This week, the children will be fully embracing Christmas. We will be writing cards, making Christmas lists, making Christmas crafts and reading Christmas stories.
We will be continuing to practise their Nativity play. If your child comes home with some words to learn for the Nativity in their reading diary then please practise these regularly so your child knows them and can read them from memory. We will not require you to provide a costume for the Nativity. We have all of the costumes in school so please do not go out and buy any costumes. Details on how to purchase tickets will be sent out to you nearer the time.
The children are all making great progress with their phonics. Thank you to all those parents who are hearing their child read or accessing the online videos. Remember to sign the diary every time your child reads and add a little comment to say how they are getting on or what you have done together. Please find some additional blending videos that you can watch together to help support the learning at home.
http://schools.ruthmiskin.com/resources/vc-pathways/295778/jGWalzfZ4fRKxtNQ
In Maths this week, the children will begin to explore composition by focusing on the preliminary skills: the concept of ‘wholes’ and ‘parts’. By investigating their own bodies and familiar toys they will begin to understand that whole things are often made up of smaller parts and that a whole is, therefore, bigger than its parts.
The children will then build on their understanding of the composition of numbers by investigating the composition of 3, 4 and 5. Composing and de-composing numbers involves the children investigating part–part–whole relations, e.g. seeing that 3 can be composed of 1 and 2. Through practical experience, they will consolidate their understanding of a whole being made up of smaller parts. They will begin to recognise that numbers can be made by combining parts in different ways. A key focus will be the spatial arrangements that can be made with different combinations of the same number of objects.
With the weather so cold now please remember to send the children with named hats and gloves. We are encouraging the children to put the gloves in their pockets and hats in their sleeves to avoid these items becoming lost.