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 1, 2 and 3 this week.  We practised subitising those amounts and played a game where we looked to find who had the same number of spots as us on our card.  We then sorted different representations of 1,2 and 3 into groups and matched them to their numerals.  We also went on a hunt where we collected 1, 2 and 3 objects and put them with their numerals.  We dropped lots of counters onto a large piece of paper and looked to notice the amounts that we could subitise.  We drew around ones, twos and threes.

In Monster Phonics this week we learned the sounds f, ff, l, ll and ss.  We learned that a digraph is 2 letters that made one sound.  (ff, ss, ll). 

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 ss.  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 have also sent home the next set of high frequency words (below) for the children to learn at home along with their reading books.

May we take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to you all for your support this term. The children have all come such a long way in terms of both settling into school and progressing with their learning. Well done to you all and we wish you a lovely half term break.  

We had a Spooktacular day on Thursday - where we all dressed up in fancy dress for Halloween and had a Halloween themed dinner. See photo below!

See you back on Monday 4th November!

The Robins Team