We're ready for lift off!!!

Weekly update

Hello there!

As our title of our posting suggests we are ready to make our rockets. I don't think we have ever had a class who have collected so much junk materials for their rocket models. this is absolutely fantastic, as it gives the children a real choice of the shapes and sizes available to make their models. I just love this week!! Even my Grandma and her knitting circle get involved and have saved all their cones from their wool. Thanks to you all.

We didn't get through everything last week so we are carrying on from last week. Here's what's happening this week...

Here I Am
As the class target suggests, the children will be continuing to learn about initiation and relating it to the baptism of Jesus. They will compare their baptism with that of Jesus and learn why they have Godparents. If you could talk to your child about this it will deepen their understanding. We are also ahead of the game, as the syllabus states that we should teach the children the sign of the cross, and we have already done it!!

Communication, Language and Literacy
Following the much anticipated fireworks of the weekend the children will be working on a firework poem. This is how the poem goes...
10 fat sausages sizzling in the fire
9 fiery flames reaching even higher
8 shiny stars dropping on the ground
7 silver sparklers whirling round and round
6 golden fountains fizzing in the dark
5 red rockets whizzing across the park
4 bright catherine wheels spinning on a gate
3 wide-eyed children allowed out very late
2 proud parents watching all the games
1 lonely guy roasting in the flames.
The children will reinforce their understanding of alliteration (words and phrases which begin with the same sound) and continue to develop their understanding of rhyme. I have a little game you may wish to play.
You will need:
a teddy bear or soft toy and...patience.
How to play:
Say a rhyming word whilst holding the toy. Pass the toy to your child and they have to say a rhyming word. They then pass it back to you for you to say a rhyming word. This continues until you can't think of anymore rhyming words and then your child chooses a word to rhyme with. This can be played in a circle with other members of the family so switch off the TV and have some Rhyme-Time instead.

Mathematical Development
This week the children are working once again one finding one more and one less than a given number. They are all counting remarkably reliably now and many seem to have grasped fidning one more mentally. We have decided to continue with this for another week with an emphasis on the terms 'more' and 'less'. We will, however, introduce the terms 'greater' and 'smaller' when comparing two numbers.

Mantle of the Expert
Yet again Mrs Daydream will stumble across the 'Problem-solvers' (the children). Last week they were eagerly making designs for her to see on her return. She is going to explain that she would need to see what the rockets look like in reality and ask the problem-solvers to make some model rockets for her. This creates the stimulus for the rocket making.

Knowledge and Understanding of the World
As I noted last week, the aim of the model making is to support and guide children in their selection of materials and tools for making their rockets. they will learn about using masking tape because they can paint over it etc. This will be in preparation for the following week, when the children will have free choice in their model making. This way the children will have been taught how to join materials effectively, choose appropriate materials and tools for the task etc in order for them to be able to make models independently. Why not try a spot of model making at home? We'd love to see them.

In addition to the model making the children will learning about 'reflection'. Last week, they explored materials that are shiny and dull. This week we are collecting 'shiny' and 'dull' materials for our investigation table. If you have anything to add, then the children can bring it in to share witht he class on the investigation table. You may wish to reinforce their understanding of reflection by looking around the home for things they can see their faces in. It's pretty easy in the shops too with all the Christmas decorations about!!! (Not long to go now!!!)

Physical Development
In PE this week the children will be learning to move in response to the music they will be dancing to in the Christmas Production. Yes! We do actually have to start this so early. It's great fun and you'll love it!

The children will also be refining their fine motor skills this week with the creation of weaving sculptures using shiny and dull materials. Weaving is a great way of developing the children's manipulative skills. In addition to this, they will developing their cutting skills through a series of activities involving threading, playdough, tracing and, of course, the much loved computer.

Creative Development
As Christmas approaches my urge to use glitter on everything increases. As I stated above the children will create shiny and dull sculptures as part of a team. They will also be invited to make a shiny card for Mrs Daydream to take with her when she visits the jigaree. The rockets will get their finishing touches of fire and sequins etc and hopefully be 'in flight' by the end of the following week. Yes this means you may have to duck even more when you enter the classroom.

In music the children will explore how instruemnts are played and create a musical accompaniment to the firework poem above.

Other messages
As part of their learning the children spend sometime learning outdoors. Please ensure that your child has a hat, gloves and a scarf every day. Please also remember to label it with a name tag.

As the children have been in school for quite a while now we ask that you encourage them to come in on their own. This helps to settle the children quicker. Initally, your child may feel a little unsettled but when it becomes the norm they just get on with it. This is not to say that you can not enter the building and if your child is extrememly distressed and not ready for this them please do what you feel is best. We do however, hope that by Christmas all the children will be coming in on their own.

As you may have noticed I have not made any links with new websites. the ones previously posted will be sufficient for this week. I can tell that many of the children have been on www.starfall.com as they sing along to the songs on it in the classroom.

Have a great week!

Jayne Narraway and the Foundation Stage Team x

Week beginning 30th October 2006

Weekly update

Hi there!

I hope you all had a great half term holiday and are ready to get going! This half term is all about Colour, Light and Sound and starts off to a ZOOM!! Yes, we will be looking at space. This week's Mantle of the Expert will involve the children solving a problem for Mrs Daydream (aka Mrs Higgins). Once again, the information I am about to give you is top secret and no little ears should know what is about to take place this week. Here's how it goes...

Mrs Daydream visits the Problem-Solvers because she was simply walking down the street when out popped a strange looking character who gave her a present. He just seemed to have fallen out of the sky! The character tells her that he is a 'jigaree' and then disappears.

Over the course of the week the children will get to find out who the jigaree is, where he lives and how Mrs Daydream can get to visit him in space. The following information should explain this further and how it fits into the children's learning.

Communication, Language and Literacy
This week, the children will work on the text 'The Jigaree' which is about a monster who lives on the moon. This text places a high emphasis on developing the children's understanding of rhyme. By the end of this week we hope that all the children will be able to recognise a rhyming pair and even create a rhyming pair of their own. The following websites may be useful to you in supporting their understanding of rhyme:
www.ngfl-cyrmu.org.uk/vtc/nursery_rhymes/eng/Introduction/default.html
www.bbc.co.uk/schools/laac/wprds/dgi.shtml - this is a lovely website to use but you may need to sit with your child as the words will need to be read out for them in order for the rhyming pairs to be identified.
However good these websites may be, there are so many great children's literature which have rhyming words in them. Why not have a browse on your child's bookshelf and see what you can find. Also, reciting the nursery rhymes your child knows and identifying the rhyming words is a good idea too.

Mathematical Development
As the class target suggests, the children will be working on finding one more and one less than a given number. We will begin by starting with one more and see how it goes. Obviously, the language associated with this area of mathematical development is very important. Therefore, before the children can identify a number that is one less and one more they need to have an understanding of the terms more and less. The following website will help you with this:
www.ictgames.com/mucky.html - this is linked to washing their hands when going to the toilet!! They have to see which hand has more or less germs on it.
Once they have mastered this they could then use the following webistes to support their learning:
http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/maths/counting/rocket%20count.html - a game linked to our topic on space. You can select the number of rockets you want and add one more/less. Click on the rockets to make them shoot.
http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/maths/counting/count.html - the same as above but with fish.
http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/maths/counting/random%20count.html - as above.
In all of these games you can determine the number of objects you work with. I would advise you to start with 5 and then work up to 10.

Knowledge and Understanding of the World
Linked to the Mantle of the Expert, the children will be designing rockets for Mrs Daydream to visit the jigaree. They will first have to draw their own plan on a piece of paper and label it (with support). However, Mrs Daydream needs to see what the rocket would look like. Therefore, the children will create a model rocket using their design. They will use a range of junk materials so please send in any boxes, plastic bottles, egg cartons etc. The aim is for the children to learn how to join materials and make a model with a specific purpose. The rockets will be made next week as well as learning about space.

In addition to all of this the children will be investigating objects and materials that are shiny and dull. (How we will fit it all in I do not quite know yet!) You may wish to support this by looking for shiny and dull objects around the home.

Creative Development
Starry, Starry Night - Yes, I have raided my dad's CD collection and found Don McClean's 'Vincent'. Did you know that the song was based on Vincent Van Gogh's painting Starry Night? The children will experience being music and art critics this week and look at the work of Van Gogh and in particular this painting. They will create a piece of art work in the style of Van Gogh in teams linked to our colour mixing activities also. We hope to display these in the cloakroom. The children will also create a musical accompaniment to Twinkle, Twinkle.

Physical Development
The children will create dance movement to Gustav Holst's The Planets. They will talk about how the music makes them feel and create dance movements in response to what they hear and feel.

As always we will be having a real push on pencil control and scissor skills. Any practice the children can have at home on these skills would be greatly appreciated.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development
The children will learn to recognise and deal with conflict. This is a unit from the SEAL project the school is implementing. The children will also be talking about the dark and how it makes them feel. We will be reading a chapter from the book 'The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark'. In this chapter the owl encounters fireworks. This provides us with the opportunity to discuss safety issues relating to Bonfire Night.

Yes...and as always we'll be getting dressed independently.


I think that is all for now!

Take care and have a great week.

Best wishes

Jayne Narraway and the Foundation Stage Team x

Weekly update 16th October 2006

Weekly update

Last week was a great week with the children getting fully involved in their role as problem-solvers. Yet another problem was solved regarding how to mix the colours green, purple, orange, pink and brown. The children even taught 'Martha Colourwheel' (aka Mrs Latham) a song about colour mixing to help her remember. It goes like this...

(To the tune of Okey Cokey)
You put a blue blob here, a yellow blob there
Blue blob, yellow blob and give it a stir
You do the okey cokey and you turn around
And green is what you make
(the rest of the song is the same as the original)

You can change the colour names in the song for the different outcomes. Happy singing!!

Here I Am
The children are starting their topic on Initiation now. The children will be learning about baptism. You may wish to support your child by looking at videos or photographs of their baptism.

Mathematical Development
This week is assessment and review week prior to the end of half term. This is an opportunity for us to assess the children on their counting (reliably of course!) and their recognition of the shapes and their properties. The children have created some beautiful art work inspired by Wassily Kandinsky's piece 'Swinging'. We hope to have them up in the classroom after the half term so please pop in and see them after school one night. Over this week you may wish to look back at the websites that have been posted earlier this half term to support the assessment process.

Communication, Language and Literacy
The children will continue to develop their letter recognition. This will be done through an alphabet book. The key word for this week will be 'alliteration'. What on earth is alliteration you may be asking! Well, basically, alliteration is when words within a sentnece or phrase begin with the same sound (phoneme). For example, slithering snakes, happy hippos, etc. The children will be asked to identify words and objects that begin with the same sound. This will be further developed into them writing silly alliterative sentences with their group e.g Sammy snake sucks sticky sausages. I'm sure this will cause many giggles, and that's just from the staff! Again the websites previously noted on this blog will support your child's learning.

Knowledge and Understanding of the World
Next week the Hindu familiaes will be celebrating Divali. This is one of our most favourite weeks when the children really learn about the culture of other religions. The children will learn about the story of Rama and Sita and have the opportunity to reenact the story. They will be using the different construction kits we have in class to build a bridge for the monkey army in the story to cross the river. They will experience Indian cuisine by tasting curries, popadoms, rice, etc. Mrs Latham will be making an indian sweet called barfi. I have also organised for a dance company to visit the school and show the children how to do the indian dancing.

Physical Development and Creative Development
The children will be developing their fine motor skills by doing a little sewing this week. They children are to work together to stitch sequins and beads onto some sari material. These will later be used in the role play area. The children will also experience using clay as they will make clay diva lamps. They will make paper flower garlands too. The children will learn a lovely song about Divali and create their own movements to the song in their PE lesson.

Other details
Just a quick reminder about Parents' Evening. They will be held in the classroom. Thank you to you all for your prompt return of the forms to allow for times to be allocated. Please could you keep the handwriting book and library book in the plastic wallet we gave you and return them both on Friday. Please do not send them in any earlier as it is often difficult to find places to house so many folders throughout the week.

Have a great week. I know we will!!

best wishes

Jayne Narraway and the Foundation Stage Team x

Weekly update 9th October 2006

Weekly update

Last week was a great week!

Firstly, can we say a BIG thank you for all your kind donations for our Harvest Festival. I am sure that they will all be greatly received. May I also that all those parents who religiously make a comment in their children's diary. I also appreciate how many letters and bits of information you are receiving home each week. Believe me it does start to slow down from now on.

Last week, we had our trainers coming in to do some 'on-the-job' training with myself and the team. The approach is called Mantle of the Expert. If you would like to find out more please go to www.mantleoftheexpert.com

Mantle of the Week
We are going to 'have a go' this week at doing a mini-mantle. The children are going to explore how colours are mixed. They are to be problem solvers for the client, 'Mad Professor Patrick' aka Mrs Latham! I will act as the agent, asking questions and developing the children's thinking. He is going to have a problem! His life work on colour mixing has been burned to a cinder! He knows that he discovered how to make green, orange, purple, brown, pink and grey but he has lost his precious note book with how he did it. Can they solve the problem because he has to share his findings pretty soon. The children will have to come up with their own way of solving the problem. PLEASE do not give your children the answers. There is far more satisfaction and self-esteem built in the feeling that they have solved the problem themselves.

So what's going on this week?

Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Your child will have two PE lessons a week where they need to get changed into their PE kits. At the moment it is taking the children a very long time to get changed for PE and back changed again, resulting in only twenty minutes per session for actual physical activity. Independence in dressing and undressing scores very highly on the Foundation Stage Profile, a document which your child's attainment is measured against. Therefore, please could you continue to help your child to get dressed themselves. Activities in the home such as baking, using play dough, building with Lego and other fiddly toys will support your child with their fine motor skills if they are finding buttons difficult.

Communication, Language and Literacy
Last week the children started on developing their ideas for helping Humpty Dumpty to learn about spiders. therefore, this week the children will continue to learn about non-fiction books and their features in preparation for making their own big book for Humpty. In order to support this, you may wish to take a trip to the local library and search for books on spiders or other books of interest. The key things for the children to understand are that non-fiction books have:

• photographs
• diagrams with labels
• headings at the top of the page
• captions which explain the photograph
• contain information about things that are real

As always we will be continuing to support your child with their identification of the letter sounds and names. As with last week, we will be working on the following letter names and corresponding sounds - Aa, Ss, Mm, Tt, Gg, Oo, Pp and Cc. The best website is www.starfall.com for these as the games use the letter names and the letter sounds together.

Some of the children in the class are hearing the initial sounds in words now. If your child can do this then I would suggest the following websites in order to extend their learning - www.ictgames.com/soundsea.html

www.bbc.co.uk/schools/laac/words/dg2.shtml - select initial sounds

Mathematical Development

In this area of the curriculum the children will be working on shapes. The children who know the shape names, circle, square, rectangle and triangle will extend their knowledge by learning about the properties of the shapes. This means talking about the number of sides, corners and whether it has curved or straight sides. You will receive an information sheet detailing the vocabulary we wish to develop on Monday along with your child's handwriting homework.

The following websites may be of use to your child. I will be using some of them in my input and as activities to support their learning.

www.primaryresources.co.uk/online/online_downloads.htm - select pattern, shape reveal and street shapes.

www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/Phase2delivery/Wales/Artanddesign/Keystage1/Making/Shapepictures/Introduction

www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/artbox/playit/shapes/shapes.html

www.priorywoods.middlesbrough.sch.uk/kidsonly/findout/shapes/shapes.html

www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/simple_patterns/eng/Introduction/default.htm

www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/ngfl/maths/maerdy_2d/frames.asp - the properties are given and the children must guess the shape.

http://demo.iboard.co.uk/screens/thread_home.html?thread_id=2# - colour in pictures made of shapes, making pictures with shapes and making patterns with shapes.

www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/funandgames/flash/pictureperfect/pictureperfect.html - shape matching.

This next one I just love! I couldn't stop laughing. By the way it has nothing to do with shape, just counting.

www.priorywoods.middlesbrough.sch.uk/kidsonly/findout/counting/bugz.htm

Knowledge and Understanding of the World

The children will continue to find out about spiders throughout the week. They will also investigate waterproofing as Incy Wincy has categorically stated that he will NOT visit if it is raining. (With the weather we are having what hope do we have?) Anyway, the children must find out about waterproof materials and then come up with a shelter to protect Incy from the rain on his travels from the spout to Humpty's House. They must then make the shelter and test out.

In the computer suite the children will continue to develop their mouse skills. they will be using the following website so any help would be great!

www.primaryresources.co.uk/online/teddydress.swf

They will also be learning how to program a programmable toy (dressed as Incy) to travel up the spout. See - it all fits together!

Creative Development

The children will learn about the famous artist Wassily Kandinsky and our work in Mathematical Development will inspire our art work. The children will also complete their paper plate spiders and start to make their Harvest frames. In addition to this the children will be learning a song for our Harvest festival. The children will investigate how sounds are made with different percussion instruments.

Events
Induction Evening - this is a chance for you to learn in more detail about your child's learning whilst they are in the Foundation Stage. We will be providing you with details of the types of activities you can play at home to support your child with their learning, as well as sharing with you the different practices we employ in the classroom. Please be prepared to take part. You will laugh and have fun, and make new friends I am sure. You will hopefully see the supported, exciting and structured way in which your child will learn.

Kinetic Science Show - as apart of our endeavour to develop links within the community, we are joining with our neighbouring school, Penketh South, for a Science Show. This will take place on Wednesday. Thankyou to all who have made a voluntary contribution to the shows. I am sure we will enjoy them.

Goodness me, this blog gets longer each week!

Finally, a letter has gone out to you about parents' evening. Please complete the form at the bottom and return it to school as soon as possible. Handwriting homework will go out each Monday with your child's library book. Please return them both in the wallet provided on Friday to allow for marking of homework and new homework to be set.

Have a great week yourselves!

Best wishes

Jayne Narraway and the Foundation Stage Team

Weekly update 2nd October 2006

Weekly update

The children are all finally in and we can begin on the fantastic learning experiences we have planned for the children. This week is particularly exciting as we have an expert visiting us to train us in the classroom along with the children. This involves the use of role play to develop children's learning.

The children have settled well into their register groups in the morning and we now ask that you make the entry into school as speedy as possible to allow for a pacey start to the day. However, the children still need to be encouraged to do as much of the morning routine themselves as possible.

Could I also remind you that names need to be on everything - snacks, drinks bottles, etc. We have been very impressed with the labelling of property with this intake but their are just a few children who do not have their snack labelled.

Communication, Language and Literacy
Continuing with our nursery rhyme theme the children will get another letter from Humpty Dumpty. This time he will be fretting because he is being visited by Incy Wincy Spider and he doesn't really know that much about spiders. Therefore, the class target is to look for spiders and webs around their environment and find out what they can about them. The result of the week will be an information book that we will be able to send to Humpty Dumpty ready for Incy Wincy Spider's visit.

The children have also been grouped in preparation for their reading activities and we will be focusing on learning the letter sounds and names for Aa, Ss, Mm, Tt, Gg, Oo and Pp. You may wish to let your child play on the websites: www.ictgames.com/phonic_fighter4.html and www.starfall.com As always the high frequency words play a vital part in your child's reading development and we do encourage them to practice them little and often. The induction evening will give you ideas of the types of games you can play with them at home. You may want to play on the website: www.ictgames.com/plankgameR.html


Personal, Social and Emotional Development
The children will now start their two PE lessons a week in the school hall as well as a daily outdoor curriculum. The children need to be as independent as possible and therefore, we are having a real push on fastening and undoing their own buttons. We do undo and fasten their top button as this is often difficult for them. Your support in this would be greatly appreciated. I am aware that the children will take longer to get ready for school, so maybe start off with them doing one button, increasing to all of them over the course of the term.

Last week we did have quite few items around the classroom ill-treated and as a result had to be thrown away. Therefore, we will be reinforcing the Golden Rules this week with an emphasis on 'Looking after equipment'. At the induction meeting on 10th October you will receive further information about how the Golden Rules work.

Here I Am
As part of our topic we have asked for photographs of the children as babies. Thank you to all the parents who have sent one in. Could any outstanding photographs be sent in as soon as possible so we can place them on display. Thanks.

Mathematical Development
Now that all our assessments have been completed in this area of learning we are now ready to start teaching the numeracy curriculum. This week we will developing the children's counting skills. They will be required to count a range of objects reliably. This will include counting objects given and also counting them out of a larger set. On Monday you will find an information sheet about how we go about helping the children become reliable counters.

Here are some great websites to support this week's learning objectives:
www.ictgames.com/duckshoot.html - the children look at the number and then count that number of ducks to shoot. This is based on the fairground game.
www.e-gfl.org/4.cfm?s=4&m=25&p=117,index - select Down the Farm game.
www.abc.net/countusin/games/game3.htm - you can also select game 5.
www.little-g.com/shockwave/colourcount.html - look at the number and colour the given number of objects on screen.
http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/maths/counting/random%20count.html - the children need to count the fish.
www.primarygames.com/math/fishycount/index.htm - count the fish and click on the corresponding number.
www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks1/english/fruits/level2/l2/activity2.html - this is a lovely game for the children to play. Once you have clicked on this link there are a few other games you can go to.

Knowledge and Understanding of the World
In this area of the curriculum the children are looking at weather conditions. You may wish to develop your child's vocabulary by discussing the various weather types. The children will be asked to dress a teddy on the computer. Here are some websites to support this area of the curriculum:
www.bbc.co.uk/wales/bobinogs/games/game.shtml?1 - the children need to dress the character to match the weather.
www.angliacampus.com/tour/pri/geog/weathert/page02.htm - the children can find out about the weather with Teddy.

Physical Development
In this area of the curriculum the children will be further developing their scissor skills and fine motor skills. In PE they will be developing their balancing skills. They will also be developing their gross motor skills through a range of structured play activities outdoors.

Creative Development
Linked to our work on Spiders the children will be making clay spiders, owls and hedgehogs for Harvest. They will be creating spiders out of paper plates and shaping materials to create a spiders web. The children have been working really hard on making dream catchers with Mrs Latham and the last few who haven't completed theirs will get the chance this week. The children will also experience using a range of percussion instruments to accompany the rhyme of Incy Wincy Spider as well as learning a new song for our Harvest festival.

Finally, can I just remind you again of the Induction Meeting on 10th October. We do hope you can attend as there will be quite a lot of information given out.

Here's to a great week!

Best wishes

Jayne Narraway and the Foundation Stage Team

Weekly beginning 25th September 2006

Weekly update
Information for new starters (25th September 2006)

Welcome to St Vincent's!

This is the first day of your child's exciting learning adventure at St Vincent's. There will be lots of new things to take in and many changes ahead. Please do not worry as the induction process has been carefully structured in order to enable your child to feel secure and happy making the transition into primary school.

This blogspot will be updated on a weekly basis and will contain lots of information regarding what your child will be learning in school for the week, websites you could visit to support the learning in school as well as activities you could try at home. It is updated every weekend in preparation for the coming week.

The next week will be a settling in time allowing the Foundation Stage Team to get to know your child, their needs and starting point. This indepth induction process enables us to provide your child with the right start to their learning, as we would not like to repeat anything that they have been taught before. If your pre-school provider gave you any records please could you let us have a look at them as this will help us to tune in alot quicker. Please do not worry if you do not have any.

Finally, information will be sent home via your child's reading diary. You should have received this today. The diary is a means of communication between home and school, and in particular we ask that you make a comment every week about your child's reading at home. There will be a further induction meeting, on 10th October, when all the children are in full time. At this meeting we will give further details regarding the types of comments you can make but we love to read your comments and always respond to them.

If you have anything you are unsure about please do not hesitate to see a member of the Foundation Stage Team.

Best wishes

Jayne Narraway x

Information for children already in school

Well! Can you believe it! Humpty Dumpty has not just written to the children but actually emailed them too!! This week the children are continuing to work on investigating the best way to build walls, looking at brick bonds, etc in preparation for their response to Humpty later in the week. The walls build so far are brilliant and ALL the children have been eager to have a go! These children have lots of 'get up and go' and we are looking forward to what this year holds in store for us. There has not been a day so far that we have not laughed out loud about something that has happened. 'A smile a day keeps the blues away!'.

Structured teaching will commence next week as this week we need to finalise and collate our assessments in preparation for the detailed planning of your child's learning experiences whilst they are in the Foundation Stage. However, never one to miss out on an opportunity, I have detailed some good websites you may want to try which will support your child's letter recognition.

www.ictgames.com/letterlifter.html - this is a great game. The children must look at the object and decide what sound it begins with. Once they have identified it they need to locate the letter symbol on the keyboard and type it in. If your child is still a little unsure of the sounds and can not hear the initial sounds yet then this may be one to leave for a later date.

www.ictgames.com/plankgameR.html - this supports the spelling and recogntion of the high frequency words throughout Reception.

www.ictgames.com/phonic_fighter4.html - I absolutely love this one!!

www.starfall.com - by far one of the best websites to support letter recognition in a fun and interactive way.

You may have noticed on last week's blog that I mentioned sending home handwriting homework. I think I may have been a little too ambitious with the planning last week and as a result the children were not taught the pattern. Therefore, we have decided to postpone handwriting homework until all the children are in full time. Therefore, Monday 2nd October will be the first day they receive handwriting homework.

Finally, can we just say how amazed we are at how quickly the children have settled this year. Well done to them all!

Here's to another great week!

Best Wishes

Jayne Narraway x

Week beginning 18th September 2006

Weekly update
Information for new starters (18th September 2006)
Welcome to St Vincent's!
This is the first day of your child's exciting learning adventure at St Vincent's. There will be lots of new things to take in and many changes ahead. Please do not worry as the induction process has been carefully structured in order to enable your child to feel secure and happy making the transition into primary school.

This blogspot will be updated on a weekly basis and will contain lots of information regarding what your child will be learning in school for the week, websites you could visit to support the learning in school as well as activities you could try at home. It is updated every weekend in preparation for the coming week.

The next few weeks will be a settling in time allowing the Foundation Stage Team to get to know your child, their needs and starting point. This indepth induction process enables us to provide your child with the right start to their learning, as we would not like to repeat anything that they have been taught before. If your pre-school provider gave you any records please could you let us have a look at them as this will help us to tune in alot quicker. Please do not worry if you do not have any.

Finally, information will be sent home via your child's reading diary. You should have received this today. The diary is a means of communication between home and school, and in particular we ask that you make a comment every week about your child's reading at home. There will be a further induction meeting when all the children are in full time. At this meeting we will give further details regarding the types of comments you can make but we love to read your comments and always respond to them.

If you have anything you are unsure about please do not hesitate to see a member of the Foundation Stage Team.

Best wishes

Jayne Narraway x

Information for parents of children already starting school.
This week we will be working on developing our Nursery Rhyme Land (our classroom). The children will receive a letter from Humpty Dumpty explaining that he is very worried because he is having a new house built (our home corner) and the last wall he sat on fell down! The children are to investigate brick bonds and work in pairs to create a wall for Humpty. They will test it out using a programmable toy. They will have to program it to try to know Humpty off the wall. this activity will support the children's understanding of problem solving, team work and knowledge of the world. The use of the programmable toy named Roamer is taught early to enable the children to know how to use it in other areas of the curriculum.

Following our theme on Humpty Dumpty the children will be investigating how eggs are changed when they are heated. If you feel like you want to have an egg-citing breakfast (sorry, counldn't resist!) why not have scrambled egg on Monday, boiled egg on Tuesday, fried egg on Wednesday (using fry-lite of course), poached egg on Thursday and finishing the school week off with an omelette.

We love our craft activities in the Foundation Stage and therefore the children will be making jointed Humpty's and creating members of his family. This is to develop the key scissor skills.

Below are a list of websites that you may want to use with your child. They are mainly based on the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty.

http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/Foundation/humptyjig.html - this has a lovely jigsay for the children to put together again (because the all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't!)
http://ngfl.nothumberland.gov.uk/ict/mouseskills/ted.html - click and drag to develop the children's mouse skills and create a picture of teddy's face.
http://wgfl.digitalbrain.com/wgfl/web/foundation/humpty/humpty.htm
http://themouseclub.co.uk - this is obsessive particularly if you play noughts and crosses - I was on for about half an hour!
www.snaithprimary.eril.net/index.htm
http://demo.iboard.co.uk/screens/thread_home.htm?thread_id=5# - dress Humpty for hot and cold weather and make up your own rhyme (this is an evaluation copy but it still works)
http://demo.iboard.co.uk/screens/thread_home.htm?thread_id=4# - sequencing the rhyme and mending Humpty
www.hendersonville-pd.org/hpdnursery.html - range of nursery rhymes ( be warned! the music almost sends you to sleep!)
www.dltk-teach.com/rhymes/humpty/index.htm - colouring pages, finger puppets and paper crafts.
www.starfall.com - for those letters of the alphabet!

As part of our Here I Am topic on babies we also ask that you send in a photogragh of when your child was a baby. We will be sticking it into a book so please do not send one that is really treasured. You will also receive a copy of a prayer you may wish to share with your child.

Handwriting homework will commence this week. Details of how to go about it will be on the inside cover of the book you receive home.

Many thanks

Jayne Narraway x

Week beginning 11th September 2006

Weekly update

Information for parents of the first intake
The first two days of the school year went very well. Many thanks for supporting your child on entering school, selecting their names and placing their belongings in the correct spot. The children have now started to understand the routines of the day and things are running very efficiently. Last week we concentrated on getting to know where the resources are, tidying up after a session as well as assessing your child on some basic skills. All the assessments for your child will be completed by Wednesday to enable the next intake to start theirs.

We would also appreciate it if you could make a comment in your child's diary when you have read with them, looked at the high frequency words, etc.

What will happen after the assessments?
The children will participate in a little project based on the story 'Lost and Found' by Oliver Jeffers. This book was the winner of the Gold Award last year in the Nestle Children's Book Prize. As a class we are entering a competition to become judges for this year's competition. The first round involves the children creating an environment using paint, oil pastels, etc for the penguin who is lost. Therefore, we will be completing activities linked to this. The last time we entered this competition, we did get through the first round and becomae judges for the 2004 awards. This is a great opportunity to be involved in the national love of children's literature.

Your child will also become a 'buddy' to the next intake of children. As they have had the benefit of a large adult-child ratio, they now take on the role of supporting the other children. This is an excellent way of providing the children with responsibility, a skill needed throughout life.

If you would like to start doing any ativities with your child, I would suggest visiting:
www.starfall.com - this is a great website that can be used to support letter recognition. The sooner we start the better!

Once again, thank you for your support.

Best wishes
Jayne Narraway x

Information for new starters (14th September 2006)
Welcome to St Vincent's! This is the first day of your child's exciting learning adventure at St Vincent's. There will be lots of new things to take in and many changes ahead. Please do not worry as the induction process has been carefully structured in order to enable your child to feel secure and happy making the transition into primary school.

This blogspot will be updated on a weekly basis and will contain lots of information regarding what your child will be learning in school for the week, websites you could visit to support the learning in school as well as activities you could try at home. It is updated every weekend in preparation for the coming week.

The next few weeks will be a settling in time allowing the Foundation Stage Team to get to know your child, their needs and starting point. This indepth induction process enables us to provide your child with the right start to their learning, as we would not like to repeat anything that they have been taught before. If your pre-school provider gave you any records please could you let us have a look at them as this will help us to tune in alot quicker. Please do not worry if you do not have any.

Finally, information will be sent home via your child's reading diary. You should have received this today. The diary is a means of communication between home and school, and in particular we ask that you make a comment every week about your child's reading at home. There will be a further induction meeting when all the children are in full time. At this meeting we will give further details regarding the types of comments you can make but we love to read your comments and always respond to them.

If you have anything you are unsure about please do not hesitate to see a member of the Foundation Stage Team.

Best wishes

Jayne Narraway x

Weekly update 4th September 2006

Welcome to St Vincent's!

This is the first day of your child's exciting learning adventure at St Vincent's. There will be lots of new things to take in and many changes ahead. Please do not worry as the induction process has been carefully structured in order to enable your child to feel secure and happy making the transition into primary school.

This blogspot will be updated on a weekly basis and will contain lots of information regarding what your child will be learning in school for the week, websites you could visit to support the learning in school as well as activities you could try at home. It is updated every weekend in preparation for the coming week.

The next few weeks will be a settling in time allowing the Foundation Stage Team to get to know your child, their needs and starting point. This indepth induction process enables us to provide your child with the right start to their learning, as we would not like to repeat anything that they have been taught before. If your pre-school provider gave you any records please could you let us have a look at them as this will help us to tune in alot quicker. Please do not worry if you do not have any.

Finally, information will be sent home via your child's reading diary. You should have received this today. The diary is a means of communication between home and school, and in particular we ask that you make a comment every week about your child's reading at home. There will be a further induction meeting when all the children are in full time. At this meeting we will give further details regarding the types of comments you can make but we love to read your comments and always respond to them.

If you have anything you are unsure about please do not hesitate to see a member of the Foundation Stage Team.

Best wishes

Jayne Narraway x

Weekly update 17th July 2006

Weekly update

Well the last week has finally arrived and we are going to have lots of fun this week!

Monday is going to start the week with a party day! The children are going to spend the morning creating party hats. They will then play some party games and have a jolly good boogie. In the afternoon the party will continue with some party food and more games. What a great start to the week.

On Tuesday the children will be working on their transition project and then in the afternoon they will hopefully be able to spend the afternoon with their next teacher.

On Wednesday - yipee!!! It's our trip to Gulliver's World. If the weather is as hot as it has been this last week please make sure your child has plenty of drinks, a sun hat and suncream. To ensure maximum safety the children will be in groups of three.

On Thursday we will continue with our transition unit throughout the day. On this day please send your child with a carrier bag with their name on as they will have things to take home. The leaver's mass will be at 1.30pm in the school hall.

And...Friday. the children are allowed to bring toys in on this day.

I will be sending home some activities for the children to work on over the summer holidays. You will be surprised how they do 'switch off' and how much can be forgotten over the few weeks. Therefore, I urge you to spend a little time each day working on high frequency words etc.

On behalf of the Foundation Stage Team can I express our thanks for the lovely comments you have made in response to your child's report. It is heart warming and so satisfying to hear you are as happy with the provision your child as had as we are. This has been a great year!!

See you soon

Jayne Narraway x

Weekly update 10th July 2006

Weekly update

Hi there!

Well, we are only a week and half from the end of your child's first year in school and may I say that this has been my most enjoyable and rewarding year in my twelve year teaching career. If I could hold onto these children I surely would!

Sport's Day
I do believe that we have some budding atheletes in our midst. The children behaved impeccably and we were all so proud of them.

What's happening?
This week will mainly be used to carry out assessments in preparation for the passing up of information to your child's next class teacher. However, over the holidays, children do tend to lose some of the information they know, particularly the high frequency words and their letter recognition. I do urge you to keep working on these throughout the summer holidays to keep the brain in shape as the children will be reassessed at the start of Year 1 and any words and letters they are unable to recognised will be set as targets. If you can continue to work on these then the children will 'hit the floor running' so to speak!

I will aim to maintain the blogspot throughout the summer holidays and you may want to have a look for new websites I have found.

Transition into Year 1
You will have received your child's first school report and contained within this will be the name of their next teacher. This week we will be starting a transition project. The children will begin a passport about themselves to take on into year 1. This will then be completed in the first two weeks in year 1. The aim of the project is to make the transition into Year 1 as smooth as possible.

Gulliver's World
We will have our annual end of year school trip to Gulliver's World next week. I have carried out a rigourous risk assessment (along with my 6 year old niece) and the adults accompanying the children will be briefed on the suitable rides for our children prior to the trip. We should return before 3pm. Please collect your child in the normal way, from the classroom door.

Parent/teacher interviews
You should have received your appointment time in your child's diary. I had to work on a first come first served basis and I apologise for any appointments that do not fit your preferences.

And finally...

Thanks you for all your valued support and enthusiasm in supporting myself, the team and, more importantly, your child.

Best wishes

Jayne Narraway x

Weekly update 3rd July 2006

Weekly update

This week we will be having our annual Sport's Day. If the weather is fine then it will go ahead as planned on the Tuesday afternoon. If it pours down we will have it on the Wednesday afternoon. If it rains on the Wednesday I have no idea what we will do so fingers crossed! Please make sure your child has suncream, a hat and a water bottle.

Communication, Language and Literacy
I bet you've all heard about our beanstalk?! Well if you didn't here is a brief explanation of what happened last week... The children were told that I had been on the internet over the weekend and that I had seen a 'Grow Your Own Beanstalk Kit' and that I had ordered it and it was to arrive on Tuesday. Well, Tuesday came and still the kit had not arrived. So I pretended to email the company and they 'promised' it would be there on Wednesday. However, this did not happen so I pretended to telephone them! On Thursday the kit was 'delivered' to rapturous applause and cheers. We proceeded to follow the instructions carefully but something was wrong!!!! The kit included paper, a pot, glitter and a tin of baked beans!!! Surely that wasn't right!

Anyway, we followed the instructions which involved kissing the baked beans before planting them, sprinkling then with glitter and then making a wish. We left it overnight to see if it would grow. Can you believe it? By the next morning the beanstalk had grown a few leaves!!!

The children left for the weekend with the question, What will the beanstalk be like on Monday? Yes, you've guessed it! It will have grown through the ceiling, but where will it take them? This is going to be the link in with Jack and the Beanstalk and provide opportunities for the children to develop their writing skills. This week in Communication, Language and Literacy, the children will receive a letter from the Giant. They must respond to the giant.

What happens when something falls from the beanstalk? Could it be that someone else has climbed it without us knowing? There will be a Gingerbread Man hanging from the beanstalk in the classroom. This will link into the following week's work on The Gingerbread Man story.

We will also be working on our phonics as usual but we will be developing the children's understanding of alphabetical order. Check out these websites for great activities:
www.kidstime.com/games/alph_soup.htm
www.learningplanet.com/act/abcorder.asp
www.primaryonline.co.uk/sitetour/pol/alpha1.html - the children select the missing letter out of a sequence of five letters.
www.little-g.com/shockwave/library.html - the children must place the books in the correct place on the shelf in the library.

Mathematical Development
This week we are focusing on learning to tell the time. We will initially start with learning how to read 'o'clock' and then move onto 'half past' if we can. Here are some websites you may wish to visit but nothing beats a watch or clock at home.
www.bbc.co.uk/education/dynamo/den/clock/index.htm - the children must set the clock to the time given.
www.harcourtschool.com/activity/willy/willy.html - this is a game for two players.
www.learningplanet.com/act/tw/index.asp

We are continuing to practice the formation of the numerals.

Everything else
The children are continuing to work on the topic of transport. They are painting pictures of modes of transport on the computer. They are also going to draw my car and I've promised them they can sit in it too. We will be doing some art work inspired by 'The Two Cyclists, Mother and Child' by Fernand Leger, and completing our keepsake.

Reports
You will receive your child's end of year report on Friday. Included in the envelope will be the name of the teacher your child will have next year. All the Foundation Stage team have been involved in the decision regarding the distribution of the children and it was done with careful consideration based on a year long observation of your child. There is also a parental response to the report and how you feel your child has done this year. These are great to receive after a year of working with the children so we would appreciate it if you would just make a little response.

I think that is all for now.

Pray for good weather!

Best wishes

Jayne Narraway x

26th June 2006

Weekly update

Art exhibition
Last week the children created a piece of art each. These have been sent away to be framed and there will be an art exhibition in the school hall on Wednesday after school and in the evening. Look out for the posters on classroom windows for further details. I think you will be amazed at the quality of the children's art work. We are thrilled with our budding artists!

Non-unform day
Friday is non-uniform day. The children do not have to come in their uniform. All we ask is that they bring in a tombola prize as 'payment' for not wearing their uniform. The tombola will be held at the Sport's Day next week.

Communication, Language and Literacy
This week we will be continuing with our work on traditional stories. The children will work on a book called 'Jasper's Beanstalk' which they will compare with 'Jack and the Beanstalk'. They will have the opportunity to create their own land at the top of the beanstalk and talk about the characters they would meet in their land. Who knows we could be growing our very own beanstalk in the classroom!!! Jasper's Beanstalk has strong links with the days of the week so a review of these will be facilitated. The usual phonics and reading work will continue.

To look at more traditional stories visit:
www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/storycircle/fairystories/jackandbeanstalk/jack_s.shtml?cbeebies - from this page you can access other fairy stories.

Mathematical Development
We will be continuing to count in tens to 100 and backwards. We will also be counting in twos to 20 and hopefully beyond. We will be reinforcing the formation of the numerals and working on estimation. Counting reliably will be used using the LINE, TOUCH, COUNT method, as well as exploring the different ways that magic number 10 can be made e.g 4+6, 5+5, 7+3, etc. We will be developing the strategy of counting on from one number to find the missing number in a number sentence e.g 4 + ? = 6 the children count on from 4 until they reach 6 and see how many they had to add.

Websites you may wish to look at:
www.ictgames.com/safecracker.html
www.bbc.co.uk/schools/laac/numbers/ch1.shmtl - this site has different levels. Select level 1 for basic addition practice and level 2 for missing number addition.
www.atschool.eduweb.co.uk/toftwood/monkeymaths.html
www.primarygames.com/add_up/start.html
www.ictgames.com/save_the_whale_v4.html
www.ictgames.com/fairyfog2s_v2.html
www.ictgames.com/beaver.html

Everything else?
The children will be practicing the various skills for our Sport's Day next week, so our PE times will be taken up with getting our atheletes into prime condition. In Knowledge and Understanding of the World, the children will be exploring and sorting different modes of transport.

In creative development they will be making something very special as a keepsake of their time with us.

And now it is time to feel sad! The wonderful work the children have produced and are displayed on our walls must come down. However, do not feel too sad as we have put a selection of work into a Year Book for every child as an additional keepsake.

Finally, please can you remember to send in a water bottle for your child. Thanks

Bye for now

Jayne Narraway x

Weekly update 19th June 2006

Week beginning 19th June 2006

Thank you to all the children for being so sensible and caring when our children for September came in last week. It was a real success and we are really proud of them all. The Year 1 teachers were thrilled at how well behaved and hard working the children were. Thank you.

Communication, Language and Literacy
This week we are beginning to look at traditional stories. We are going to begin this week with Jack and the Beanstalk. Traditional stories are fantastic and I am sure you remember them being read to you as a child. Sadly, more and more children are not having experience of these stories early on in their lives. Therefore, we are on a mission! You could support your child by reading as many traditional stories as possible with them. The stories do have common themes: the triump of good over evil/bad, a goodie and a baddie, the significance of the number 3, in the original versions(not disney) Cinderella goes to the ball three times. When sharing the stories with your child perhaps you could talk about these features.

The children will be sequencing pictures of the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, matching captions to the pictures to support their reading, and some children will be retelling the story using the pictures as a guide both orally and in their writing. Drama will feature strongly over the next few weeks as the traditional stories often lead to some amusing role-plays, with most children wanting to be the baddie!

If you would like to have a look at some traditional stories on the internet, try the following websites:
http://www.topmarks.co.uk/stories/gingerbread1.htm
http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks1/english/story_telling/index.htm

However, nothing can beat a visit to the local library.

Mathematical Development
In Mathematical Development we are continuing with 2d and 3d shapes as we didn't manage to complete the plans from last week. Therefore, please refer to last week's blogspot for websites to support your child. The main focus though for this week is the mathematical langauge used to describe the properties of the shapes e.g sides, corners, curved and straight, etc.

Knowledge and Understanding of the World
The children will be completing a number of review tasks linked to the topics that have already been taught. This is to enable us to collect more evidence of the children's attainment in this area of learning before submitting the results to the Local Education Authourity. We will be mainly focusing on exploring differences and similarities between materials and living things, identifying likes and dislikes about the natural environment, asking questions about why things happen and how things work, and identifying uses of technology in everyday life as well as learning how to programme an electronic toy. Sounds fab!!

Creative development
You may have noticed but this is my favourite area of learning! This week we are preparing our artists for their exhibition on the 28th June. The children will be creating a piece of art that will be framed and on sale for you to purchase. On 28th June, in the school hall, every child in the school will have their art work displayed in the hall. You can purchase them at a reasonable rate and the best bit is that a small percentage of the profits are given to school. Just another excuse to get the paint and glitter out but I like it!!

Physical Development
We will be preparing for Sports day this week. The children perform a running race, a balancing race and a skipping race. We have a great time! Please ensure that your child has their PE kit in school, complete with pumps that fit. The children will need a sunhat, suncream and a drinks bottle for their own protection and safety.

Just in case you may need to book off work, or you have misplaced the holiday list, the Sports day for the infants is on Tuesday 4th July in the afternoon. If it should rain on this day then it will the next day at the same time.

Class Target
In preparation for the children going into Year 1 we are having a real push on the children learning to write their full name. Some children can do this but lets aim for 100%.

I think that that is it for this week!

Take care and I'll see you soon

Best wishes

Jayne Narraway x

Weekly update 12th June 2006

Weekly update

Welcome back everyone! I trust that you have all had a sunshine filled half term!

With the sunshine in mind, please ensure that you provide your child with a sunhat with their name in. If you wish your child to apply suncream please place it in their bag with their name clearly written on the front.

New Starters
We have yet another fun packed and exciting half term planned for the children. However, this week will see our New Starters for September visiting Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday afternoon, and therefore, the children will spend sometime mixing with the present Year One children prior to the classes being finalised for next year. This may be a unsettled start to the half term for some children. However, having the visits all in one week enables us to get back to business the following week.

Mathematical Development
This week we will be reviewing the children's understanding of shapes. Please help your child to notice shapes in the environment and describe their properties. I have listed below a few websites you may wish to visit. I will also be using some of these in class.
www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/ngfl/maths/maerdy_2d/e_index.html - this site asks the question 'What am I?'. It gives the children a description of the properties of a shape and the children have to guess what it is. It does include pentagon and hexagon which we have not covered yet and the children will be introduced to it this week.
www.ictgames.com/YRshape.html - click on the star or the circle and move your cursor around the screen. Can you work out the shape? All these shapes are 2d shapes like circle, square, rectangle and triangles.
www.ictgames.com/Y2shape.html - this is just like the above web page but used 3d shapes like cone, sphere, cylinder, cuboid and prism.
www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc/Phase2delivery/Wales/Artanddesign/Keystage1/Making/Shapepictures/Introduction - if you select the interactive whiteboard activity and the children can make a picture using shapes and then make a print out of it. Perhaps they could bring it into school to show everyone.
www.coxhoe.durham.sch.uk/Curriculum/Foundation%20Stage.htm - this site gives you clues and you have to guess the name of the shape from the clues given.
www.priorywoods.middlesbrough.sch.uk/kidsonly/findout/shape/shapes.htm - this made me laugh!
www.bbc.co.ul/cbeebies/artbox/playit/shapes/shapes.html
www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/funandgames/flash/pictureperfect/pictureperfect.html - do you remember first getting a computer and playing solitaire and once you started you couldn't stop? Well this game is just as addictive yet frustrating. Let's see if the children can beat the clock!

Communication, Language and Literacy
The children will be consolidating their phonic skills this week. I will be introducing new sounds such as 'sh', 'ch', 'th', some blends and some long vowel sounds.
The following websites will support your child in their learning.
www.saintambrosebarlow.wigan.sch.uk/ShorCh.htm - this shows a selection of pictures and the children must decide if they include sh or ch in them.
www.crick.northants.sch.uk/Flash%20Studio/cflit/WW1/ww.html - this has a word wheel that the children must stop to match the pictures.
www.crick.northants.sch.uk/Flash%20Studio/cflit/WW2/ww2.html

Everything else?
The children will be completing their minibeast models this week. The finished products will be photographed and be used to support their writing next week. In music they will be encouraged to make body sounds (that should be interesting!!!) getting louder and softer and then progressing to create a musical pattern with their partners. By the end of next week, it is hoped that the children will be able to create a composition that reflects the story of Jack and the beanstalk.

Of course there are other things going on yet too many to mention.

Take care and I look forward to seing you all on Monday.

Best wishes
Jayne Narraway x
In dance the children will be responding to music through movement and gesture. In PE they will be creating sequences of movement.

Weekly update

Weekly update
You didn't think you'd get away with a holiday did you?

I thought I'd just post a few good websites that could be used to get those brain cells working before we go back to school.

Type in the URL address below.
www.ictgames.com/resources.html
Then select any of the following games which would be suitable for the children
3 letter house
Spelling ship
Word reader
Cluster Buster
Look, Cover, Write, Check - remember you can put in your own high frequency words by clicking on the boxes and typing them in.
Phonic fighter
www.ictgames.com/machine.html is also very good for the blending of three letter words.
REMEMBER! www.starfall.com for those last few letter sounds and names, plus lots of stories for the children to read themselves.

To support their mathematical development:
www.atschool.eduweb.co.uk/toftwood/rabbit2.html - this works on comparative langauge and number recognition beyond 20.
www.atschool.eduweb.co.uk/toftwood/postletter.html - this supports number recognition to 20.
www.atschool.eduweb.co.uk/toftwood/robindoubles.html - this helps the children develop their doubling skills.
www.atschool.eduweb.co.uk/toftwood/targettakeaway.html - this provides a numberline to count back on.
www.atschool.eduweb.co.uk/toftwood/monkeymaths.html - this asks the children to find the missing number to make the given total.

Hope you are having a fun holiday. I've just got back off mine and look forward to sharing your adventures over the half term.

Keep safe!

Best wishes
Jayne Narraway x

Weekly update

Weekly update
Week beginning 22nd May 2006

Be prepared for very tired children this week! We have an action packed four days ahead of us. I had so many ideas for this week I am going to try and cram everything into four days! So here goes.

In Communication, Langauge and Literacy, the children are continuing working on the non-fiction texts. They have amazed us with their understanding of the use of a contents pages and how it is used. We are going to now move to placing an emphasis on writing this week. Each child is to be given a photograph of a minibeast. They will use a series of questions to help them write a caption to match the photograph. We will then publish our writing to make a non-fiction book to share with others, complete with a contents page.

We will continue to work on developing spelling and reading. Our big push is on high frequency words and blending sounds together. You may wish to visit the following websites:
www.ictgames.com/cluster.html
www.ictgames.com/machine.html - this site is familiar to the children as we use it all the time in class. The emphasis is on blending the sounds together to help them read the word to match the picture.

Mathematical Development.
No wonder it took me so long to do my planning this week as I spent ages playing on the fantastic websites to help support the learning in class.
This week we are looking at a mixture of learning objectives:
to share a set of objects equally;
to consolidate the children's understanding of subtraction;
to use coins to purchase goods in the flower shop;
to compare sets of objects;
The class target for this week is to be able to count in tens to 100. Below is a little rhyme you may wish to use to help your child achieve the class target.
Centipede had lots of legs,
To climb up garden walls.
They stop him from falling off,
He counts them as he crawls.
10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100.
Websites you may wish to visit are:
www.toonuniversity.com/flash.asp?err=513&engine=12 - this is a great site. The children have to help Duck Von Fly get to his destination quicker by clicking on the cloud with the correct answer to the subtraction question.
www.scweb4free.com/elemsub.html - you have to look at the two red balloons and subtract one from the other. Then click on the green balloon which holds the answer.
www.primarygames.com/takeaway/questions%201.htm - the children must work out the subtraction but they have four choices for the answers.
www.bbc.co.uk/schools/laac/numbers/chi.shtml - click on Hoot the Owl for subtraction games.
www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/subtractiontest.html - the children work out the answer and type in the number. They can check their answer.

We are teaching the children to play dominoes also this week so you may want to have a game at home.

I bet you are all wondering about those Smartie plants! Well, the children have completed their third reording of the growth of their plant and we should see some smarties appear this week!

We will also be investigating other minibeasts and setting up an area to attract minibeasts for our minibeast hunt in the first week back after the holidays.

Of course there are lots of other fabulous activities planned. There will be no handwriting homework this week.

Many thanks
Jayne Narraway x

Weekly update

Week beginning 15th May 2006

First of all thank you to all the children last week who were tremendously helpful in preparing for our new intake induction evening. I was so proud of them and our parents for next year were very impressed with the work they saw in the classroom, especially the models they created in teams.

This week we will be looking at minibeasts - ladybirds, beetles, spiders!!! etc. We will be using an electronic big book I have created which will review the work we have already done on non-fiction texts. The children will be reminded of the following features of a non-fiction texts:
They give us information and do not have be read from start to finish - you just 'dip' into them;
They have photographs rather than illustrations;
They have a contents page which guides you to the page you will find the information on;
Pages have a heading, photograph and a caption which explains the photograph;
You have to ask yourself a question to be able to find the answer.
It would be really useful to make a trip to your local library and select non-fiction texts to share with your child to support the work we are doing in class.

The children will go onto writing their own captions to create a class big book of our very own. To extend this even further, in Creative Development, the children will be doing some papier mache balloons in order to use later to create a minibeast of their choice. A very messy week!! We would appreciate any old newspapers for our papier mache.

To further enhance this experience they will be investigating which musical instruments reflect the minibeasts hey have been studying.

There are a few great websites you can visit to support this fantastic topic. Some do require and adult to help them but they would enjoy them.
www.sycd.co.uk
www.ers.north-ayrshire.gov.uk/minibeasts.html
www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/education/wwww/living/kids.shtml - on this site there are a range of different activities for the children to do.
www.highlandschools-virtualib.org.uk/primary_curriculum/minibeasts.htm

For the rest of this half term we are going to be having an enormous push on high frequency words. Please can I draw your attention to the following websites which you can use to help your child.
www.ictgames.com/plankgameR.html - this is a game which looks at the Reception words only;
www.ictgames.com/plankgame.html - this is the same game but with the Year1 and 2 words;
www.ictgames.com/wordreader.html - this is a lovely website but beware as the words range from Reception to Year 2 words;
www.ictgames.com/lcwc.html - this is a look, cover, write, check approach to spelling high frequency words. You can type in your own words to play with.
www.bbc.co.uk/schools/wordsandpictures/hfwords/index.shtml - this site has other links to phonic activities.

In Mathematical Development the children will be continuing to look at doubling and consolidating their understanding of addition. The websites I gave you last week for these concepts will be just fine. The more they play on them the quicker their mental recall will be.

In Knowledge and Understanding of the World, the children will be continuing to record the growth of their 'Smartie' tree. Will they ever grow Smarties on them???? Wait and see! The children will also be reviewing some of their previous learning since September.

This looks like another exciting and busy week!

Please could I also remind you to send a sun hat and sun cream if we are blessed with sunshine. Please remember to label them also.

Many thanks

Jayne Narraway x

Weekly update

Week beginning 8th May 2006

Hi there!
I hope you all enjoyed the sunshine!

This we we are continuing the work on Vincent Van Gogh. You may want to have a look at www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/art/artyfacts/vangogh/index.shtml where there is a selection of his painting online. It is quite a child friendly website but you will need to sit with your child to read the text. Last week, we created textured paper and mixed colours that can be foud in Van Gogh's Sunflower painting. We are to going to continue by creating our very own art work inspired by Van Gogh. Our classroom is to start the week off as an artist's studio and transform into an art gallery. We would like to invite you to 'drop in' and have a look around our classroom prior to the new intake meeting on Thursday evening. (Yes, I too can't believe it is a year since you were sat before me!) Your child will be more than happy to give you a guided tour.
I read a story to the children last week called Camille and the Sunflowers by Laurence Anholt. It is a story based around Van Gogh's works of art. They loved it!

We also completed a co-operative learning activity last week. The children worked in teams of four to make a model animal using junk materials. Each child in the team had a role to play, the boss, the photographer, the goffer and the motivator. The models they created are fantastic! The photographer took photographs at different stages of the creation. The photographs have been processed and they will use them this week to sequence and write instructions linked to their model. Again, this will be a team activity.

In Mathematical Development the children are reviewing addition and counting on. They will move onto applying it to doubling numbers. I've found this amazing website but you will need ear plugs!
http://atschool.eduweb.co.uk/toftwood/robindoubles.html - I'll not explain it and leave it as a surprise...
A more relaxing one is:
http:/atschool.eduweb.co.uk/toftwood/bridgedoubles.html - this asks the children to double the number of boulders so that the car can cross the bridge.
www.bbc.co.uk/schools/laac/numbers/ch1.shtml - this site is worth putting on your favourites as it supports the development of the children's mental recall of number bonds for addition and subtraction.

In Knowledge and Understanding of the World, the children will complete their investigations. They will look at the effects of no water or sunlight on the seeds they grew. They will record their findings. In addition to this, they will chart the growth of their own 'Smartie' plant in thier very own zig zag book.

If the weather is as nice as it was last week, please can you remember to send your child in with a sun hat.

Thanks

Jayne Narraway x