This week we have learned all about the Hindu celebration Diwali.  The children have loved listening to the story of Rama and Sita and learning about the way Diwali is celebrated.  We made beautiful diva lamps from salt dough and painted them in bright colours after they were cooked.  The children also made colourful Rangoli patterns using paint, pencils, pens and coloured rice.  We also looked at the beautiful Mehndi patterns that Hindu women and girls paint on their hands at Diwali time and some children chose to make their own on paper hands. 

We also learned about what animals do when winter comes.  We talked about which animals hibernate, what hibernation means and why they do it.  We read stories about hibernating animals as well as reading information books.  We also sorted animals that hibernate from animals that do not.

In English this week the children wrote cvc words or short sentences to match pictures.  They segmented the words into the 3 sounds and wrote them down to spell the words in their writing books.  They used a sound mat or letter frieze on the wall to help them.  (The sound mats can be found on the Monster Phonics section of our class page, should you wish to use at home.  We are using phase 2 at the moment).

We explored the composition of 1, 2 and 3 this week. We dropped 3 counters with red on one side, and yellow on the other, onto a piece of paper.  We noticed the different ways the counters could fall such as 1 red and 2 yellow, 2 red and 1 yellow or 3 of the same colour.  We then hid 3 counters under a cup and the teacher took out some. The children used their cardinal knowledge of 3 to say how many were left under the cup.  We then enjoyed a bean bag game, where each person had 3 beanbags, threw them into a hoop and noticed how many were in and out of the hoop.  Eg, 2 in and 1 out still equals 3 altogether.  We also learned about one more and one less than a number through songs, such as One Elephant went out to play, on a spider’s web one day…..’ and ‘Three little speckled frogs’.

In Monster Phonics this week we learned the sounds j, v, w, x.  We also learned the new tricky words if, off, you, my, they, for, going

Please see the video in the Monster Phonics section of our web page to see the actions for these sounds and practise those from the start to x.  Most children are now able to hear the initial sound in a word and many can segment a cvc word into its 3 sounds, eg: ‘m – a – n…..man’.

We loved our Balanceability training on Wednesday, where we learned skills to help us with balancing on a bicycle.  Please see the Balanceability section on our class page.