Welcome to this week’s newsletter! We are excited to share some of the wonderful learning experiences your child has been enjoying in class, along with a look ahead to what’s coming up next. Please also take a look at the school website where you can see photos of the children in action, enjoying their learning at school.

This week in maths

This week in maths has been busy, playful and full of discovery! The children became little mathematicians as they explored mass and balance, using scales to compare objects and decide which were heavier or lighter and working together to find the perfect balance using blocks. We then dived into the exciting world of subitising, where the children looked closely at dot cards and confidently explained how they could see numbers without counting - for example spotting “two on the top and two on the bottom makes four!” They loved using their memory and imagination to recreate dot patterns, helping our puppet by carefully placing counters to match what they had seen. To finish the week, we explored die patterns, describing what we noticed, rolling dice to perform actions and playing fun track games where we rolled, counted and moved along together.

How parents can help at home: You can keep the maths fun by playing simple dice or board games, encouraging your child to recognise numbers on the dice without counting. Try making dot patterns using coins, buttons or Lego and see if your child can recreate them from memory.

This week in Understanding the World

This week in Understanding the World, the children had a wonderful time becoming story detectives as we explored the traditional tale The Little Red Hen. We enjoyed reading the story together, thinking carefully about the characters and talking about how they might be feeling at different points in the story. The children then worked hard to sequence the story, looking at pictures and putting them into the correct order so they could confidently retell it. We brought the story to life by adding actions and movement which helped the children remember what happened next and made storytelling even more fun! As a class, we created a story map using simple pictures, symbols and key words. The children then used this to inspire their own story maps during provision, proudly retelling the story in their own words.

How parents can help at home: You can support this learning by sharing stories together and talking about the characters and their feelings. Ask your child to retell The Little Red Hen using actions, drawings or pictures or encourage them to make their own simple story map at home. Acting out stories together is a fantastic way to build confidence and bring storytelling to life!

Next week…

Next week will be busy and exciting across the curriculum! In maths, the children will explore capacity by filling containers with rice and comparing which holds the most, before learning the different ways to make 5 using 5 Little Speckled Frogs and a range of practical resources. In Talk for Writing, we will retell the story l The Little Red Hen, collect key words and begin writing parts of the story to create our own books, finishing by changing elements to make a new class version. In PSHE, we will also be learning about safer strangers and how to keep ourselves safe.

Reminders:

Friday 23^rd January: Wear yellow for Cystic Fibrosis Day - all children and staff invited to wear something yellow and make a donation for cystic fibrosis.