Dear Parents and Carers,

We are really enjoying getting to know your children. We are incredibly proud of how they have settled, they make us smile every day. Part of our curriculum focus is broadening their vocabulary and we would like to share this with you in the newsletters. We will put any key vocabulary in bold font so you can use and explore these words at home.

British Value

This half term, we are learning about the British Value of Individual Liberty. In Puffins and Penguins, we talk about ourselves, our abilities and the choices we make. We do this through ‘Special Person’, the choosing board, and our behaviour scheme.

Over the next couple of weeks, we will be spending time with the chickens, rabbits and guinea pigs. Our aims are to become familiar and confident with the animals and also to understand how our school values, responsibility and respect, help us to care for the animals. The children were very excited about meeting the animals and they confidently talked about their own pets. We discussed how we all have a responsibility to make sure the animals are safe, clean, happy, healthy and fed. We talked about the need for suitable enclosures and how they need to visit a vet if they are poorly. Please talk to your child about their experiences with the animals and use the key vocabulary.

This week in PE we have been balancing and catching using small beanbags. The children are really enjoying their PE sessions and are showing great responsibility for their learning. They are beginning to understand the importance of warming up and stretching and are very curious about the effect of activity on their bodies. During a PE session the children are developing their relationships with one another, working creatively, following instructions, practising their listening and attention skills, exploring mathematical concepts and keeping active. It is important to support the well-being of children and we have identified that a great way to do this is through PE sessions.

Maths

We have had lots of fun in our Maths lessons this week and we learnt lots of new vocabulary.

We were introduced to the concept of ‘whole’ and ‘part’. We talked about how a ‘whole’ object could be split into two or more parts. We further applied this idea through fruit at our snack time, e.g. “This is a whole apple.” “I have eaten part of my banana, I have part left.”

This week, we also focused on the number 2. We had one block and combined it with another block. We talked about what a pair is. We used the word ‘pair’ when we had to find a partner in our PE lessons. We used a Noah’s Ark small-world set to find pairs of animals and we noticed that not all of the pairs had to look alike. We also noticed that ‘pair’ is used a lot to describe some body parts and things that we wear, e.g. a pair of eyes, a pair of hands, a pair of shoes, a pair of socks, and we talked about why they were called a pair even though it may be just one object, e.g. trousers, shorts and glasses.

We have been learning to subitise. This is where we can instantly recognise an amount of objects without having to count each item. We used dots, fingers and tens frames to subitise numbers 0, 1, 2, and 10. We also used tens frames and knew that if the frame was empty that means there are zero, and if it is full we know that there are 10.

Special Person

In Puffins and Penguins, we support children to understand that they are all special in their own way. We take it in turns to celebrate one ‘Special Person’ each day. They wear a special badge, carry out special jobs and stand at the front of the line. It is important for children to feel confident in their own abilities and recognise the talent in others.

Read Write Inc

In Read Write Inc (RWI) this week the children learnt the sounds g, o, c, k, l. Please encourage your child to complete the handwriting pages in the RWI booklet sent home. We are continuing to practise orally blending the sounds in words. For example “c-a-t… cat, b-a-d…bad”. Oral blending is key to early reading and we encourage you to play the game ‘Fred I spy’.

Say: Fred says ‘I spy something r-e-d’. Pause to allow children to ‘jump-in’ with the whole word and let them point to something red. Then say r-e-d, red. Ask children to repeat.

Repeat with other colours and objects: b-l-oo, g-r-ee-n, b-l-a-ck, b-r-ow-n, c-u-p, d-oo-r, c-oa-t

Links to the RWI speed sound videos will be assigned on Seesaw.

Messages

• As the weather begins to change we will still be making the most of the outdoors. Please could we ask that if you haven’t yet sent your child in with a waterproof suit that you do so by Tuesday 29^th September so they can enjoy all of the activities. Unfortunately, if your child does not have a waterproof suit they will not be able to go to the woods on wet days.
• Please can we ask that your child only has water in their drinks bottle (unless it is part of their packed lunch). We have already had some spillages in the classroom, juices and squash are very sticky.

Home learning options

• Watch the RWI speed sound videos and practise reading and writing the sounds.
• Use the link to listen to the story ‘Simon Sock’ and then find pairs of objects. Try and encourage your child to say “I have a pair of shoes” or “I have a pair of apples, this means I have two”. Remember to remind your chid that a pair of objects do not have to be matching. Send us a photo and voice recording on Seesaw.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF-EHOTLRyU

• Enjoy a story with your grown up.
• Talk about what responsibility means and what responsibilities you have at home.

Upload any photos on to your Seesaw journal and then you could use the microphone button to record your voice telling us about your work.

Dates to remember

Half term starts Monday 26^th October

Return to school on Monday 9^th November

From Mrs Bastin, Mrs Clague and the Foundation Stage Team