A week of comic strips and cleaver juice.

 Happy Friday Hedgehog parents,

We are feeling very jolly in Hedgehog Class at the moment. Each day starts with a happy sort of song and an (optional) dance, which we have found to be a very positive start to the day. 

The children have completed a fantastic writing project this week. We have been looking at various different traditional tales this term, and this week was the turn of 'The Frog Prince'. We then looked at some simple comic strips showing other traditional tales. After that, the children each created a little comic strip of part of the story of 'The Frog Prince' and learnt how to write speech bubbles and thinking bubbles. The extra challenge for Year 1 (and those Reception children who wanted it) was to use question marks and exclamation marks in the correct places. The children loved this project and their work was lovely. 

We continued this theme in computing, where the children used the 'Doodle' drawing app to create an image and add sound to it - they had fun being the voices of the frog, the fairy or the princess. 

At Forest School this week the main activity was to make cleaver (stickyweed) juice. The Year 1 children requested this activity because they remembered enjoying it last year. Many of the children had a go at making the juice and tasting it, with mixed responses. It did smell delicious, but some children didn't think it tasted so good!

If you want to make some at home:

1) collect lots of sticky weed
2) crush it in a bowl with some water (you might have to start with a little water and add it as you need)
3) using fresh sticky weed, make a nest of it on top of a jug
4) filter your juice through the fresh sticky weed
5) Enjoy! (hopefully)

As part of their Great Fire of London mantle, the Year 1 children completed a DT project this week. They were tasked with creating a new loaf of bread for the re-opened bakery on Pudding Lane. They started by tasting some different breads, deciding which ones looked, smelled and tasted the best. Then they designed and made their own loaves. Finally they evaluated their bread. They brought the remaining bread home - I hope you all found it in book bags and had a taste! Reception children will be having a go at making bread next week, so look out for their  loaves too!

In Maths we have been continuing to learn doubles to double 10 by heart. We also started a new game which you could play at home. It's a race game. Year 1 children need to use 3 dice. Reception can use 2 or 3. 

You can play with as many players as you like. One player rolls the dice. Players add up the numbers as quickly as possible, then shout the answer when they know it. Whoever shouts the (correct) answer first gets a point. The aim of this game, particularly for Year 1 children, is to use what they know to help them to add up quickly. For example, if they roll   5   5   3   they would begin to see that the double 5 helps them - double 5 is 10, 10 add 3 is 13. 

We have also been telling the time to the hour and half hour with Year 1, though Reception have also been joining in the main teaching parts as well. Year 1 have learnt to tell the time using analogue and digital clocks - lots of practice of this would be beneficial. Some children wear a small watch or fitbit to school with the time on, which is a good idea, as they are unobtrusive but help the children to get used to telling the time. 

Phonics has been more sentence-writing for Reception! 

Year 1 have been learning to make a single noun into a plural using either -s or -es. They have learnt that they need 'es' when the plural adds an extra syllable and sounds like 'is'. This usually comes after the sounds:  tch   ch   sh   ss    s    zz   x  

To practise this, write the following words in chalk or in pen on a large piece of paper, and ask your child to turn them into a plural by adding the correct suffix (s or es):

day       catch        witch         bus         sandwich        banana        cup   
church      wish

Then for an extra challenge, write some silly sentences together using them. 

Don't forget also to practise for the spelling bee!

Have a very good weekend,

See you soon!

Mrs Simpson