Welcome back! The start of Term 3 has begun well with a busy but fun week back. 

Grateful for: being back at school! Seeing everyone again.
Learnt: counting, making 5, number stories, word building.
Achieved: making a fortress, doing my own number story.
Delighted: Snow! Buddy time! Seeing my friends. Celebrating my friend’s birthdays.

A couple of things to remember please...
There is a lot going round at the moment so please remember to encourage good hygiene – using a tissue, catching coughs, washing hands and making lots of bubbles with soap, closing the lid and flushing the toilet etc
If you would prefer your child to travel to school in wellies/boots and change please do! We are happy to help with swapping into shoes if needed in the morning.

For our in class worship our question was 'Is it our job to protect local wildlife?' We talked about the different animals and birds we might see locally and how we can help to care for them. The children wondered what different birds sounded like. To help answer this we listened to some different bird songs. We also spoke about the Big Garden Birdwatch (doesn’t have to be in a garden!) happening soon, 24^th-26^th Jan https://www.rspb.org.uk/

PSHE/ English: We have enjoyed beginning our topic about being Healthy this week. We have joined the whole school with a Healthy Start to the New Year. We have focussed on a Healthy Mindset, remembering that we might not be able to do something yet! This means  that if we continue to learn and practise, one day we can do it! We shared the story of the Koala That Could then talk about some things that we can do. The children used their Phonic knowledge to record their ideas. We will continue to focus on the idea of ‘can’t do it yet’ over the next couple of weeks.

Phonics: We have recapped our learning so far. The children are loving Sound Bingo! Choosing 4 sounds from those learnt, then turning over sound cards and ticking off if that sound has been chosen. 4 ticks = Bingo!! We have also enjoyed Word building and sound spotting.  

Maths: Lots of revision of subitising, counting, ordering numbers and making numbers to 5. The children thoroughly enjoyed playing ‘higher or lower’, (Play Your Cards Right!). This can be played with number cards- showing a card and guessing if the next card in the pile will be higher/bigger number or lower/smaller number! We finished the week by drawing some number stories. “I had 2 flowers, next I bought 3 more. Now I have 5 altogether.” Some children chose to create their own stories for numbers 3, 4 and 5.

RE: We began our new Big Question for this term: What do Christians believe is special about Jesus and the message he brings? We started by thinking about our friends and what about them makes us want to be friends. The children were introduced to Tessa and Tom (photo of 2 children that represent Christian children). In a story about them their Grandad shared a Bible story about fishermen that couldn’t catch any fish- Jesus calls the disciples. Jesus chose 12 men to be his special friends.  We learnt that the word Disciple means follower of Jesus. They travelled talking to others about Jesus, bringing them to God, like a fisherman bringing his catch home. We played Simon Says. After we talked about how the children felt during the game. We wondered about how the disciples might have felt when they were asked to follow Jesus. To finish the children were encouraged to play with someone new, including everyone – like Christians believe Jesus included everybody.

General learning you can support at home:
Practise zips and buttons.
Remembering please and thank you.
Using our words to talk through any upsets.

See further down for Phonics and reading.  

Here’s hoping for a warmer weekend! Stay safe if you are venturing out!

Phonics 

We follow the Phonic scheme Sounds Write. 

If you wish to keep the book longer just let us know, you do not have to change them on Monday and Thursday!  Go at your child's pace, find a time of day that suits them, if a page is enough for one session that’s fine.
*Talk about the stories or books shared, can they spot any of the sounds they know, can they tell you about what has been read, have you met any new or interesting words, talk about word meanings, ask what might happen next, ask your child to think about a different ending. 
We have a limited amount of books within our reading scheme, so your child might get given the same book more than once. This is a great opportunity to boost word recognition and fluency when reading. It will also increase confidence as it is a 'known' book and your child might remember it. Feel free to do the activities mentioned above (*) to really explore and enjoy the book. 

Sounds covered: s, a, t, i, m, n, o, p, b, c, g, h, v, f, e, d, k, l, r, u, j, w, z

high frequency words: is, a, the, I, for, of, to, are

Sound spotting - with the sounds displayed the children are asked to spot the sound ... they either have to point it out, highlight it, trace over the letter, or write it on their whiteboards. 

Word building – using sound cards children help identify the sounds needed to build a given word, working out one sound at a time, s-a-t ‘sat.'

Dictation - adults tell the children a simple sentence, containing 'tricky words' - words that do not follow phonetically decodable patterns, and decodable words (words they can sound out). The children are encouraged to use their Phonic knowledge to write the sentence. We also practise using finer spaces, capital letters and full stops.

Sound Swap - starting with a given word, change one sound to make a new word - cat, pat, pan, tan, tin, pin etc. 

The following link has some information for parents if you would like to have a look. 

 https://sounds-write.co.uk/support-for-parents-and-carers/ 
The correct pronunciation: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8ZMfYjdN-s 
It is important not to add sounds such as m=muh s= suh t=tuh 
Take the word: ‘mat’. If you sound it out as ’muh’ + aa +tuh’ and then blend them together you get ‘muhaaatuh’ a long way off from ‘mmmaat’ and then ‘mat’.
We do not use actions or Jolly Phonics songs. 

Dates of interest 

Wed 29th Jan- Chinese New Year 
Fri 14th Feb - Last Day Term 3
Mon 24th Feb - Term 4 begins
Fri 7th March - World Book Day 

Reminders