Ducklings Newsletter 10/2/17

Friday 10th February 2017 Our News!

Thank you to all of the parents who have returned the All about me booklets. It is so useful for us to find out what and how they are learning at home and to plan our future learning around their interests.

The children enjoyed finding out all about Chinese New Year and the year of the rooster. They amazed us all with their patience and skill at using chopsticks to eat their fried rice! They loved tasting the prawn crackers too!

They are now all experts and know lots of facts about the Arctic, the animals and the people who live there. Ask them to tell you some facts about the Inuit people or a particular Arctic animal.

The children have been working on their subtraction skills by creating their own taking-away stories with pretend snowballs or buttons on a snowman. They have been practising counting back to help them subtract and recorded their work using numbers, symbols and pictures.

Last week we were amazed at their knowledge of ‘position’ words. They were able to play a number of different games whereby they had to describe the position of a particular object or had to place an object in the correct position. ‘Amongst’, ‘beneath’ and ‘between’ were new position words that they learnt.

In Phonics Time the children have been working really hard to learn all of the new sounds and tricky words. They are becoming more confident at reading captions and sentences with these sounds in more independently.

In RE we have been learning about Islam and relating it to how people belong. Thank you to all of the children who brought in uniforms from clubs or groups that they belong to, to show to the class. We read a story called ‘The Swirling, Whirling Hijab.’ It tells of a little Muslim girl and her special scarf that she wears. We had a visit from a mum in Robin’s class who came to show us how to wear her hijab and explain why she wears it.

STARS OF THE WEEK Rhys Dodgson for fantastic work in Mathematics and Jensen Stoddard for organising himself and dressing and undressing independently.

Our next newsletter will be on Friday 3rd March and will give details about all the fun activities we have planned.

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 Dinosaurs and other animals that come from eggs In Literacy we will be reading lots of different story books and non-fiction books about Dinosaurs. In particular we will read ‘Dinosaur Roar’ by Paul and Henrietta Strickland and ‘Dinosaur Rumpus’ by Tony Milton. We will listen to the opposite describing words for e.g. huge and tiny. We will concentrate on the rhyming words and repeating patterns in the stories and will practise reading them with expression so that we can ‘perform’ them to each other!

We will find out lots of different facts about dinosaurs and will use ‘wow’ or describing words when we write about our own favourite dinosaurs.

As part of our creative learning we will make our own dinosaurs using junk materials and large construction equipment We have some lovely dinosaur songs to learn to sing, dance and play instruments along to.

In our role play area we shall create a Dinosaur Explorer’s den.’

In Mathematics we will be comparing, ordering and measuring the size, length and height of dinosaurs.

To develop our understanding of the world around us we will research to find out which other animals come from eggs and learn about some simple life cycles.

Outside we will develop our physical skills by digging for or burying dinosaur bones or eggs. We will see if we can move like different dinosaurs in PE as well as outside!

We shall also be finding different ways to sort, group and order different dinosaurs and discuss how and why we have sorted them in these ways.

REMINDERS Healthy Snacks We are a ‘Healthy School’ and please ask that children bring in healthy snacks only for at snacktime. We welcome snacks such as bread sticks, rice cakes, fruit or vegetables and cheese.

Please avoid sending in chocolate or biscuits. 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 that sure all long hair is tied back for school.

Shrove Tuesday We hope to make pancakes with the children to celebrate this special day. Please let your child’s class teacher know if you have any concerns with allergies.

WANTED!!!

Anything related to dinosaurs such as toy dinosaurs, dinosaur dressing-up costumes or dinosaur books. We promise to look after them and return them to you after learning with them.

Cardboard cylinders of all different sizes to make giant dinosaurs with!

Please keep and send in your old newspapers as we would like to make a paper mache volcano!

Donations of potted house plants or plants that we could borrow to make dinosaur worlds with.

Many thanks!

DATES

Half term Monday 20 February School reopens at 8.55am 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.

Thank you.

Parents’ Evenings nd 22 and 23rd February 4-7pm Please see your child’s class teacher if you have not yet made an appointment Class Assemblies Parents, Grandparents and carers all very welcome to attend!

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

TALK HOMEWORK Talk for Numbers Order toy dinosaurs according to the length, size or height.

Use 3D shapes or building bricks to make a dinosaur – see how many shapes you can name!

Draw around 2D shapes to create a ‘Shapeosaurus!’

Count a set of dinosaurs (up to 20!)

Use toy dinosaurs to tell your own addition or subtraction stories, for e.g. 5 dinosaurs, 1 flies away. There are 4 left. www.ictgames.com/numeracy http://www.iboard.co.uk/activities/subject/maths Talk for Reading and Writing Practise reading and writing the new sounds, tricky words and high frequency words sent home.

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

Write sentences or captions with words in beginning with or featuring that letter for e.g. ‘sh’ A big fish is in the pond!

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 - phase 2and 3 Geraldine the Giraffe (plus the letter you want to find out about!) www.oxfordowl.co.uk Talk for Topic Find out which animals lay eggs.

Read a dinosaur themed story or information book together.

See how many dinosaurs you can name and find out some facts about them.

Find a picture of a dinosaur and think of words to describe it.

Find out what a herbivore and a carnivore is.

Visit a Museum to find out more about dinosaurs.

Make a model dinosaur out of junk materials and bring it in to show!!

Find out which ingredients we will need to make pancakes Talk about everything!

Have fun!