Weekly update

Weekly update
Week beginning 22nd May 2006

Be prepared for very tired children this week! We have an action packed four days ahead of us. I had so many ideas for this week I am going to try and cram everything into four days! So here goes.

In Communication, Langauge and Literacy, the children are continuing working on the non-fiction texts. They have amazed us with their understanding of the use of a contents pages and how it is used. We are going to now move to placing an emphasis on writing this week. Each child is to be given a photograph of a minibeast. They will use a series of questions to help them write a caption to match the photograph. We will then publish our writing to make a non-fiction book to share with others, complete with a contents page.

We will continue to work on developing spelling and reading. Our big push is on high frequency words and blending sounds together. You may wish to visit the following websites:
www.ictgames.com/cluster.html
www.ictgames.com/machine.html - this site is familiar to the children as we use it all the time in class. The emphasis is on blending the sounds together to help them read the word to match the picture.

Mathematical Development.
No wonder it took me so long to do my planning this week as I spent ages playing on the fantastic websites to help support the learning in class.
This week we are looking at a mixture of learning objectives:
to share a set of objects equally;
to consolidate the children's understanding of subtraction;
to use coins to purchase goods in the flower shop;
to compare sets of objects;
The class target for this week is to be able to count in tens to 100. Below is a little rhyme you may wish to use to help your child achieve the class target.
Centipede had lots of legs,
To climb up garden walls.
They stop him from falling off,
He counts them as he crawls.
10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100.
Websites you may wish to visit are:
www.toonuniversity.com/flash.asp?err=513&engine=12 - this is a great site. The children have to help Duck Von Fly get to his destination quicker by clicking on the cloud with the correct answer to the subtraction question.
www.scweb4free.com/elemsub.html - you have to look at the two red balloons and subtract one from the other. Then click on the green balloon which holds the answer.
www.primarygames.com/takeaway/questions%201.htm - the children must work out the subtraction but they have four choices for the answers.
www.bbc.co.uk/schools/laac/numbers/chi.shtml - click on Hoot the Owl for subtraction games.
www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/subtractiontest.html - the children work out the answer and type in the number. They can check their answer.

We are teaching the children to play dominoes also this week so you may want to have a game at home.

I bet you are all wondering about those Smartie plants! Well, the children have completed their third reording of the growth of their plant and we should see some smarties appear this week!

We will also be investigating other minibeasts and setting up an area to attract minibeasts for our minibeast hunt in the first week back after the holidays.

Of course there are lots of other fabulous activities planned. There will be no handwriting homework this week.

Many thanks
Jayne Narraway x