Welcome to the Summer Term

 Hello Hedgehog Parents,

It was lovely to have all 22 Hedgehog children back this week! What with chicken pox, covid and the Easter holidays, it's been a long time since we were all together again.  In true Hedgehog style the children have had a happy, positive week together. 

This term things will be a little bit different. To help with transition to Squirrel Class, the Year 1 children will be doing their Mantle of the Expert with myself and the Year 2 children. During this time Reception will take part in a variety of child-led and adult-led activities, mainly outdoors, with Mrs Gyau-Awuah. We will also continue to do lots of storytelling and drama as a whole class through our literacy lessons which will focus on traditional tales. 

We started with Jack and the Beanstalk. We thought about what breed of cow Jack might be selling, then the children were given the task of creating some collage cows:

The children went on to try to sell their cow, using adjectives. One of the Year 1 spelling objectives is to add -est to an adjective to change its meaning: so, you will see above some cows that will give you the sweetest milk, that have the pinkest noses and the softest fur. The children went on to write down their descriptions. 

In other news, there are two guinea pigs in school called Edward Whiskers and Sebastian. The children learnt how to carry out their daily care this week and will be doing so in small groups each day.  We have also done a lot of country dancing practice ready for Sunday's May Fayre. 


Maths this week.

Reception have been taking part in some low-key maths assessments to see what needs to be taught next. 

Year 1 have begun a unit of work on multiplication. They learnt how to identify and make equal groups, and how to describe them using mathematical language. For example: There are 5 groups, with 3 in each group. 

You can practice this by making equal groups out of anything you can find: lego bricks, pasta on a plate, soft toys.....  . The important part of this is that your child can articulate what they see using the above example of a sentence. 

Phonics this week.

Reception have learnt that the 'ur' phoneme can be spelt using: ur  and  ir
You can practice these using this activity or this activity - both require you to read each word together, spotting the ur or ir grapheme, and then decide whether it is a real or a nonsense word. 

Year 1 have looked at  air  (as in 'pair') and ear (as in 'bear'). These are a bit tricky, because there aren't really any rules as to which one is used when. So here is the spelling list - I've kept it quite short, because of the lack of rhyming patterns and other tips and tricks! The main thing to remember is that air is much more common than ear.

Have a lovely bank holiday weekend - see you on Sunday, and then on Tuesday!

From Mrs Simpson

Happy Easter!

 Happy Easter Hedgehogs and Hedgehog Parents!

We had a really good final week of term. Our Mantle of the Expert story came to an end, with the children rescuing the last mammoth from a hungry cave man (don't worry, they provided the cave man with an alternative diet) and bringing it back to 2022. It was introduced to the elephant herd and they all seemed to get along well. 

The children also had their marble jar treat, with pyjamas, teddies, a film and Easter basket making. Arthur, Emily, Joshua, Jemima, Isabelle and Theo, you were missed! We are looking forward to seeing you all again after the holidays. 

Finally, on Friday we had our Easter service and egg hunt, and the sun shone so everyone was happy!

The most important thing over Easter is to have a good holiday – rest and enjoy yourselves! 

Here are some things you can be practising to keep you ticking over - resources can be found in this folder.

·    Reception:

     Read books on Rising Stars

P   Practise your letter formation (sheets are in the folder) - practise each family at
a time because they are linked to each other

Play games subitising numbers - first to 5, then 6, 7, etc (various resources in the folder)

Practise writing numbers to 10 (number formation rhymes are in the folder)

Make sure you practise your sounds so they don't fall out of your head! You can use phonicsplay.co.uk, or https://www.phonicsbloom.com/  (selecting phase 2 and phase 3 sounds)

     Write a diary or a post card to me about your favourite days - one or two sentences is enough! Parents, help your child to say their sentence, put spaces between words and hear the sounds in words. 

Year 1:

     Read books on Rising Stars

Count in 2s, 5s and 10s

Learn your number bonds to 10:
https://www.ictgames.com/saveTheWhale/index.html
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button

Practise reading alien and real words, ready for the phonics check in June
You can use phonicsplay.co.uk, and there are also some resources in the folder

Practise your place value knowledge:
https://www.ictgames.com/sharkNumbers/mobile/index.html
The 'race to 100' games in the folder - there is a 100 grid game and one where you need to collect 1s and 10s

Measuring in centimetres and metres, and recording the measurements correctly

Writing a diary - pick a few of your best holiday days and write a diary, or write a post card and post it to me at school!

    Have a lovely break Hedgehogs - see you in the summer term!

    From Mrs Simpson

Spring Term Week 11: whatever the weather

 Hello Hedgehog Parents,

With staff and children away, the weather not really knowing whether it's spring, summer or winter and the beginnings of May Fair dancing practise... it's been a busy and unusual week!

We started the week by watching Joshua and Jemima's poems that they recorded for last week's homework - they were very proud of themselves!

On Thursday we were quite surprised to see snow falling from the sky! By the afternoon it was warm enough to continue with our Forest School plans, but at various points throughout the session we had to hide from yet another flurry of snow or sleet. Luckily we had a fire going in the cabin and managed to shelter with a story and some spontaneous hot chocolate. 

Our mantle story is coming to an end, but we are not there yet. The children continue on their quest to find a woolly mammoth to bring back to 2022. However, their progress was halted when Ewan was gravely injured by a sabre tooth tiger. The children learnt all about natural and man-made materials before determining which natural material would be most suited to making a bandage for him. 

Once Ewan had recovered, the children snuck out of the cave and continued their search. They decided a mammoth would most likely be found on the grasslands, or by the lake so that's where they looked.... and they found one! Fast asleep next to the lake. Unfortunately, as they were watching the mammoth, one of the children noticed a nearby hunter-gatherer, spear raised, ready to kill the mammoth. They decided to intervene and stop the hunter-gatherer. The man said he just needed the mammoth for his dinner, and to feed his family. The children then spent some time learning about hunter-gatherers and what alternative foods they could provide for the man and his family, rather than mammoth. They did some wonderful work, creating paper 'clay' bowls filled with berries, nuts, mushrooms, fish and honey. 

They also learnt that clay was a natural material and they used clay to make some ice age hunter-gatherer bowls. 

In other learning:

Maths:
Reception children have been focussing on '1 more' and '1 less' with numbers up to 10. To practise this you could have a go at this game. 

Year 1 children have been learning to measure in centimetres using a ruler. You can practise this simply by measuring things around the house! 

Phonics:
Reception children have added 'oi' to their collection of digraphs
Year 1 children have been practising reading alien and real words for the phonics check. 

Next week I will be carrying out phonics assessments on all of the children, including a practice phonics check with the Year 1 children to establish what work needs to be done in the summer term as we head towards the statutory Phonics Screening Check. 

Your homework this week is to revise all of the sounds we have learnt so far. You can do this by:

* playing 'sounds splat' - Adults write the digraphs all over a large piece of paper. Say a sound and your child has to splat it as quickly as possible. This can also be turned into 'sounds jump' - digraphs are spread all over the floor and children have to jump to the sound as you say it

* playing games on phonicsplay.co.uk - some are free, but it is worth the subscription to play the other games. 

Reception digraphs:   qu sh ch th ng ai ee igh oa oo ow oi ar or 
Year 1 digraphs:  
(ai):  ay   a_e    (ee)   ea   ie   e_e   (igh)  ie  i_e   (oa)  ow  oe  o_e  (oo)  ue  ew u_e
ir   ur   er   ou  oy 

Finally, the most important news of the week is that the children have filled up their marble jar again! This means that they have earned a treat - a Parentmail will follow with details. 

Have a good weekend

from Mrs Simpson