Trip, trap, trip!!!

Hi there!

Welcome to another exciting week in the land of the foundation Stage at St Vincent’s. We had a great time last week, which was finished with a little party for all the children for Golden Time to say a big THANKYOU for all their hard work in preparing our classroom for the new intake evening.

This week we will be working on the following:

Communication, Language and Literacy

By the end of this week, the children:
COULD be able to write a sentence with a capital letter, a full stop and interesting words.
SHOULD be able to write a simple sentence with a capital letter and a full stop.
MUST be able to think of a sentence and write it with adult support.

This literacy work will be based on the story ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’. This is a great text which gives the children a fantastic opportunity for getting into character (as everyone wants to be the troll). This story also provides the opportunity to review their understanding of traditional tales. The text itself offers further opportunities for all the other areas of the curriculum.

You may want to share the story with your child at some point throughout the week.

The following websites may be of use to you in supporting your child’s literacy skills this week:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/cvc/crank/index.shtml - this is great for helping the children to develop their sounding out and blending of the sounds together, as well as hearing the medial vowel sound;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/cvc/whirl/index.shtml - the music to this is really funky!! The children have three levels at which they can work, and again they need to blend the sounds together;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/clusters/blender/index.shtml - this is a brilliant website for those children who have moved on from the three letter words and are developing their sounding out of words to four letter words (not of the rude kind I assure you!)
http://www.ictgames.com/cluster.html - another one for hearing the beginning of the words.
http://www.ictgames.com/cvc_machine.html - for working on those three letter words.
www.strafall.com - an old favourite but why not try out some of the other activities?
http://www.ictgames.com/cvc_machine.html - love this one!
http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/cap_letters_stops/eng/Introduction/default.htm

http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/english/goats/default.htm - an online version of the story

Mathematical Development

By the end of this week, the children:
COULD be able to name 3d shapes and their properties, and name a shape when its properties are described to them;
SHOULD be able to name and describe all the 2d shapes and name the 3d shapes;
MUST be able to name the 2d shapes and their properties.

It seems a long time since we did focussed work on shape and therefore your child may need some review of the work we have done before. The following websites can be used to support your child. However, the best way of developing your child’s understanding of shape is by having a walk around the house and local environment. Asking questions such as:
Why did the builder use cuboids(brick shapes) and not spheres(balls)?
Why can a ball roll?

http://demo.iboard.co.uk/screens/thread_home.htm?thread_id=2
http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/ngfl/maths/maerdy_2d/e_index.html
http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/patterns_and_patterns/eng/Introduction/default.htm - a review of pattern making
http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/building_game/eng/Introduction/default.htm
http://www.schoolsliaison.org.uk/astonhall/shapeppt/SHAPEP~1.PPT

The children will be involved in a Mantle where they will be asked to solve the problem of which shape will be best for the tiles in Mrs Flush-it’s bathroom! I know madness! This is aimed to develop their understanding of the properties of the 2d shapes.

Knowledge and Understanding of the World

The big focus this week will be on the use of the construction equipment to create bridges for the goats to travel across. They will be investigating all the equipment as well as using the outdoor play area (weather permitting) to role play the story. The children will also be transferring their class target from last week into a written form, when they will be writing about the different uses of water.

Physical Development

Unfortunately, due to the dreaded SATs in the hall for our Year 6 children, we will not be having a formal PE lesson this week. If the weather picks up then we will go outside in the afternoon. So for this week, it’s another big push on those all important handwriting and fine motor skills.

Creative Development
As you may have noticed in the classroom, this is very much high on our agenda. Learning through the arts is fun and exciting!!! If you take a walk down to the office, the sea life art work and the fruit pictures were created by YOUR children. Please take a visit if you can. They are not to be missed.

This week, we will be creating a collage on the theme of Spanish Foods. There is a competition that we can enter with a winning prize of £2,000. Of course, we are going to enter. Who wouldn’t? therefore, this week, the children will be using a range of materials to create our very own 2 metres by 1 metre masterpiece. Move over Van Gogh that’s what I say!!!

Here I Am
This week we begin our new topic ‘Freedom and Responsibility’.
The children will learn to:
RECOGNISE the need to take turns;
REFLECT on what happens when children don’t take turns;
RESPECT – appreciate taking turns is an important rule.


And finally…thanks to all the parents who have signed the diaries to say that we can film your child. If you haven’t done so yet then, after Friday, no signature will be deemed as you not giving consent and therefore, we will not include your child on the DVD.

Many thanks

Have a great week!

Jayne Narraway and the Foundation Stage Team xxx