Once upon a time....happily ever after

Hi there!
Yet another fantastic week was had by all in the Foundation Stage last week. The rockets the children made have been hung by our mystery giant, Bertie and look amazing hanging from our ceiling. What did you think of their cars? The children were thrilled with them. You wouldn’t believe the trouble I had getting them to stand upright. However, Super Hero Latham and Mrs Hughes ( a parent from last year) came to my rescue. Better stick to my forte in future and leave the experts to it next time!

So what’s in store for this week?
Well…

IT’S BOOKWEEK!!!
The book week starts with a poet coming in to school for two days. The children will have a fantastically humorous story told to them. In addition to this, I have asked that the children bring in their favourite book on Monday to share with a friend. They will write the title on a leaf and stick it on to the reading tree in the hall. Throughout the week, the children will have a competition. I will leave clues for them and they have to work out the nursery rhyme or familiar book title from the clues. The one who gets them correct will have a prize on the Tuesday of next week in the prize giving assembly. Lots of other activities celebrating the wonder of books will be completed throughout the week concluding in our annual book week dressing up day. I am absolutely full to the brim with excitement!!

The book fair will be on from Wednesday after school until the following Tuesday. All books bought enable us to receive commission to purchase resources for school. Please come along.

Talking of reading…
As a school we are aiming for all classes to have 100% response from parents in reading diaries. That is to say that we ask that every parent writes at least one comment per week after they have read with their child. The whole school is publishing their percentages each week. I am pleased to say that ours is 93%. This equates to just two diaries not being commented in each week. I’m sure we can get to a 100% by the end of this week.

PHONICS
Your child may have talked about learning ‘c’ and ‘k’ and how together they make ‘ck’. Over the past few years I have searched for some inspiring way of helping the children understand when to use ‘ck’ and this year, ‘by jove’ I think I’ve cracked it! I have told the children that the letters love each other and are very lazy because more often than not they are found at the end of words. So what are we learning this week?

By the end of the week:
MUST be able to recognise the sound and name for ‘h’, ‘b’, ‘f’, ‘ff’, ‘l’, ‘ll’ and ‘ss’.
SHOULD be able to use the letters they have learned to segment and blend words when reading and writing.
COULD be able to read and write captions containing words with these letters.

Again there are double consonants here that make one sound and are often found at the end of words. These are the twins!!! They look the same and even sound the same. Plus, they are equally as lazy as ‘ck’.

NEW - http://www.kented.org.uk/ngfl/games/flags.html this is a brilliant game. Choose the vowel you want to have in the middle of the words and then put the flags on the sandcastles to make the word said by the computer.
NEW http://www.kented.org.uk/ngfl/games/teddybearPicnic_v2.html - a good website for matching lower case and upper case letters.
www.starfall.com - The children are doing amazingly well with their letter sound and name recognition so why not try out the vowels at the bottom of the page to help them use them in words.
http://www.ictgames.com/cvc_machine.html - this game is great for helping your child to blend sounds together. You can select the pattern (choose those with the letters we have been working on) and then the children have to read the word and click on the tick if it is a real word.
http://www.crickweb.co.uk/assets/resources/flash.php?&file=cvcmaker - This again is a great website for blending three letter words together.
http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/learn_y4/main.asp?lesson_path=year_4/word_machine_c-v-c/&lesson_file=lesson.swf&language=eng - This helps the children see how three letter words are made up of a consonant, a vowel and then a consonant.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/cvc/crank/game.shtml - If your child is experiencing difficulties listening to the middle sound then this is a great game for them.
http://www.ictgames.com/machine - a great site for blending again. Look at the picture in the machine and click on the correct word to match it.

MATHEMATICAL DEVELOPMENT
By the end of the week, the children:
MUST be able to add one more to a given number up to 9.
SHOULD be able to add two numbers to make a total of up to 10 by combining two sets.
COULD be able to add two numbers by counting on from the larger number.

Please continue to work on the vocabulary of addition on Mr Adder. Here are a few websites to help support your child.

http://www.rainforestmaths.com/ - if you start on the Kindergarten level and review the combining of sets to find the total first. When you think your child is managing this why not let them have a go at the Year 1 addition games. I’m sure you will be surprised at how they will be able to manage them by the end of the week.
http://www.ictgames.com/save_the_whale_v4.html - find the pairs to 10 to save the whale.
http://www.ictgames.com/funkymum.html - love this one but they will have to use the counting on from the largest number method.
http://www.ictgames.com/flight_for_fuel.html - collect the fuel to make the totals on the top.
http://www.ictgames.com/safecracker.html
http://www.ictgames.com/caterpillar_slider.html - just a little taster of the work for next week on ordering numbers and it will also help with identifying the larger number.
http://www.ictgames.com/beaver.html

A game to play at home to help your child identify the larger number.
You will need:
A set of playing cards
How to play
Divide the cards between two players
Each person takes a turn to reveal their playing card.
The one with the biggest number gets to keep the two cards.
The winner is the one with the most cards at the end.

Knowledge and Understanding of the World
The children will develop their understanding of transport that travels on the sea and air this week. Get the paper ready because we are actually going to teach them how to make paper aeroplanes and have a competition to see how far they can make them fly. They will also learn about floating and sinking. Perhaps during bath time you could reinforce this by adding a few objects. Keep those mobiles out of reach though as we have had at least three in the bath in our house over the past year!

Creative Development
We continue to work on the backgrounds to the amazing pictures the children did last week. The children will have to work together in a team to complete the task. We are amazed at the level of collaboration that children so young are demonstrating. The children are also going to be able to use the knowledge they gathered from making the cars on Friday to creating their own wheeled vehicle from junk materials. So…please continue sending in any boxes, tubes etc.

Other bits and bobs
Please can all museum permission slips be handed in by the end of the week. Also, we now have enough parent helpers. Thanks. A letter regarding the details of the day should go out on Monday.

We have three new additions to the team. Mrs Hibbits who is training to be a teaching assistant and will work with us evry Monday and Tuesday. Mrs Kirkham who is a trainee teacher who will work with us every Thursday, and Miss Scott, who is a student from Hope University. She will be with us every Friday until she does her block teaching practice in March. We warmly welcome them all. Mmm…how much more can I squeeze into the week now????

I am please to say that Mrs Higgins is now on the mend. She is making a speedy recovery and she should be back with us soon.

That is all for now, PHEW!!!

Have a great week!
Best wishes

Jayne Narraway and the Foundation Stage Team xxxx