Hi

Well, I’ve got a memory like a sieve. I forgot to send home the PE kits but, never mind because Sport’s Day is cancelled for this week and has been rescheduled for 17th July. For the purpose of those people who have to book time off, there is no reserve date, so if the heavens open our athletes will have to keep training until next year.

The children may have been a little unsettled last week due to the organisation around the new intake children. However, they all managed very well and the Year ½ teachers said they were very impressed with them. Well done to all the children. Our second group will visit on Thursday and Friday afternoon of this week.

The children had a great time on Friday at our ‘barbie’ and we had great fun dodging the rain whilst cooking the sausages. What a great way to end a fantastic week. As part of our week learning about Australia, and aboriginal art the children have produced some stunning art work which will be displayed in school. We still have a little to do though so most of our creative development work will be linked to this.

So what else are we learning?

Communication, Language and Literacy
By the end of this week, the children:
COULD be able to write a series of sentences linked to pictures, retelling a familiar story;
SHOULD be able to write a sentence with a capital letter and full stop;
MUST be able to think of a sentence to match a picture and write it with support.

In order to achieve these objectives, the children will be using the sequenced pictures from Jack and the Beanstalk they did last week. The pictures are in little books for the children to write in. It is hoped that this will be used to give their next teacher an indication of their writing skills, so that they get off to a flying start in Year 1.

As always, high frequency words and phonic activities are going on in class but your support at home is crucial. Here are some good websites that may be of use to you this week:
http://www.ictgames.com/cvc_machine.html
http://www.prongo.com/drag/game.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/cvc/index.shtml
http://www.ictgames.com/lcwc.html
http://www.ictgames.com/plankgame.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/magickey/adventures/patch.shtml
www.starfall.com
http://pbjc-lib.state.ar.us/mural.htm - for lovely pictures of the story of Jack and the Beanstalk.
http://www.e-gfl.org/e-gfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/teacher/other/spark/itsagoal/itsagoal.html
http://demo.iboard.co.uk/screens/thread_home.htm?thread_id=12
http://demo.iboard.co.uk/screens/thread_home.htm?thread_id=16

You can also look back at previous blogs for other websites used for phonics and spelling.

Mathematical Development
By the end of this week, the children:
COULD be able to read and make half past and o’clock;
SHOULD be able to read and make o’clock;
COULD be able to read o’clock.

What time is it Mr Wolf? Yes, we will be using this story to teach the children how to read the time. We will initially start with o’clock and see how far we get. As the staff have just learned to read the time in Spanish, we are going to endeavour to teach the Spanish at the same time. We’ll let you know how we get on…or your child may be able to tell you and that way you’ll know if we have succeeded.

These are some websites you may wish to use but nothing beats using a real clock. You can get one for a few pounds in some shops in town, and one famous Scandinavian store situated in Warrington!

http://www.learningplanet.com/act/tw/index.asp
http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/dynamo/den/clock/index.htm
http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks2/maths/time/index.htm
http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks2/maths/time_half_hour/index.htm
http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks1/maths/time_hour/index.htm
A pug-in is needed for the above two sites. Here is the link:
http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveAuthorware&P5_Language=English

http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/willy/willy.html
http://www.wmnet.org.uk/wmnet/custom/files_uploaded/uploaded_resources/503/clock.swf - this is good for moving the clock hands.

Physical Development
The children will be working on their scissor skills, ensuring that they can cut carefully along the times. They will be cutting leaves to make a beanstalk picture.

In PE the children will continue to develop their linking of movements from the previous week. They will be applying their skills to the use of the apparatus.

Knowledge and Understanding of the World
The children will be continuing to learn about the different conditions for growing and how plants and animals are living things and need certain things to grow. The children will be planning and investigating for themselves.

In ICT, the children will be using their mouse skills to draw a picture of their favourite animal.

This will be used next week to write a sentence about it.

Here I Am
We will continue to look at Judaism this week, as we did not quite get to it last week. Miss McGinty has loaned us some fantastic resources and we do need to do them justice! I am sure Mrs Latham will be able to knock up some Jewish food also.

As part of their physical development the children will be making Menorah’s.

Mantle
Can you believe it???? I’ve managed to get another ‘grow your own beanstalk kit’ off Ebay! I did this last year and the children were truly inspired in their writing. The children will be told that I have got the kit and it will be delivered this week. What do they expect they will find? Water? Beans? Soil? You must be joking! Not in our Foundation Stage! What they will find is: black paper, a pot, glitter, a tin of baked beans and some instructions. I will leave your child to tell you what happens. Let’s hope it’s a good as last year.

And finally…
The end of year report! On Friday, you will receive your child’s report along with the name of their next teacher. The reports do contain some necessary jargon but fear not, all will be explained at the parents’ evening. If you have not already done so, please send in the dates and times you would like and I’ll do my best to accommodate you. Please be aware that Thursday from 4pm is no longer available, as all times have been swiftly taken.

Have a lovely week. Only three more weeks until the end of term…and one more until the minibeast hunt. Aaaghh!!!

Take care

Jayne Narraway and the Foundation Stage Team xxxxx