Christmas is coming!

Christmas has begun in Hedgehog Class! The Year 1 children have started to rehearse the nativity (Reception children will have a song or a dance as part of it - more information to follow!), we have started rehearsing the songs and our classroom hut is slowly turning into an elf workshop. We also went for a frosty wander around the field on Thursday, so everything is feeling very seasonal.

At Forest School we created a hedgehog house in the hope of providing a snuggly home for one over the winter. Several of the children helped with hammering, sawing and camouflaging.

In other learning....

Maths:
The children have been comparing length and height using the terms long, longer, longest; short, shorter, shortest, and tall, taller, tallest. This is an easy one to practice at home! You could build some towers, compare heights of family members, make playdough snakes and compare them.... any opportunity to use the language is great. 

The children also began to learn how to measure an object using cubes, and the importance of starting and ending the measurement in the correct place. Year 1 will move on to using a ruler to measure in cm next week. With Year R, the important part of this is in using the language of measurement, as above. 

Phonics:

Reception have learnt two new sounds: w and y. 

If you want to practice these at home, there is a word maze here. 

The children are all in different places with their high frequency word reading. In class we have learnt the first five words from the orange list and will look at the next five words before Christmas. 

Year 1 did some more work on the short vowel sound spelling rules (some letters are doubled after a short vowel) to consolidate them. To practice these, you could play Blankety-Blank (we did this in class and the children enjoyed it). You will find it here. 

Have a good week end!

From Miss Nash

Leafy headdresses and other things.

It's been a week of rabbits and headdresses in Hedgehog Class. The children heard the story of When Rabbit Stole the Fire, which originates from North America. They made leaf headdresses to help with the storytelling. First they collected leaves from the field and identified them using some leaf identification sheets. Then the leaves were left to dry over lunch time. In the afternoon, the children chose 5 leaves and made a headdress using tape, staples and a strip of paper. There was some good team work going on. 

Phonics:

Reception learnt the sounds j and v this week. We have of course continued to work on lots of sounding out and blending. If you'd like to practise this at home, here is a word search for you!

Year 1 have started to learn what 'vowels' are and the short vowel sounds. They learnt two rules:

after a short vowel sound, the 'k' sound is spelt  'ck' most of the time. 

after a short vowel sound, some letters are doubled:  ss  ff  ll zz  

There is a ck word search for you here, if you want to practise this at home. 

Maths

Reception have been learning that a number can be made up of other numbers. For this, we used the song 'Five Little Speckled Frogs' and, after each verse, talked about how many frogs were in the pond, how many were on the log and how many there were altogether. You can find the song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj3N5ihqYjI  but it is best to use objects (they can be frogs, but they don't have to be!) for your child to act the song out.

Year 1 have been looking at 2D and 3D shapes. The best way to practise these is to spot them around the house. Look at the shapes below that we have been learning and see if you and your child can find them as you go around and about your daily lives. 

2D shapes:  circle    square    rectangle    triangle

3D shapes:    sphere    cube    cuboid    cone    cylinder    pyramid

Next week we will be starting to look at the Nativity, so it's all Christmas, Christmas, Christmas from here!

A busy week.

 

It's been an eventful week in Hedgehogs!

On Wednesday we marked Remembrance Day. The children watched a short animation to learn about why we mark Remembrance Day, and why poppies are significant. Each child created a piece of poppy art work using wax resist. Then during the afternoon at Forest School the children had the option to paint a poppy on a stone  - many of them chose to do this and it was a good opportunity to discuss Remembrance Day.

On Thursday we had the pleasure of Mrs Wright in our class. She is usually in Squirrels but (taking the appropriate precautions, and spending her whole day with us) she came to us to help us to celebrate Diwali. We also had Dhwani helping us out - Dhwani and her family are Hindu and celebrate Diwali each year. We watched a video of Dhwani telling the story of Rama and Sita and throughout the morning Dhwani enjoyed telling her friends about celebrating Diwali at home. The children each made a diva lamp (which will be coming home soon) and some chose to make a flower garland as well. It was a lovely morning and we hope Mrs Wright can join us again some time soon. 

Aside from these seasonal events, the children have enjoyed the story of Olaf and his Goat. We have been retelling it together orally which the children have thoroughly enjoyed. We also  made a beautiful flower meadow using crayons and tissue paper and also some goats using natural materials. If you'd like to re-tell the story with your child, a version of it is here.

Maths:

YR have been looking at and comparing numbers 1 to 5. They've been recognising the numbers. ordering them, and using the terms 'more' and 'fewer' to compare them (using objects, or, if confident, the written number). We have continued to work on the five principles of counting - see the second powerpoint down on the school website.  Please keep practising these at home in lots of different, practical ways. 

Here is another game to practice 'more and fewer.' Encourage your child to use the word 'fewer' rather than 'less' - it will take a while to get into the habit, but it's a good mathematical word!

Y1 have spent the week looking, firstly, at subtraction and then at fact families. They have been subtracting by counting back along a number line and also by subtracting from the ones (if you can work out 8 - 4, it's easy to work out 18 - 4). We played a favourite game: Race to 0. You just need a number track 0 to 20 and counters. Start on 20, take it in turns to roll a dice and move backwards that number. Ensure your child is jumping back and not counting the one they are already on. The first to get to 0 wins. BUT you must not roll a 6! If you roll a 6, you have to start again at 20. 


They've also been learning that number facts come in families, for example:

3 + 7 = 10
7 + 3 = 10
10 - 3 = 7
10 - 7 = 3.

It's early days for fact families! We will revisit them at a later part of the year. If you want to practice them, here is an activity for facts to six.

Phonics:

YR have added h, b and f to their sounds repertoire!  See if your child can spot these sounds out and about and in their books. You can also play three-in-a-row. 

Y1  have been looking at final blends in words. You can practise this by playing hangman with words such as:

best
vest
help
pink
went
sent

... and any words with a blend at the end. Common blends are:

I think that's that! Have a lovely weekend and I shall very much look forward to seeing you next week. 

From Miss Nash

The whole class for the whole day!

 Hello and happy Friday to you all,

Well, we have had a Very Good Week in Hedgehog class. For the first time, Reception and Year 1 have all been in class for the whole day. It's been a lot of fun and the children have adapted so well to being all together. The Reception children have enjoyed being in all day, though I think you may find they are a little tired this weekend!

Hedgehog Stories
Due to various seasonal events, especially Christmas, we are not going to be doing a 'Mantle' story this half term, Instead, we will be enjoying a story each week. Actually, this week it was two stories: 'The Hug' by Eoin McLaughlin and Polly Dunbar, and 'Hedgehugs' by Lucy Tapper and Steve Wilson.

Following these stories the children came up with ways to make hedgehogs more huggable, leading to a science investigation for Year 1. We looked at some properties of materials and decided that something 'soft' and possibly 'smooth' would make the best huggable hedgehog. 

The children made some hedgehogs using potatoes, hammers and nails. The Reception children then covered their hedgehogs in a range of materials to make them more huggable, while Year 1 carried out an investigation to find out which material was best for making a hedgehog huggable. They concluded that wool was best. 

Year 1 also learnt how to use oil pastels and created some oil pastel hedgehogs. 

At home:
You could talk to your child about properties of materials as you go about your day to day life: use words such as:  hard, soft, smooth, rough, flexible, rigid.

Phonics:

Reception have now learnt the sounds:

s a t p i n m d g o c k e u r

We have been doing a lot of work on reading and spelling words by sounding them out and blending them. We've also been reading list 1 of the High Frequency Words. I will be sending home list 2 to everyone to begin learning. 

At home:

You could play this pairs game.

Print it off, turn over the images on one side of the table/floor and the words on the other. Take it in turns to turn over one from each and see if they match. Children's early reading and blending is supported well with the use of images. If you don't have a printer, you could create your own.  

If your child finds this tricky, start with all of the pictures and words face up and match them together - it will be easier for them to blend a word if they can choose from a number of pictures. Then when they have practised, you can play the game. 

Year 1 have been working on Phase 4 blends at the start of words: for example, sp, st, sl, dr.....

To read words with these in, encourage children to get the first two sounds ready first before reading the rest. To spell them, we stretch them right out. Often, children will miss out the second sound of the blend when spelling - if they do this, ask them to read the word back to you and see if they can hear that something is missing.

At home:
Here is a game of Boggle for you to play to practice sp and st. The children are learning that words never start with 'sb' or 'sd', which these blends often sound like!

Maths:

Reception have been working on some basic counting skills. When counting with children, we focus on the five principles of counting that they need to be secure in. We will be doing a lot of work on these this year. If you go to the maths page of the school website and scroll down to find the second powerpoint (starting with '1 to 1 correspondence') you can learn more about the five principles. 

This week the children learnt two games which we will be playing in various forms this year. They are both good for practising the five principles of counting.  Here is one of them for you to play at home. 

Five Lovely Things:

• Two players and a 1-3 dice
• Each player finds 5 lovely things (we use shiny gems in class)
• Take it in turns to roll the dice and ask the other player politely for that number of lovely things, e.g. 'Dad, please can I have two of your lovely things?'
• The other player counts out and hands over that number of lovely things
• Keep going until each player has had a set number of turns
• The winner is the player with the highest number of lovely things, or when the other player runs out of lovely things.
• Good for practising: counting 1:1 correspondence, recognising numbers (if you use a numeral dice rather than spots), comparing numbers using 'more' or 'fewer', counting out a set number of objects (knowing when to stop). 
• You can extend this to 'Ten Lovely Things' and use a 1-6 dice if your child is confident.

Year 1 have been re-visiting the addition skills they were learning before half term just to make sure they are embedded. They have been:

• adding by counting on along a number line
• adding by making 10 first
• adding by adding the 1s

At home your child could complete these additions using the different methods they have learnt. 

I think that's everything for now. Have a good week end!

From Miss Nash