Our learning next week

Next week we are going to be learning about...

• light and dark
• doubling and halving

We will be learning...

• to name some sources of light
• to know how to stay safe with light, for example, not looking directly at the sun
• to understand how we get night and day and talk about some differences between night and day
• how light can create shadows and how shadows can change
• to explore materials, including finding out whether materials are reflective or not and if they are transparent, translucent or opaque
• to find double and half of a number using objects
• to learn some double and half number facts by heart
• to solve some problems involving doubling and halving

You can help me at home by...

• exploring light and dark with me, for example, making shadow shapes on the wall
• looking at my shadow and at the shadow of things around us, talking to me about why we can't always see our shadows
• talking to me about night and day and some of the differences between them

Reminders:
We would appreciate donations of any tubes (e.g from wrapping paper or kitchen roll) to use in some activities this week

Please bring Library books back into school on Wednesday

On Thursday our sound of the week will be 'h'
We would appreciate any contributions of mark making or writing from outside school for our 'Learning outside school' board
Tuesday is 'Science Day' and children are invited to come into school dressed as mad scientists - we look forward to seeing all their costumes!

This week we will be learning...

This week we are going to be learning about...

• food from around the world
• making music
• writing and mark making

We will be learning...

• about some food from around the world
• to recognise how food varies in different countries and cultures
• to try new kinds of food, sharing our opinions and talking about our preferences
• to listen to different kinds of music, including music from different parts of the world, and move in response to it
• to use instruments and our voices to make sounds, exploring how they can be changed
• to develop our mark making and writing skills, working on our own writing targets

You can help me at home by...

• talking to me about the food we are eating and which part of the world it originates from
• using books and computers to help me find information about countries where some food I like comes from
• listening to music with me and talking about the different sounds, for example, what instruments can be heard or whether the music is fast or slow
• supporting me in my mark making or writing and helping me to mark make or write for a purpose at home, for example, helping to write a shopping list or writing in a birthday card

Reminders:

Please bring Library books back into school on Wednesday

On Thursday our sound of the week will be 'g'
We would appreciate any contributions of mark making or writing from outside school for our 'Learning outside school' board
We will still welcome contributions for our discovery table that support our understanding of autumn, for example, autumnal leaves, conkers etc

Humpty Dumpty Investigation

This afternoon we sang the nursery rhyme 'Humpty Dumpty' and talked about the rhyming words we could hear.

Then we did a science investigation to find out which material would make the best crash mat for Humpty Dumpty.

We had six materials to test - paper, bubble wrap, wood, foam, plastic and cloth.

We discussed what we thought would happen with a partner and then talked about it as a group. We wrote down what we thought would happen on our investigation sheet.

We tested each material by putting it under our wall and pushing our Humpty Dumpty egg off to see if it would crack. We found that even on hard surfaces the eggs weren't cracking, so Luke had the good idea of making the wall higher.

When the wall was higher we found that Humpty Dumpty cracked when he landed on the hard materials, but he didn't crack when he landed on the soft materials.

Well done to Hannah and Luke, who took the last 3 photos on the iPad, and to all of Reception for their super thinking and great scientific investigation skills this afternoon. We now know that soft materials are much better for stopping things like eggs breaking! We can also talk about how to investigate something, what we think will happen and what we have found out.

This week we will be learning...

This week we are going to be learning about...

• nursery rhymes
• using technology in the classroom
• estimating and counting

We will be learning...

• to join in with some familiar nursery rhymes
• to recite some nursery rhymes and poems ourselves
• to use nursery rhymes to help our learning in other areas, for example, exploring clocks and time when we look at 'Hickory Dickory Dock' and exploring stars and space when we learn 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star'
• how to use different types of technology in the classroom, including computers, iPads and technological toys
• how to choose technology to use for different purposes, for example, recording ourselves reciting a nursery rhyme or using an iPad to take a photograph of a model we have made
• how to estimate how many objects we can see and check by counting

You can help me at home by...

• reading and retelling nursery rhymes with me
• playing games with me to help me hear rhyming sounds in words
• talking to me about the technology we have at home and how we can use it for different purposes
• asking me to estimate different things, for example, how many carrots are on my plate, and then check by counting

Reminders:

Please bring Library books back into school on Wednesday

On Thursday our sound of the week will be 'f'
We would welcome contributions for our discovery table that support our understanding of autumn, for example, autumnal leaves, conkers etc

Food from stories

This week we have been listening to stories that have food in and using them to help us develop our learning in many different ways! We read The Gingerbread Man and Goldilocks and the Three Bears and practised retelling and talking about these stories. We have also been involved in many activities including cooking gingerbread men, decorating and cutting gingerbread men from paper to make puppets to help us retell the story, using playdough and cutters to make gingerbread men, doing some gingerbread man themed maths, acting out the story of Goldilocks, learning about size and how to order things by size, making porridge, mixing different amounts of water with porridge oats (including coloured water!) to see what happens, learning about high and low sounds in music and singing a song about the three bears, and much more!

Here are some photos of some of our fantastic learning this week.

Being kind to others

Today we have been talking about our value this month of 'caring' and considering how our own actions affect other people. We met a dragon called Zag who was feeling sad because some people had hurt his feelings. Even though they had said sorry to him, he still felt hurt and sad inside.

To help us understand this we were each given a piece of paper. We had one minute to scrunch it up, scribble on it with a crayon, shout at it and call it silly names or say unkind things to it, like "I don't want to play with you." Then we unfolded it and told it we were sorry. Even though we'd said sorry, the paper was still crumpled and the crayon hadn't disappeared. This is like when someone is hurt; just saying sorry doesn't make it all better.

We talked about some other things we could do to make people feel better, and came up with some lovely suggestions like "you could say 'I won't do that again,'" (Paul), "love them," (Olivier) and "be really kind to them." (Reece).

We made a kindness circle and all said something really kind about the person next to us. This made them feel good! We decided to be kindness detectives during the day, looking out for people being kind.

By the end of the morning, everyone in the class had been mentioned as being kind to somebody else. Well done to everyone in Nursery and Reception for being so kind and caring, and to everyone who spotted all the kindness and shared it with the rest of the class.

This week we will be learning...

This week we are going to be learning about...

• being kind to each other and understanding how our actions can affect other people
• rhyming words
• similarities, differences and change
• stories that involve food, including 'The Gingerbread Man' and 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears'

We will be learning...

• how to show awareness of other people's feelings and be kind to each other
• to recognise rhyming words and say some words that rhyme
• to join in with rhymes, poems and rhyming stories
• to talk about similarities and differences between objects, such as whether something is rough or smooth, hard or soft
• to talk about changes, including how the natural world is changing during autumn
• to retell stories
• to use equipment and tools safely and be hygienic when cooking
• to follow a recipe to make Gingerbread Men
• to talk about the size of objects and order objects by size

You can help me at home by...

• talking to me about being kind to others and praising me when I show care and consideration for other people's feelings (our value for October is Caring)
• playing games to practise rhyming words with me
• reading me rhyming books or singing nursery rhymes with me
• giving me opportunities to explore objects from the natural world and within the home and talking about their similarities and differences
• giving me opportunities to explore change, for example, how the texture of something changes when it is cooked or how ice melts
• cooking with me at home and talking about ingredients, weights, staying safe and following instructions in recipes
• helping me to retell the stories of The Gingerbread Man (Wednesday) and Goldilocks (Thursday)

Reminders:

Please bring Library books back into school on Wednesday

On Thursday our sound of the week will be 'e'
We would welcome contributions for our discovery table that support our understanding of autumn, for example, autumnal leaves, conkers etc