Hi there!
I hope you all had a great half term holiday and are ready to get going! This half term is all about Colour, Light and Sound and starts off to a ZOOM!! Yes, we will be looking at space. This week's Mantle of the Expert will involve the children solving a problem for Mrs Daydream (aka Mrs Higgins). Once again, the information I am about to give you is top secret and no little ears should know what is about to take place this week. Here's how it goes...
Mrs Daydream visits the Problem-Solvers because she was simply walking down the street when out popped a strange looking character who gave her a present. He just seemed to have fallen out of the sky! The character tells her that he is a 'jigaree' and then disappears.
Over the course of the week the children will get to find out who the jigaree is, where he lives and how Mrs Daydream can get to visit him in space. The following information should explain this further and how it fits into the children's learning.
Communication, Language and Literacy
This week, the children will work on the text 'The Jigaree' which is about a monster who lives on the moon. This text places a high emphasis on developing the children's understanding of rhyme. By the end of this week we hope that all the children will be able to recognise a rhyming pair and even create a rhyming pair of their own. The following websites may be useful to you in supporting their understanding of rhyme:
www.ngfl-cyrmu.org.uk/vtc/nursery_rhymes/eng/Introduction/default.html
www.bbc.co.uk/schools/laac/wprds/dgi.shtml - this is a lovely website to use but you may need to sit with your child as the words will need to be read out for them in order for the rhyming pairs to be identified.
However good these websites may be, there are so many great children's literature which have rhyming words in them. Why not have a browse on your child's bookshelf and see what you can find. Also, reciting the nursery rhymes your child knows and identifying the rhyming words is a good idea too.
Mathematical Development
As the class target suggests, the children will be working on finding one more and one less than a given number. We will begin by starting with one more and see how it goes. Obviously, the language associated with this area of mathematical development is very important. Therefore, before the children can identify a number that is one less and one more they need to have an understanding of the terms more and less. The following website will help you with this:
www.ictgames.com/mucky.html - this is linked to washing their hands when going to the toilet!! They have to see which hand has more or less germs on it.
Once they have mastered this they could then use the following webistes to support their learning:
http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/maths/counting/rocket%20count.html - a game linked to our topic on space. You can select the number of rockets you want and add one more/less. Click on the rockets to make them shoot.
http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/maths/counting/count.html - the same as above but with fish.
http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/maths/counting/random%20count.html - as above.
In all of these games you can determine the number of objects you work with. I would advise you to start with 5 and then work up to 10.
Knowledge and Understanding of the World
Linked to the Mantle of the Expert, the children will be designing rockets for Mrs Daydream to visit the jigaree. They will first have to draw their own plan on a piece of paper and label it (with support). However, Mrs Daydream needs to see what the rocket would look like. Therefore, the children will create a model rocket using their design. They will use a range of junk materials so please send in any boxes, plastic bottles, egg cartons etc. The aim is for the children to learn how to join materials and make a model with a specific purpose. The rockets will be made next week as well as learning about space.
In addition to all of this the children will be investigating objects and materials that are shiny and dull. (How we will fit it all in I do not quite know yet!) You may wish to support this by looking for shiny and dull objects around the home.
Creative Development
Starry, Starry Night - Yes, I have raided my dad's CD collection and found Don McClean's 'Vincent'. Did you know that the song was based on Vincent Van Gogh's painting Starry Night? The children will experience being music and art critics this week and look at the work of Van Gogh and in particular this painting. They will create a piece of art work in the style of Van Gogh in teams linked to our colour mixing activities also. We hope to display these in the cloakroom. The children will also create a musical accompaniment to Twinkle, Twinkle.
Physical Development
The children will create dance movement to Gustav Holst's The Planets. They will talk about how the music makes them feel and create dance movements in response to what they hear and feel.
As always we will be having a real push on pencil control and scissor skills. Any practice the children can have at home on these skills would be greatly appreciated.
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
The children will learn to recognise and deal with conflict. This is a unit from the SEAL project the school is implementing. The children will also be talking about the dark and how it makes them feel. We will be reading a chapter from the book 'The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark'. In this chapter the owl encounters fireworks. This provides us with the opportunity to discuss safety issues relating to Bonfire Night.
Yes...and as always we'll be getting dressed independently.
I think that is all for now!
Take care and have a great week.
Best wishes
Jayne Narraway and the Foundation Stage Team x
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