mathematics the children have all amazed us with their skills of being able to count on to help them add two groups of objects together to find the total. We have also introduced the children to subtraction this week using real objects such as skittles and practising counting back to help us take-away. We will continue with this work next week too.

Thank you for all the fabulous resources, photographs and home learning that that you have sent in to support our bird watching! They have loved being ‘Twitchers!’ and have become quite confident at identifying common birds.

New bookmarks and games to help learn the next set of ‘tricky’ words have been sent home for the children to practise.

STARS OF THE WEEK Sophia Eaton for fantastic effort with her cursive handwriting and Cohen Haworth for all his enthusiasm with his learning at school and at home.

Jaxson Walsh for a super attitude to his learning and good behaviour and Tallulah Mae Sorensen for always being fully involved in her learning and for being such a good role model.

Our next newsletter will be on Friday 10th February 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/ Chinese New Year Next week in Topic Time we will be finding out about Chinese New Year. We will taste some rice and prawn crackers during snack, try our hand at Chinese writing and dragon dancing, complete a chopstick challenge, make lanterns and dragons, paint roosters (after all it is the year of the rooster!), celebrate and dress up in our decorated home corner. We will also read lots of stories based in China, including a story called ‘The magic Paintbrush’ and read the story of the Chinese zodiac to help us find out why a different animal is so important each year.

We will also find out about some very cold places in the world, where they are and the different animals that live there and what life is like for the people that live there too.

In Mathematics we will continue to work on our subtraction skills by creating our own takingaway stories, practising counting back to help us subtract and recording our work using numbers, symbols and pictures. In our mental mathematics time we will explore counting back, singing taking away songs, such as Ten Green Bottles and finding 1 less, 2 less and so on!

In Phonics Time we will be continuing to learn the letters y, z, zz and qu, the names of the letters, their sounds, read and write words with these sounds in and practise our cursive letter formation.

REMINDERS Warm Clothes Please can children bring a hat and gloves to school each day, as we do lots of outdoor learning and they have really felt the cold this week! Thank you.

Head Lice We have a number of children with head lice at the moment. Please check your child’s hair each weekend and make sure all long hair is tied back for school.

Allergies Next week during snack time we would like to be able to try vegetable fried rice and prawn crackers. Please see your child’s class teacher if you have any concerns.

WANTED!!!

Having a clear out in your kitchen? We are in need of old pots, pans, lids, frying pans, woks, metal and wooden spoons for our mud kitchen and for making ‘music’ with!! The more the better!

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 and how you can help at home.

All about me at home and out and about These booklets have come home today.

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

Thank you.

Half term th Friday 10 February School Closes at 3.30pm Monday 20th February School reopens at 8.55am Parents’ Evenings nd 22 and 23rd February 4-7pm Class Assemblies Parents, Grandparents and carers all very welcome to attend!

Yellow Ducklings Tuesday 14th March – 3pm Brown Ducklings Tuesday 21st March – 3pm

TALK HOMEWORK Talk for Numbers Sing taking away songs together such as Five Speckled Frogs and Ten, Fat Sausages!

Count out some objects/toys at home. Ask your child to count them, then tell them you are going to take some away. Count the ones taken away and the total of toys left. Verbally say the number sentence, e.g. 3 – 2 = 1 Find 1 less than a group of objects or a given number. How about 2 less? 3 less?

Practise counting back from 10, then 20.

Draw your own subtraction stories using pictures. Cross out the ones taken away. Have a go at writing the number sentences or sum. 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. ‘x’ A big fox sat in a box.

Write sentences with the tricky words in or look for them in your reading books.

Please try to read your reading book every night.

Practise your cursive handwriting. We want the children to form their letters like this all the time! www.phonicsplay.co.uk Physical development Fine Motor

Look on YouTube for…… Finger Fitness Exercise Dances for Kids TALK FOR TOPIC Try some Chinese food!

Find out more about the country of China.

Make a dragon out of junk materials.

Find out more about polar animals and the Inuit people.

Talk about everything!

Have fun!