14.06.24 Commotion in the Ocean
14.06.24
This week our ‘Super Six’ story was ‘Commotion in the Ocean’’ by Giles Andreae. In this story we delve into the deep sea to discover all sorts of amazing sea creatures. Including blue whales, sea turtles, jellyfish, dolphins and more!
Our ‘Drawing Club’ story was the traditional tale ‘Dick Whittington’. Dick and his cat travel to London to search for fame and fortune after growing up in poverty – will they be successful?
This week our rainbow challenges have been:
Maths – subtraction to 10
Fine motor – colour by number
Literacy – write a caption to match the picture
Funky fingers – cut and stick under the water scene
Creative – jelly fish cut and stick craft
Phonics – story word and picture matching
ICT – underwater counting game
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/underwater-counting
In maths this week Reception have continued to revise key concepts as they begin to prepare to make the transition into Year 1. We have looked at key skills the children need to be secure with to make a strong start to the National Curriulum objectives and we will be covering these areas over the forthcoming weeks. This week we have focused on odd and even numbers and sorting them. The children have used numicon as a visual representation of the different numbers and have looked at whether the number has a ‘flat’ or ‘sticky up’ part on the top to differentiate between the two.
Nursery have been looking at how different numbers are made and have been focusing on the numbers 3 and 4. The have explored how to make different numbers using the numicon pieces and have investigated whether there are more than 1 way to make up different numbers.
In Read Write Inc phonics this week Reception continued to work in their new groups which they started before half term. Children in Mrs Whaley and Mrs Parkers group have been consolodating the first set 2 sounds ay ee igh ow oo and Mrs Fisher’s group have been recapping set 2 sounds before beginning to learn the first Set 3 sounds. Children are expected to know at least 10 diagraphs before the end of Reception so everyone is working where they should be to be on track for making a good level of development in reading. This week we have been reading real and alien words containing these new sounds and also have been using these sounds when writing words in Drawing Club.
Nursery have continued with Read Write Inc this week in preparation for September. As the children have now been exposed to all the Set 1 sounds they will recap these every week moving towards the end of the year. This week they have focused on m a s d t i n p g o c k u b f and been using these sounds to make up simple CVC words which contain these sounds. The children have also been listening to CVC words being segmented (broken up) and trying to work out what words are being said. This is something which takes lots and lots of practise and is a skill which is crucial to grasp during the early reading and phonics process. This is something we have also been doing around the classroom e.g. can you put this in the
b-i-n. Some of the children are ready to use flashcards to support their reading development and they have been looking at the different sounds in words and saying them aloud before trying to read them with the support of an adult.
On Monday afternoon Reception took part in their first Commando Joe’s session. Each session is based on a ‘mission’ and this half term each one is based around a different nursery rhyme. This week it was Jack and Jill. The children had to work in teams to collect balls from one bucket and transfer them to another. They started off in a relay type activity which moved onto having to use plastic pipes to transfer the balls. The children had to work collaboratively, talking to each other and working out how to complete each activity successfully.
Commando Joe’s is based on the RESPECT model which aims to develop different values through character education;
Respect
Empathy
Self Respect
Passion
Excellence
Communication
Teamwork
This week the mission was planned to develop empathy and communication and everyone demonstrated this with lots of passion and drive. Over the forthcoming weeks the children will be given the opportunity to develop all of the values within the model. At the end of the mission the children are given the opportunity to reflect on their learning and highlight why they think they have shown the objectives set out in the activity. We are really looking forward to next weeks mission already!
On Wednesday we had a very exciting visit to Sugar Sands beach to meet the RNLI life boat from Craster. We met the crew and were able to have a sit in the lifeboat. We also learnt about when a lifeboat is used and how to contact them if we were in an emergency. During the afternoon the RNLI came into school and we did lots of different survival games and explored all the different equipment they use when they are out on a rescue.
We all had a great time at the PFA summer fair on Friday afternoon playing lots of games to win prizes with our families and friends. We have been lucky to have had funding given from the PFA this year to help pay towards our bus when we visited Northumberland Zoo and also were able to buy a TONI box which we enjoy listening to audio stories with. We are very lucky to have a PFA who supports us in our learning so thank you to everyone involved in the PFA for enabling us to do lots of exciting things with the money raised from these kinds of events.
Next week our ‘Super Six’ book is ‘A Hole in the Bottom of the Sea’ by Jessica Law and our ‘Drawing Club’ animation tales is the original ‘POPEYE.