This week we have been learning all about Chinese New Year. We learned who celebrates CNY and how they prepare for it.  We learned about Dragon Dances and listened to and made Chinese music to go with the dances.

In PE we performed our own Dragon Dance along with the beat of a drum.  We covered ourselves in a long sheet and walked in a long line together just like the dancers.

We learned that red is an important lucky colour at CNY and made our own Chinese lanterns, decorated with Chinese symbols and gold glitter. They look great! We learned about the way in which CNY is celebrated. Ask your child how people prepare!

We also listened to the story of The Great Race and know that it is this story that explains why each year is named after an animal.  2024 is the year of the Dragon. We made our own dragon puppets, decorated lion and dragon heads and made ung pow envelopes, which the Chinese give as gifts at CNY with money inside.

We wrote about the story of The Great Race in our books; choosing a few sentences to write about our favourite parts.

In maths this week we explored numbers 6, 7 and 8.  We sorted different representations of these amounts into their matching sets and also matched them to their numerals.  We then turned over a card showing a representation of 6, 7 or 8 and, using counters, showed this amount on a 10 frame.  We practised subitising these amounts, using our conceptual subitising skills to see a full 5 and 2 more, knowing that is 7, for example.

In Monster Phonics this week, we have learned the phoneme ‘ur’.  We read and wrote many words containing this sound.  Please see the Monster Phonics section, as usual, to practise the sounds learned so far.

Thank you to parents for coming in for our Stay and Read session on Friday morning, the children loved it and it really helped to instil a love for reading.

Have a lovely weekend and we will see you next week, Children's Mental Health week and the NSPCC's Number Day! More info to come on Parent Hub....