This week we have loved learning all about The Great Fire of London.  The children learned that the fire started in a bakery in Pudding Lane in 1666, over 300 years ago.  They learned how the fire spread from house to house because they were made of wood and the weather had been hot and dry.  The wind also helped!  The children know lots of facts, such as the houses were pulled down to stop the fire spreading and there were no firefighters in those days, so the people had to work together to bring buckets of water and water-squirters to put the fire out.

We had an amazing drama workshop come into school on Thursday, where we enacted the story.  Please see the photos on our class-page.

We painted pictures of the fire using bright warm coloured paint – red, yellow, orange and browns.

Another highlight of our week was on Tuesday – with the snow! We loved spending the time outside, wrapped up warm in our puddle suits and wellies, making snomen and playing in the snow. Photos are, again, on our class-page.

In English we worked hard to write simple sentences with support, to match a picture, such as ‘It is a red dog’ or ‘A pig in the mud’.  Some children are writing much more independently and choosing to do so in their free choice time, which is lovely to see.

In maths we explored 4 and 5.  We subitised 4 and 5, both perceptually – by easily recognising the dice pattern as well as conceptually recognising 4 and 5 in different arrangements (by seeing a 2 and a 3 or a 4 and a 1).  This helps the children to understand the composition of numbers and develop their early calculation skills.  We sorted concept images of 4 and 5 into their sets and matched them to the correct numerals.  See the images below.  We also placed 4 and 5 spots on a 5 frame and noticed what those amounts looked like, what amounts we could see within each number and whether the 5 frame was full or not.

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Our Nativity songs are coming along nicely and we are practising every day on the stage! 

In Monster Phonics this week we learned the sounds sg, ch, th, ng. 

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 ng.

We also introduced the words too, her, with, are, yes. Thank you for sharing the children’s reading books with them at home.  Please read as much as possible (daily would be ideal) even though it is repetition, it is so good for their memory of words, blending sounds and building up their confidence to read fluently.

Have a lovely weekend