Dear Parents,
This week, the children made significant progress with their Mantle story. On Monday they were summoned to Devon by Rob Bourn, who had made an exciting discovery. During some excavations, he and his team had unearthed some mammoth remains. The children were invited to carry on the excavations and to their excitement found pieces of mammoth tooths, tusks and bones. They pieced together the finds back in the classroom (this was obviously in our story, but the excavation really happened! To find out more look at this news article).
With that in mind, we decided that, in order to find a woolly mammoth, we should return to Devon, 10,000 years ago. One of the children had the idea to use a time turner (as in Harry Potter) to help us travel back in time, so they all made time turners. This was a great project involving a range of DT skills and tools and the children did a fantastic job of it.
Next, on Wednesday we travelled back to the Ice Age (having thought about what it would look like and feel like). Unfortunately, we didn't get far before we encountered a range of dangerous animals. We stepped out of the story to find out more, and spent the rest of the session learning about ice age animals and which were the most dangerous (the carnivores!).
Aside from our Mantle story, the children had a great Friday morning when Mrs Bregu taught them a bit about Albania, her home country. They saw the the landscape, learnt about the flag and (most importantly) tried some delicious food.
Thursday afternoon was so sunny that we couldn't resist going for a walk. Our original plan was disrupted when we discovered that one of our favourite trees had been severely damaged by the storms. The upside of this was that the children had a lovely time exploring the fallen tree and using their climbing skills!
Maths:
Year 1 have finished their unit of work on numbers to 100. Continual practice of identifying how many tens and 1s are in a number, and how much each digit is worth will be helpful for the children, for example:
64 has 6 tens and 4 1s. The 6 is worth 60 and the 4 is worth 4.
To practice this play shark numbers.
As you play, talk about what each digit is worth in each number and practice counting in 10s and on in 1s.
Reception have continued their work on subitising and have also been ordering numbers and revisiting number bonds to 5.
To practice bonds to 5, you can use this 5 Specked Frogs animation. As you go, talk about the bond it represents (eg if there is 1 frog in the pond and 4 on the short, 1 and 4 makes 5) and keep reciting the bond.
For an extra challenge, you can create a 'pairs' game. Lay down the numbers 0,5,4,1,3,2 face down and play pairs, turning over two numbers and keeping them if they make 5. You can add spots to the cards to help your child to work out whether they make 5.
Phonics:
Year 1 have focussed on 'oo' alternatives: oo, u_e, ue and ew (the last one was brand new). They also looked at alien and real words and practised spotting digraphs and trigraphs in order to read them. This is a necessary skill for June's phonics check, so your challenge this week is to practice it!
Go to phonicsplay.co.uk, click on 'resources' and play 'buried treasure'. Choose 'ue' or 'ew' and play the game, reading alien and real words.
Due to our lovely Albanian morning, we did not do our spelling challenge - we will do this on Monday instead.
Reception have added 'igh' and 'qu' to their bank of digraphs and trigraphs.
Practise these using phonicsplay.co.uk - go to 'resources' and 'buried treasure', then choose 'phase 3' and the digraph you want to practice. This is a good game for spotting digraphs in words and for sounding out and blending.
We have had a really lovely week. It feels like spring is on its way!
Have a lovely weekend,
Mrs Simpson
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