Ducklings Newsletter 12.1.18

Friday 12th January 2018 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 and toys.

In phonics the children have been busy practising the cursive formation of the letters j, v, and w and reading and writing words and captions with these sounds in.

In Literacy the children have enjoyed reading Kipper’s Toy box by Mick Inkpen. Ask them to retell the story back to you in their own words. Lots of them have enjoyed using the toy props to help them retell the story. The children have come up with the idea of bringing in old socks to make their own ‘Sock Thing’ toy puppet, just like Kipper has! They have been writing lists of the toys in their own toy boxes and we have been thinking of different words we can use to describe our toys.

In our creative learning we have been learning a song about a Jack-in-the box and have explored moving like different toys. The children have enjoyed painting pictures of their favourite toys and outside they have used the charcoals to sketch the winter trees on the school field. They have been using lots of different tools safely to create moving toys with split pins.

Outside the children have enjoyed predicting and then exploring which toys can float or sink in the bath.

Thank you for all of the empty toy boxes that you sent into school after Christmas. They have helped to make a fabulous toyshop role-play area that the children love to learn in.

STARS OF THE WEEK Jack Handley for working really hard in mathematics and Blake Coughlan for super effort with his phonics and writing.

Our next newsletter will be on Friday 26 th 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 Toys and Winter Over the next few weeks we will continue with our topic of toys. In Literacy we will read an information book called ‘A-Z of Toys’ and another non-fiction book ‘Looking at Teddy Bears.’

The children will sort toys according to the materials they are made from and sort old and new toys. We will look at the toys we played with as babies as a speaking and listening activity and talk about how they are different to the toys we play with now. It would be lovely too, if anyone could bring in an old toy of their parents or grandparents for us to look at and talk about or any toys which they had when they were babies. We promise to keep them very safe and we will just look at them with the teacher during our topic time. It would also be lovely to make observational sketches of old toys such as teddy bears, dolls and spinning tops.

In Literacy we will be bringing in a small toy from home which we will use as a stimulus to describe what it is made of, how it feels, how it looks and sounds, etc.

Thank you for sending the children in with jogging bottoms for PE. Our physical learning outside will be developing our kicking skills and improving our aim when kicking at a target.

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 Dough Disco’ activities, 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 scale with ribbons in the air or by actually writing with different media on a smaller scale.

In Phonics we will be learning the Phase 3 sounds x, y, z, zz and qu.

In Mathematics we will continue to work on our addition skills, investigating different ways to make a particular total and record our findings using simple sums. We will use real practical objects to help us count. We will also explore counting on from a given number to help us add.

We will then move on to learning about money, recognising the different coins, their values and pay for one or two items in our toy shop.

Outside we will be making winter themed collages using a wide range of materials and media. We will also be looking after the birds this winter in our garden by making bird feeders. Please see you child’s class teacher if you have any concerns about allergies as we will be using lard and bird seeds.

REMINDERS Old Socks The children would like to make sock puppets, so please send in any old or odd socks that you may have. The more the better!!

Library Our class library day is moving to a Friday. There are a number of children who still have library books missing from when we collected them all in before Christmas. Your child’s class teacher has written in the title of the missing books in your child’s reading record. Please have a good look at home for them!

Books about Toys Have a look at home or when you visit the library to see if you have any story books or information books about toys. Send them in and we can share them together during our story time.

Old Toys and Baby toys Bring in old toys (from parents and grandparents) and baby toys to show to the class and talk about during our topic times. Thank you.

Bringing in a toy for our writing Your child’s class teacher will text you (the day before) to send your child in with a favourite small!!! toy, so that they can talk and write about it in Literacy.

Large boxes Please send in any big boxes that the children could sit in, so that we can enjoy pretending to be a Jack-in-a-box.

Head Lice We seem to have a number of children suffering with this problem. Please can long hair be tied back for school at all times and can we please ask that you regularly check your child’s hair and treat them before they return to school if you spot any. Thank you.

DATES Visit from the school nurse Tuesday 16th January 9am The school nurse is coming to give a talk to the children about healthy eating and then to do their height and weight checks.

Mathematics in the Ducklings’ Class Friday 2nd February 9 - 9.30am in The Wing Come and have a coffee and find out about the mathematics that your child is learning in school.

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 9 th February.

Thank you.

Half term Friday 9 February School Closes at 3.30pm Monday 19th February School reopens th

TALK HOMEWORK Talk for Numbers 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.

Draw and write your own addition number stories and bring in to share with the class.

Look at the coins in a purse. Can you name them all? Order them by size or value. 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.

Ask your child to write a list of some of the toys in their toy box.

Think of some really good describing words to describe your favourite toy e.g. fluffy, fast, bendy, round, etc. www.phonicsplay.co.uk Talk for topic Find out how to make a bird feeder, to help the birds in wintertime Complete some of the challenges on the Home Challenge sheet sent home about toys.

Talk about the different toys you have at home and talk about old toys and new toys.

Ask the children if they can put their toys into these two groups.

Think about how toys are made out of different materials and why.

Ask them to sing the Jack in a box Speak to grandparents and older family members about toys they used to play with.

Talk about everything!

Have fun!