Thank you for joining us for parents evening last week. It was great to celebrate the children's first half term at Strathmore!
We were lucky to have a visit from Marcela Ferreria on Thursday, who wrote the story Isobel Hates Change. The children enjoyed a workshop with some great activities - a few photos will be uploaded to Tapestry soon for you to see.
Phonics -
Recap of graphemes - u, g, n, r, e.
Recap of tricky words - is, I, the.
Maths -
We have looked at comparison of groups this week. The comparison of quantities is something that children begin to do as babies. When comparing, children notice attributes and begin to understand similarities and differences and this week’s activities have focussed on further developing these innate skills. The children have been encouraged to compare the number of objects in 2 sets by matching them 1:1. Seeing that objects in some sets can be matched without any being left over has draw the children’s attention to instances when the quantities of objects are equal.
Language is a key focus and we are reinforcing the language of ‘more than’, ‘fewer than’ and ‘an equal number’ to describe how many objects there are in each set. As the focus this week is on countable things, ‘fewer than’ is used rather than ‘less than’ and ‘more than’ is used rather than ‘greater than’.
Topic -
We have continued exploring space this week, with the help of the lovely story Whatever Next. We compared this story to Meet the Planets last week, discussing the meaning of fiction and non-fiction. We had great class discussions on whether we would want to go into space and why/why not, before drawing what we would take into space with us, like the teddy in Whatever Next. There were some fab ideas - blankets, teddies, lots of snacks, cameras, and even Quince!
PE - this term we are focussing on ball skills. We will be engaging in a range of activities, including walking forwards and backwards whilst rolling a ball, throwing and catching in the air and to a partner, dribbling, rolling a ball to a partner, and target practice. Please feel free to try these activities at home as this really supports children's coordination, perseverance, patience, and core strength.
Notices -
Cinema trip - we're excited to be visiting the cinema next week, please ensure your child is in their full school uniform as normal. We'll be back in time for lunch, so please send packed lunches/book a school lunch as normal.
Thursday 19th - individual school photos.
We're excited to welcome you into school for festive biscuit decorating on 11th December. The children will be busy making and baking the biscuits throughout the week and we will decorate (and eat!) the biscuits together on the Friday in the school hall. This will begin at 2:30, and will last around half an hour. The children can then be collected from Reception garden straight after. If you would need to leave early to pick up siblings from Wilshere Dacre, please let Miss Bartle/Mrs McGill know, and you can leave straight from the hall.
Have a lovely weekend!