This week we asked the question, ‘Where do people go to worship?’  Following our visit to the Church, last week, we reminded the children that a church is a special place for Christians to go to worship God.  We talked about the features of the church and what happens in a church.  We learned that there are many other places of worship for people who believe in different gods, such as a Mosque, a Synagogue and a Gurdwara. We looked at pictures of the different places and talked about their similarities and differences.

We also began learning about Easter, a Christian festival, that Christians believe is a time to celebrate Jesus, and when he came back to life.  We read The Easter Story and the children were fascinated!  We then discussed how Easter is celebrated and maybe even in our own homes, by talking about the giving and receiving of Easter eggs and the Easter Bunny, giving Easter cards, eating hot cross buns and having a special meal with the family.

We made Easter cards to bring home and as a link to new life and spring, we painted daffodils on the art table, by carefully looking at real daffodils and matching and mixing colours.

We continued our story ‘Handa’s Surprise’ this week by using our story plan from last time to write a new version of the story.  For example, ‘The cat ate the banana. The pig ate the carrot. The sheep ate the tomato.’  At this time of year, the children are just able to write simple sentences like this independently, by saying the sentence, sounding out each word (segmenting) and writing them down.  Practise with simple sentences like this at home will really help your child’s independence and confidence to develop.

We learned about 3D shape this week by exploring their properties.  We talked about the 2D shapes we could see on the faces of the shapes and whether the shape had flat or curved surfaces.  We tried to remember the names of cube, cone, cuboid, cylinder and sphere.  We used small 3D wooden shapes to print into playdough; noticing the 2D shape that each one made and testing out the shapes of the other faces and surfaces.  Some of us made repeating patterns in the dough. We also made Easter eggs with patterns on using the shapes. 

We enjoyed a Busy Bodies Easter egg hunt on Thursday.  The children looked around our setting for lots of eggs which had instruction on. When they had all been found we joined together to follow the instructions on the eggs.  We had to do things such as ‘jump 10 times’ or ‘hop on one leg for 20 seconds’.  We were very fit and busy!

Our Monster Phonics this week, we have learned Tricky Witch’s phoneme ‘oi’. Below is the powerpoint of the story we read in class this week, The Frog and the Coin. You could read at home with your child if you wish.  Please continue to read with your child regularly.  It really makes a difference to their confidence and fluency. Please also continue to use spelling shed.  Again, this really helps the children to develop confidence and fluency with their segmenting and spelling skills.