FUNNY BONES

We do hope that your child enjoyed the Chinese New Year celebrations. We had a great time tasting lots of Chinese foods, making lanterns, dragon masks and dragon puppets. The Chinese restaurant we had for the Year One and Two classes was a great success. Even Mr Barker booked his table! The classroom now has its own Chinese restaurant role-play area for the children to transfer their learning into their play.

Unfortunately, we did have a lot of illness last week (which even caught me out!) and some children may have missed some things. However, the dragon dance was a success and all the children at least tasted some Chinese cuisine. Needless to say our new cleaner was fully initiated into life at St Vincent’s.

So what have we got in store for this week?

We begin this week with a visit to David Lloyd for the morning. The children will carry out exciting activities linked to health and fitness. The visit will ‘kick-start’ our whole topic on ‘Healthy Lifestyles’. Please ensure that you have completed a consent form and returned it to school by Monday as we will not be able to take your child with us otherwise. The children will need to wear their school PE t-shirt, jogging bottoms and trainers. They will also need a labelled water bottle.

Communication, Language and Literacy
This week the children will once again be learning about labels and captions. However, the content of this week will revolve around the labelling and the writing of captions.
By the end of the week, the children:
MUST be able to know what a label and a diagram looks like;
SHOULD be able to label a diagram;
COULD be able to write a caption to match a photograph.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/scienceclips/ages/5_6/ourselves.shtml - this website supports the children’s understanding of labelling whilst helping them in their reading. The children can label a horse, fish, ant and a human body.

As always the children will be developing their phonic skills.
If your child is still working on their letter recognition then please try out these websites also:
http://www.ictgames.com/phonic_fighter4.html
http://www.ictgames.com/letterlifter.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/laac/words/dgi.shtml - this is a great website for identifying the sounds at the beginning, middle and end of words.
http://www.starfall.com/ - the old favourite.

In addition to this we will also be continuing to concentrate on the children’s spelling of simple three letter words such as big, man, cat, top etc as well as focusing in on the high frequency words more. The children are doing great as this is the end of year target for Foundation Stage and we are already working on it!! The following websites should prove very useful.
http://www.crick.northants.sch.uk/assets/Flash%20Studio/cfslit/CVC%20Maker/cvcmaker.html - this website asks you to see how many words you can make http://www.ictgames.com/cvc_machine.html
http://www.ictgames.com/plankgame.html - this focuses on high frequency words
http://www.ictgames.com/lcwc.html - this concentrates on the spelling of the high frequency words. You can simply type in the high frequency words that your child needs to work on for them to play the game with.
http://www.ictgames.com/machine.html - great for blending sounds together.

For those children who are already able to spell and read simple three letter words then try out these websites as they will focus on the spelling of consonant clusters in words e.g bl, cl, st, sm etc.
http://www.ictgames.com/blending_dragon.html
http://www.ictgames.com/cluster.html


Mathematical Development
This week we will continue to work on developing the children’s number recognition and understanding of the number system. The children will be working on:
Comparing two numbers saying which is greater/smaller;
Number recognition;
Identifying the number that lies between two given numbers up to 10 and then beyond;
Ordering numbers to 10 and extending to 20;
Continuing a number line with missing numbers on it;

It is hoped that by the end of this week, the children:

MUST be able to identify the numbers 1 to 5;
SHOULD be able to identify and order all the numbers to 10;
COULD be able to identify and order all the numbers to 20 and some beyond, and be able to order some random numbers up to 20;

Here are some good websites you may wish to check out:
http://www.ictgames.com/caterpillar_slider.html - this is a great website and you can select the numbers you wish your child to work with.
http://www.ictgames.com/mucky.html - to revise more and less;
http://www.ictgames.com/nutty_v3.html
http://www.ictgames.com/postletter.html
http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/online/online_downloads.htm - click on the ordering numbers game

Knowledge and Understanding of the World
The children will learn all about the different parts of the body and the features of the face. They will apply their learning in Communication, Language and Literacy to this area of learning as they will be labelling the main external parts of the human body and face.


This learning will be further developed during the children’s ICT sessions. They will be asked to paint a picture of their faces using the paint package Dazzle. There are also some very good websites you can visit to support your child’s understanding in this area of the curriculum.
http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/our_bodies/eng/Introduction/default.htm - click on the interactive whiteboard activity link
http://www.crick.northants.sch.uk/assets/Flash%20Studio/cfsscience/BodyParts/bodyparthtm.html


SNIFF! SNIFF! SNIFF! Do you smell something fishy going on this week? Well…you may well do as this week the children get first hand experience of a skeleton. NO! We are not cannibals and will not be eating human flesh! Mrs Latham will be showing the children a whole trout. They will be cutting it open to discover the skeleton. Well, they’re not likely to forget this experience are they? It does sound gruesome but believe it or not the children are usually really intrigued and find the whole experience fascinating. Mrs Higgins and myself stand back in admiration of Mrs Latham who performs the delicate operation.

A week with out eating? Don’t be daft!

The best bit comes at the end when the children cook the fish and taste the trout.
You may want to have a look at these websites:
http://www.uhrad.com/kids/animals.htm - this is a great website for checking out some other animal skeletons. Faith, my daughter, found these fascinating!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/prehistoric_life/games/skeleton_jigsaw/ - try your hand at putting together animal skeletons like a jigsaw – I personally played for ages on this!
http://www.hitchams.suffolk.sch.uk/skeletons/index.htm - get up close to a skull.
http://www.childrensmuseum.org/special_exhibits/bones/kids_mazeGame.htm - the children can look to see if things have bones or do not have bones.

Creative Development
This area of the curriculum sees the children developing their drawing skills. In order to support what is being experienced in Knowledge and Understanding of the World, the children will have the opportunity to complete an observational drawing of the trout, learn how to create skeletons with art straws and develop their observational skills through drawing self portraits containing all the key features of the face.

If you want to support your child in the drawing of faces please do. Here are a few tips.
The nose is the first thing to draw as it is in the centre of a face – make sure you include the nostrils;
Then draw the eyes complete with pupil, iris and eyelashes;
The lips are not a straight line but two lips that create a straight line in the centre;
The top of the ears are always level with the eye line;
Don’t forget the eye brows and hair otherwise you may have an ET look-a-like!

Here I Am
The children will be continuing their work on relating their understanding of remembering to people remembering Jesus at Mass. I am currently organising a visit to church for next week for the children, when we may eventually get to post our letters to Goldilocks!

Finally…there should be a letter in your child’s diary some day this week with the dates and times of the Parents’ evening for the Foundation Stage. Please be aware that we do them at a different time of year to the rest of the school and therefore have more flexibility over time. In saying this, please give as many options for times and dates as you can possibly manage. If you are both full time working parents then I am aware that you will need a later time. However, for those parents who are able to make the earlier slots please opt for those.

Have a great week!
Take care

Jayne Narraway and the Foundation Stage Team x