It's a kind of magic!

Weekly update 22nd January 2007

So what's happening this week?

Communication, Language and Literacy
Last week was great fun! The children loved the recipe for making people SMILE.
Take:
One compliment
Two tickles
Three hugs
And abracadabra!!
This week we continue with our magical theme when the children will create their own spells. This will be closely linked with developing their understanding of recipes and the need to follow instructions. You may wish to practically support your child at home by baking or looking at recipe books. There are some great children's cook books around and involving your child in food preparation does make them want to eat it more readily. This week, without a doubt will be very interesting as the children will have to decide what to put into their spells. The stimulus for this will be provided through The Mantle of the Expert. The children will once again become problem-solvers. Wizard Why (aka Mrs Latham) will be visiting them with a problem. The wizard has lost his magic spell book. Can the problem-solvers create some new ones for him? Therefore the focus for this week is mainly on writing.

By the end of this week, the children:
MUST be able to hear and say the initial and final sounds in words;
SHOULD be able to hear, say and write the vowel sounds in simple three letter words;
COULD be able to write dominant sounds in words when writing independently.

In order for the children to achieve this, they need to continue to work on their phonological awareness. The following websites should prove useful in supporting your child at whatever level they are:
www.starfall.com/n/skills/vowels/load.htm?f - this is a movie about how vowels are important to words.
www.starfall.com/n/level-a/learn-to-read/load.htm?f - play any of the games up to game 5 and read books with the spelling pattern in.
www.starfall.com/n/matching/short-vowels/load.htm?f - the children must read the three letter word and then find the matching picture.
www.e-gfl.org/e-gfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/teacher/other/spark/itsagoal/itsagoal.html# - click on the link to play. This is a lovely website and I shall be using it as a teaching tool myself in class.

Running alongside the work on recipes, the children are continuing to experience the magic of traditional tales. The following websites are great for this:
www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/storycircle/fairystories/jackbeanstalk/jack_s.shtml?cbeebies - from this link you can also look at other stories such as The Three Little Pigs, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, etc.
www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/rolymo/library/stories/rumple.shtml?fairy - by far my most favourite story - Rumplestiltskin!!!
www.crick.northants.sch.uk/assets/Flash%20Studio/cfslit/Storyseq/storyseq.swf - this asks the children to sequence the story of The Three Little Pigs.

Mathematical Development
We have covered quite alot of the curriculum for Shape, Space and Measure and now we move onto the Calculating. This week, we start our work on addition. Before, we teach the children any addition we ensure that they understand how to find one more than a given number. It may be worth a review at home too.

By the end of the week, the children:
MUST be able to find one more than a given number up to 10;
SHOULD be able to practically combine two sets of objects and find the total;
COULD be able to identify the larger number and count on from it to find the total of two sets.

This area of mathematics is key to the children and it is worth us taking our time and ensuring that their learning is firmly embedded. In your child's diary you will receive a sheet with Mr Adder on it. The snake contains the langauge the children need to understand and use when working on addition. Any opportunity you have to develop this langauge would be greatly appreciated. In addition to the snake, you will have a sheet with information regarding how to start your child off with learning about addition. Over the years I have looked for ways of helping children remember the process of adding two numbers, and finally, last year I found a solution!!! The children learn the mantra:
COUNT, COUNT, TOGETHER, COUNT
The children count out the two sets, put them together in a line and then count the total.

The following websites should be useful:
www.bbc.co.uk/schools/laac/numbers/ch1.shtml - click on the owl.
www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc-home/vtc-ey-home/vtc-ey-md/vtc-ey-md-number.htm - this site includes the story of different numbers and supports number recognition to 10.
http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/toftwood/beaver.html - making totals of 10
www.ictgames.com/10pipe.html - select the number to match the pipe to save the whale.

Topic Work
The children are continuing with the theme TRANSPORT. The role-play area has been changed into an areoplane for the children to play in. If your child has ever been on a plane then it would be great if you could remind them of what they had to do etc. This will then feed into their play. The children will be shown how to use the areoplane, make their own passport and boarding passes, etc.

Miss Davies was ill last week and so she will be working with the children, learning how to program the Roamer to move backwards. In addition to this, the children will continue to develop their mouse skills by exploring the use of other tools on the ICT art package before completing a final piece of art work on a transport theme.

The large apparatus was out last week and the children were so excited. They were asked to explore ways of travelling on, under, over and around the apparatus. This week, we will be assessing the children on the skills they learned last week.

As part of our endeavour to teach the children Spanish, they will learn the names of some modes of transport in spanish.

Here I Am
The children will be continuing to learn about books and in particular The Bible. The children have really enjoyed listening to the stories of Jesus. You may wish to share some with your child at home. This week we look at the story of Jesus in the temple. The children will be acting out the story using props, and then individually sequencing the story using pictures.

And finally...
Unfortunately the wind did not allow us to take our walk to Honiton Square. However, we will aim to go at some point in the half term.

Have a great week!

Best wishes

Jayne Nararway and the Foundation Stage Team xx