Happy half term!

 Dear Hedgehogs and Hedgehog Parents,

Happy half term! 

Well done Hedgehogs on another marvellous half term. It's been full of fun and learning and you should all be proud of yourselves. 

Parents, it was good to see you the other day for our open session - thank you so much for coming. I am sorry I didn't manage to talk to all of you, but hopefully you were able to get a glimpse into life in Hedgehogs and to see some of your children's work. 

As you saw, we are continuing to be Elephant Keepers and have moved on to a new chapter of the story: the Ice Age. The archaeologist, Rashka, suggested it might be a good plan to find ourselves a woolly mammoth, to join our herd of elephants. With that in mind, we have started to think about what it might be like to travel back in time to the Ice Age. The story will continue next half term.

On Thursday we had a lovely walk in Howe Park Woods. The children were brilliant both during the bus journeys and at the woods. We spotted a few interesting things (some bright red fungus and a curious robin, amongst others!) and hopefull we will go back soon for a whole day. 

Phonics:

Reception added 'or' and 'oa' to their repertoire of sounds. To practice these, create a letter muddle. Draw each of the following:   fork,   corn,   goat,   boat,  soap,  short. 

Then give your child cards with these letters on:

f     k      c     n    g    s   p   sh      or (x3)    oa (x3)    t  (x3)    

Their challenge is to see how quickly they can spell the 6 words, using the cards you have given them. 

Year 1 added au (as in 'haul') and 'oe' (as in 'toe') to theirs. We'll have a spelling challenge on Friday 4th March, so your word list is here.  Please try to learn all of the words on the list this time!

Maths:

Reception focussed on the five principles of counting. Lots of counting around the house will help with this! You can find an explanation of the principles here. 

Year 1 have been looking at numbers to 100, learning what each digit in a two-digit number is worth (for example '31 has 3 tens, worth 30). 

To practice this, play race to 100. 

Reading books: I am very sorry that due to not being in on the last Friday, we were not able to ensure all of the children had new reading books. 

I hope you have a good half term, and I look forward to seeing you all in a week's time!

From Mrs Simpson

Friday 18th February: Blustery Day Closure

Hello Hedgehogs and your parents,

I am sorry not to be seeing you on the last day of half term. It's already very blustery where I am so I hope you are all able to snuggle down and keep yourselves safe today.

Some suggested learning for the day:

1. A Blustery Day

Watch Winnie the Pooh's Blustery Day song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-jBs16sNNs

When you have watched it, imagine you are Winnie the Pooh and write about your day. You can draw a picture of yourself (Winnie the Pooh) in the wind with everything blowing around you and then write about what it is like. 

Reception children: 1-2 sentences with help from your grown ups. 

Parents - if your child is less confident to write, please write down what they say and ask them to copy underneath, or write with a yellow highlighter (or similar) and they can go over the top of it. 

Year 1 children: write three sentences about what your blustery day was like (as Winnie the Pooh) and then check for capital letters, finger spaces, full stops and interesting words!

For example:

I had a blustery day and I nearly got blown away! Piglet blew past me in a leaf! Then Rabbit's carrots all flew away. 

2. Music

Listen to Vivaldi's Storm music: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlqI_lAkIfM

First, just close your eyes, lay on the floor and listen to it. Can you think why it is called The Storm? 

Next, get a large piece of paper and some colouring pencils. Listen to the music again and draw any patterns/shapes/pictures on the paper that the music makes you think of/feel.

Finally, dance to the music! Listen carefully to each part and move your body in the same way. 

3. Maths

Practice writing your numbers using these rhymes:

I will be sending out another blog post tomorrow for half term!

From Mrs Simpson

Spring Term Week 6: A mystery and some guests in our classroom

 Hello Hedgehog Parents,

What a warm and spring-like week it's been! We've had a great week and were joined by Year 2 for Wednesday and Thursday. The children all did their own lessons depending upon their year group, but we came together for Forest School and our Mantle of the Expert story; it was lovely to have the older children with us for a while. 

We also had the pleasure of Year 4's company on Tuesday afternoon. They read stories to Reception and then taught them some maths using play dough! The Reception children loved having the older children around. 

Aside from that, our Mantle story continues. The children were contacted by an archaeologist called Rashka who needed their expertise as Elephant Keepers. She had come across an unusual painting in a cave in Russia - it was about 20,000 years old and appeared to depict an elephant. She wanted our advice. 

We looked at the images and then decided it would help to visit the caves ourselves. The children (with Year 2) learnt a bit about cave art using charcoal and then created the caves. The next day, the Elephant Keepers visited the caves and met Rashka. Together, we decided that the art work was not of elephants, but was in fact pictures of woolly mammoths! 

This led to the children learning some interesting facts about mammoths. 

In other learning:

Maths:

Reception children have been focussing on the number 4 and its parts. To do this, they have been using 4 squares of card to make formations of 4 and talk about them, for example 'There are 3 in a row and 1 on top, that makes 4'. 

If you want to practice this, give your child lots of squares of card, or similar. Together, see how many formations of 4 you can create, covering your floor or a table with them. The only rule is that the squares must touch the side of the next square, such as this:

Year 1 children have finished their work on addition and subtraction and have begun a unit of work on numbers to 100. 

You could try a number square jigsaw to practice the sequence of numbers. 

Phonics:

Reception children learnt  ng, ai  and ee this week. To practise this, play 'noughts and crosses'. To practise this, write out these silly sentences (one at a time) and ask your child to read them before drawing a matching picture. It helps to underline the digraphs to help your child to spot them, before reading them. 

The cat can sing in the rain. 
The sheep was long. 
My feet had a tail. 

Year 1 children learnt ve and ph this week. 

We did not manage to do last week's spelling challenge today. We will do it instead on Monday, using last week's words.

So instead of a spelling challenge next week, you could use these ve and ph words to create some silly sentences. If you create a particularly good sentence, please bring it in to show me!

Have a good week end!

From Mrs Simpson

P.S. Here are a few photos from this week. 

Spring Term Week 5

Hello Hedgehog Parents,

I hope you have all had a good week. We've had a great week in Hedgehog class, particularly during Forest School where the sun shone and we managed to toast some marshmallows on a fire. Unfortunately there aren't any photos of this because I was so busy trying to keep the fire going!

The Elephant Keepers had a problem to solve on Monday when one of the elephants was extremely poorly. She was rushed to the emergency elephant vet with extreme stomach pain. A scan showed that she had eaten a lot of unsuitable foods: including hot dogs, ice cream and a burger. 

The team did some research into what an elephant should eat, especially given they are herbivores. Then they made some posters to go up around the elephant enclosure, explaining to visitors what they should and should not feed the elephants. The children also created some beautiful elephant portraits for our elephant gallery, using some brand new sketching pencils. I will endeavour to take some photographs of their work next week. 

In other learning...

Maths:

Year 1 children have been subtracting this week: by counting back, subtracting from the 1s and subtracting from the 10 (which is easier if you don't have enough 1s, for example in 14 - 9). 

To practice this, you can either do some practical subtraction (making groups of 10 to subtract from, or subtracting from the 1s) or complete this worksheet, again by finding groups of 10 (you can do the first sheet, or the second, or the third, or all if you are feeling keen). 

Reception children: have been beginning to learn about 'parts' and 'whole' in relation to number bonds, for example that 3 is made up of a 2 and a 1, or a 1 and a 2. To practice this you could play a simple game with your child: Lay 3 or 4 objects out (in a recogniseable pattern, such as a dice pattern). Ask them to close their eyes while you cover some objects up (don't take them away, just cover them). When they open their eyes ask them to work out 'what part is hidden' of the number 3 (or 4). You can also swap roles with your child so that they have to hide the part and you can discuss with them what part is hidden and how you know. 

Phonics:

Year 1 children have looked at or, aw and ore this week. The 'aw' grapheme generally (though not always) goes at the end of a word. Next week's spelling challenge list is here. 

Reception children have begun to look at digraphs (where two letters come together to make one sound):  sh   ch   th.  
You can practise these digraphs by playing  noughts and crosses. Fill a 3x3 grid with words using these digraphs. Underline the digraphs and then play noughts and crosses, where each player must read the word before they can circle/cross it. 

Suggested words:   ship   wish   fish   chip   chin   much   this   that   them  with.

I hope you have a good weekend - see you next week!

From Mrs Simpson