This week we will continue our topic of Winter. We will be comparing the different seasons, discussing the changes in weather, clothes and changes in our environment. We will be exploring ice and seeing what happens when we use paint, water and salt on it. We will use our senses to write a class poem together about Winter.
This week in maths, the children will use their perceptual subitising skills (seeing the quantity without counting) in increasingly complex arrangements, moving from dots in a line and arrangements of 2, to a focus on standard dice arrangements. For larger quantities, the children will begin to use skills of conceptual subitising, beginning to quickly see the sub-groups within these larger numbers. A key focus will be on developing skills of visualising; the children will be encouraged to look carefully at arrangements of dots and then to close their eyes and explain what they saw. Using spatial language to describe sub-groups within these arrangements will deepen the children’s understanding of part–whole relations and allow them to further consider composition (the numbers within numbers).
This week, the children will be encouraged to continue representing quantities in different ways, including by showing amounts on 1 hand ‘all at once’. There will also be a new focus on the symbolic representation of number and the children will work on their recognition of numerals to 5, matching numerals to correct quantities in various games.
Towards the end of the week, the children will use a number track (with numbers placed in equal spaces in ascending order) to play dice-based games. Playing games with dice will consolidate the children’s understanding of the stable order of numbers and allow them to link the numbers on a track to the quantities on a die.
The children are working hard in their new phonics groups. Please check your child’s homework as they will bring home either a reading book, Ditty sheets or will have a QR code with videos to watch. Please continue to do this work each night and sign the diary to say you have heard your child read. More children will now also have reading work set on line on Oxford Owl for you to do together. The reading teacher for your child will let you know in the diary if this applies to your child. If your child has already been accessing Oxford Owl then they will continue to do so.
Have a great week.
The Reception Team