We have all enjoyed bringing our favourite toys in from home this week as we learned all about how toys were different long ago.  We all talked about our toys in circle time.  The children are much more confident at speaking in front of the class now.  They then painted pictures of their favourite toys. 

We looked at toys that the teachers played with when they were little (so not too old!) and discussed how they worked.  The music box played by winding it up and had no batteries which the children found very strange!  The Etch-a-Sketch was very popular and great practise for little fingers to turn the knobs and draw.  It was interesting that to erase the picture, we had to shake it!

We talked about the toys of today, how they are different and what they are made of, including computers.  We also looked at toys from long long ago and how they weren’t made of plastic, were very simple and definitely had no batteries or plugs to make them work. Some needed winding up instead.

In English we practised hearing and saying initial sounds.  The children used their phonic sounds learned so far (s a t p i n m) to draw pictures of things beginning with those sounds.  They also attempted to form those letters.

In maths we looked at matching.  We matched objects that are the same.  We talked about how they are the same and played matching games using socks to make identical pairs, then hung them on a washing line. We also matched fish into sets of the same colour and pattern. We used the language, "They are the same. They are a match."

We enjoyed our first Dough Disco session. The children loved squeezing, rolling, pinching and patting the dough, before all their fingers went for a dance on the Dough Disco dance floor! This is a great activity for building strength and dexterity in their developing hands and fingers in order to hold a pencil and write.

Thursday was European Day of Languages. We learned about the different ways to say Hello and Goodbye in other European language, such as French, Spanish, Italian and German. The children shared their knowledge and experiences of other languages and countries, that they've maybe been on holiday to.

In Monster Phonics this week we learned the sounds m d g.  The children are practising recognising these sounds along with s a t p i n and are also practising blending them to make 2 and 3 letter words, such as at, it, cat, pan, tap, pit, sit, mat, dig, etc.  We also practise segmenting these words; breaking them down into their single phonemes like robots.  We have sent home the first set of tricky words for the children to learn, (last week). Please try and keep these in their reading diaries.  More will be sent home during the year.

You may have noticed that the Monster Phonics app is back up and running. We'd also recommend the 'Teach your Monster to Read' app, which is great and follows the order in which we teach the scheme. Monster Phonics app is more useful once the children know most of the sounds.

Attached below is a sound mat showing the sounds we will be learning through this term. You can download and use this to practise sounds at home. So far, we have taught up to g (as above).

Once again, we went into the forest where we put to use our matching and sorting skills from our maths learning this week.  We collected items from the forest that matched, for example, two pine cones, leaves or sticks.  We then all brought our objects to the group log circle and sorted them by type.  Please see the Forest Time section on the class page.

Have a lovely weekend!