Week ending Friday 30th April

 

I'm not sure where that week went, but it was a very good week.

We continued our story throughout the week. First, we made a map of our medieval village (with lots of repetitions of... it's 1000 years ago!) and the children decided where they'd like their different buildings to be. 

Then we thought about who might have been in the village. The children learnt that just a few of the jobs around in medieval times were:

• miller
• carpenter
• blacksmith
• spinster
• rat catcher
• barber
• swine herd

Each child chose a job role they'd like to take on. There were a lot of rat catchers - our village is sure to be rat-free before too long. Next the children placed themselves on the map, thinking about where they would be (for example, by a blacksmith's forge if they were a blacksmith).

Then yesterday the children made posters to go on their doors, explaining who they are and what services they can offer. 

The village is coming together well. 

This week's core learning:

Maths:

Reception have been continuing to represent numbers to 20 and to find '1 more' than any given number to 20. They have also been working on estimating a small number of objects. 

You can play this 'one more' game to practice finding 1 more to 20.

Year 1 children have been continuing work on numbers to 100. They have been learning how to describe numbers in terms of 'tens' and '1s', and have started to recognise that digits are worth different amounts depending on their place in the number.

You can play this place value game to practice talking about what each digit is worth in a 2-digit number. You can create a similar one with hundreds, tens and ones if your child is very confident with two-digit numbers. 

Phonics/Spellings

Reception have been looking at th, ng, ow and oi.

To practise these sounds, you could play 'hangman', but perhaps with a different image to the traditional game! In class we play 'don't draw a hedgehog' - if I manage to draw the whole hedgehog, I have won.

Choose a word with one of those sounds in. I suggest just a 4- letter word to start with (such as sing, town, coin). Draw four lines to represent the four letters. Ask your child to guess letters. If they are in the word, write them in. If not, write them below and begin to draw your hedgehog. Continue in this way until your child has completed the word, or you have completed your hedgehog!

TIP: once your child has the two letters that make the digraph, ask them what sound they make together. This will help them to guess the word. Eg. if the word is 'town' and your child has guess 't-o-w' identify that o and w say 'ow'. 

Year 1 had a good time with their first spelling challenge. Next week's spelling challenged will be around 'y' when it says 'ee' or 'igh' at the end of the word. 

The spelling list is here.  Challenge your child to learn at least three words from each list. If your child is a confident speller, they can probably learn to spell all of the words, but should at least learn 5 from each list and choose some of the more challenging ones. 

Enjoy your bank holiday weekend!

Miss Nash :0)