Autumn 2 Week 4: Progress on the Gruffalo front and.... Nativity!

Hello Hedgehogs and Hedgehog Parents,

It's Nativity season at Whaddon! The Year 1 children have been busy rehearsing and have words to learn in their book bags. The Reception children have not yet joined rehearsals but they will do towards the end of next week. With Christmas Decoration Day next Wednesday, we will soon be feeling all the joys of the season!

The children have been learning about instructions and this week they created some instructions for 'How to Catch a Gruffalo'. The Year 1 children are in the middle of writing their instructions and are doing a fantastic job of it; they've been learning all about imperative ('bossy') verbs and putting time words at the start of their instructions. When the instructions are finished, we will put them into practice to see how effective they are at helping us to catch that gruffalo. 

Maths this week:

Reception children have been subitising to 4 and have been making lots of different patterns with 4 counters. They have also started to look at 'more' and 'fewer' this week, using numbers to 5.

The best way to practice 'more' and 'fewer' is just around the house. Who has more lego bricks? Who has fewer peas on their plate?'

Year 1 children have been looking at positions; naming positions from 1st to 10th and describing each other as 'behind', 'before' and 'between.'

For extra practice, use this photo of the children (who were here) in a line and write sentence using 'behind' before' and 'between', or '1st' '2nd' (etc). For example you might write 'Dhwani is before....'. Parents, please scribe the sentences if this makes the maths easier!

Phonics this week:

Reception children have added 'b' and 'f' to their collection of sounds.

They have started to learn to form the 'robot arm' letters correctly, which all start with down, up and over.  It would be great if you could practice these at home - here is the letter family. 

Year 1 children have been learning the vowels! They have learnt the short vowel sounds  (a as in bat, e as in bed, i as in tip, o as in top and u as in tub) and should be able to show you the action we do to remember them. 

They have learnt an important spelling rule to go with the short vowel sounds:
The 'k' sound after a short vowel sound is usually spelt ck

On Monday they will also be learning that:
The 'ch' sound after a short vowel sound is usually spelt tch

Here are the words for next week's spelling challenge, using those rules. 

Have a good weekend!

From Mrs Simpson

Autumn 2 Week 3: A gruffalo, baking and a full marble jar!

Hello Hedgehogs and Hedgehog Parents,

The big news of the week is that...

the Hedgehog marble jar is full!

You may or may not have heard about our marble jar. Every time the children work as a team to do a job well, an adult puts some marbles in their jar. It might be for excellent tidying up, really good carpet manners, super handwriting, interesting learning or following instructions. Or, it might be for something else! The marble jar is all about children working together and everyone playing their part. 

And now it is full, which means the children get a special treat. Many suggestions were put forward - some more plausible than others - but in the end the children have voted for an afternoon movie, hot chocolate and pop corn.

A Gruffalo.
Percy approached the park keepers with a puzzle this week. He'd been doing the rounds of the park and checking up on the animals when he spotted something... unusual. He asked the park keepers whether they could help. Luckily, being the animal experts that they are, the park keepers quickly identified the creature to be... a gruffalo! Quickly, they began making plans for what to do about the gruffalo and decided, to begin with, they should catch it. 

We will let you know how we get on. 

Baking and a walk.
On Thursday the children spent a happy morning baking ready for our Children in Need cake sale. The Year 1 children then made a poster (with the help of a few keen Reception children) which they were very proud of. Later that day, for our Forest School session we all went out for a walk to see how the seasons were changing. At the end of the walk I asked the children what their favourite part had been. Most of the children said they loved running down the hill!


Maths this week.

Reception children have been subitising to 2,3 and 4 this week and looking at the composition of 4. If you want to practise this, find four toys, ask your child to close their eyes and hide some. Challenge them to work out how many you have hidden! Fingers are good for this - if they hold up 4 fingers, count the toys they can see and put that number of fingers down, however many fingers are left is the answer. 

Year 1 children have finished their work on subtraction and have started to learn about positional language (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th). 

To practice this, watch this clip of a snail race, then use this image to talk about where the snails are coming in the race. 

They have also been revisiting number bonds to 6. 

Phonics this week.

Reception children: We have been doing a lot of letter formation, work on initial sounds and word building this week. 

We have now looked at:  s a t p i n m d g o c k e u r h.

For the next couple of weeks we will be focussing on letter formation, intial sounds, word building for those children that are ready, and writing some words as well using these sounds. To help at home, please help your child to spot these sounds in their reading books.

Year 1 children:
Due to the various events of this busy week the Year 1 children's 'oi and oy' spelling challenge will take place on Monday. Then the following Friday, it will be 'ow' and 'ou' (as in cow, town, brown, house, mouse). Here is the spelling challenge list - as usual, please try to learn some of the green words!

I hope you all have a good weekend!  A few photos of the week are below. 

From Mrs Simpson.

Autumn 2 Week 2: a pond of amphibians, a new chart and Remembrance Day.

 Hello Hedgehog Parents,

The week:

We began with another problem for Percy's Park Keepers. They went to check on the park pond... and found it full of mud, sticks and leaves! The Park Keepers were confused. Luckily they noticed a toad in the middle of the pond. When they talked to the toad, it told them that the pond was another victim of the storm - it had been filled in and as a result all of his friends had scuttled away!

Naturally the children offered to help, so they cleared the pond with a lot of team work, some spades, buckets and tough gloves. Gradually, beneath the mess, they began to see water. The toad returned, as did his friends, one by one. This led to some learning about amphibians and naming some; toads, newts, frogs and axlotls. The children each added an amphibian of their choice to a picture of the pond on the classroom wall.

On Wednesday the children learnt about Remembrance Day and made some poppy wreathes which we took to the church on Thursday, where we observed a minute's silence. The children were very quiet and thoughtful during the silence. 

At Forest School on Thursday the children were incredibly busy and creative with their learning. Painting poppies onto wood, experimenting with see-saws, searching for minibeasts, digging for treasure and telling stories around the storytelling chair were just a few of the activities going on. 

Learning behaviours:
We have set up a wall chart in Hedgehog Class. The children have been learning about how to be super learners (the 'Characteristics of Effective Learning' in child speak). During their independent learning, we are going to be encouraging and supporting children to develop these characteristics and will be moving their 'Mr Man' or 'Little Miss' character up onto the chart when they do so, as recognition of their good learning. For the next couple of weeks we are focussing on 'Mr Happy' (feeling proud of our work) and 'Mr Brave' (having a go at new things). You can see the learning behaviours here. We will be focussing on two learning behaviours for a one or two weeks at a time. 

Maths:

Reception have been subitising (recognising a quantity without counting -we call it using our magic eyes) to 2 and 3 and recognising patterns. They enjoyed playing pairs this week - picking out two cards and if they have the same quantity on, getting to keep them. The challenge here is not to count the numbers, but just to recognise them. 

You can play subitising pairs using these number cards. Turn the cards face down. Take it in turns to turn over two cards. If they represent the same number, you can keep them (it does not matter if the pattern is different, as long as the number matches). Focus on 1,2 and 3. If your child is confident, add in the 4 cards too (or a version of them if you don't have a printer).

Year One have been continuing their work on subtraction and writing subtraction number sentences. They've learnt two rules:

When you subtract, the number gets smaller
When you subtract, you start with the whole

The skills learnt this week have been:

1) subtracting by counting back

2) telling subtraction stories using a pictorial representation

You can practice this by telling number stories at home and writing subtraction sentences to match. For example, you could use soft toys and tell a story such as 'There were 5 teddies on the bed. 2 fell off. There were 3 left on the bed' and writing 5 - 2 = 3

Phonics:

Reception have added k e u and r to their sounds this week. The 'pure sound' rule is particularly important with 'r'. It's tempting to say 'ruh' but it is rrrrrrrr (the children have learnt that it is like a dog shaking a toy in its mouth and saying 'rrrrrrr').

This week, please practice some letter formation! We have been focussing on the curly caterpillar family. You can either form the letters free hand, or you can use these sheets. 

 The Year 1 spelling challenge will return next Friday! This week the focus is on 'oi' (in the middle of words) and 'oy' (at the end of words). You can find the spelling lists here. As usual, please try hard to learn the green words and then learn any others you want to!

Thank you all! Have a good weekend,

From Mrs Simpson.

A few photos from this week:

Autumn 2 Week 1: An oak tree, Diwali and a bonfire problem.

 Greetings, Hedgehogs and Hedgehog parents,

That was certainly a busy first week back! It's great to have the Reception children in full time and it was very good to catch up with all of you about your children's learning. 

Park Keepers.
On Monday, we did Percy a huge favour. The birds living on his roof (the ones whose tree had fallen down) have been causing him a lot of problems with their early dawn chorus. We managed to plant and grow a new oak tree for them to live in. We looked at the shape of oak leaves and learnt about acorns and what they are for. Percy was very grateful. 

Having seen how good the children were at rehoming the birds, Percy asked if they could rehome the other animals. We did some research about animal habitats, then the children worked in threes to create some suitable dreys, nests, dens and warrens on the field. 

Unfortunately, later on the Park Keepers had a BIG problem. some people had built a bonfire in a corner of the park. Just as they lit the bonfire they discovered.... a hedgehog was nesting inside of it! Luckily the quick-thinking Park Keepers saved the hedgehog. As a result of this, the Year 1 children made some posters warning people to look out for hedgehogs in their bonfires. Here is Rupert and Arthur's poster (the heading reads 'Beware for (of) hedgehogs')

Diwali

Dhwani and her mum helped us to celebrate along with Mrs Wright Diwali this year! The children loved their beautiful clothes and enjoyed learning about Diwali. Everyone took part in making some Rangoli patterns and a Diwali card, and doing some dancing with Mrs Wright. Thank you Mrs Chauhan for coming in.

Maths this week:

Reception children have been learning about the composition of 2 and 3. 

They have learnt that '2 is one and another one' and that '2 and 1 make 3'. 

A good game to play to practise subitising (using 'magic eyes' to 'just know' how many there are, without counting) is a game we play in school called (for example) 'Three or not three?'  (you can choose any number to play this with).

To play 'Three or not three' with your child:

Have a teatowel and  some items that will fit under the teatowel (counters, small teddies, sweets...).

Secretly put '3' or 'not 3' items under the teatowel. Do not put more than 5 items under there. Quickly reveal the items to your child and they have to call out 'Three!' or 'Not three!' before you cover the items back up. After they have given their answer, reveal the items to see whether they were right. If there are three items, talk about how your child knows. They might see 'I can see a 1 and 1 and 1' or 'I can see 2 there and 1 there'.  

The idea is to help your child to subitise to three, but with the three objects in different arrangements, by quickly seeing that there are 2 and 1 or 1 and 1 and 1. 

Year 1 children been subtracting by:

1) crossing out

2) making part whole diagrams

You can practise this by telling subtraction stories using teddies, plastic dinosaurs, (anything you can find!) and creating a large part-whole diagram for your child to work the problem out (using hoops, chalk, large paper... etc)

An example would be:  'There were ten dinosaurs. Four of them were standing at the edge of a pond. The rest were in the pond. How many were in the pond?' 

Help your child to put the 'whole' (in this case, four dinosaurs) in the 'whole' part of the diagram, then subtract four (in this case) to place them into one part, and then place the rest of the dinosaurs into the other part of the diagram to find the answer. 

Then tell another story!

A good maths mastery challenge for your child would be to ask them to do the subtraction storytelling themselves, and then show you how to find the answer. 

Phonics this week:

Reception have now looked at  s a t p i n m d g o c 

You can practise initial sounds using these Eye Spy sheets:

O eye spy
C eye spy

You can also practice writing 'c' correctly. C is a very important shape for a lot of letters and it's important to start from the top and curl down to the line. 

Year 1 have been revisiting the sounds we looked at before half term and practising putting sound buttons and lines on words. We put a button (a dot) under single letter sounds and a line under digraphs to help us to read words. This is particularly useful for reading 'alien' words.

You can practise this using this sheet of alien words

If you don't have a printer, ask your child to draw lots of aliens and then you can give them names. 

I think that's everything! Have a good weekend!

From Mrs Simpson

P.S. Here are a few Forest School photos: