1.2.18 Sandymere Learning Update

Date: 1st Feb 2018 @ 11:38am

What a busy week we have had and the children have been amazing!

But first let’s start with a huge thank you to all the parents and carers that could join us for the Phonics Workshop. We had a tremendous turn out and it really was a joy to speak to you all. Don’t worry if you couldn’t make it – simply pop in to speak to either of the Mrs W’s and we will hand you a pack.

This week we have FINALLY read the whole story of The Lion Inside and what a fabulous story it is! The children have loved the book and their associated writing has been fantastic. On Monday we were back in character and describing our animal friends and then on Tuesday and Wednesday we found out about the author Rachel Bright and wrote her letter telling her about our favourite parts of the story. I hope to post some of these letters off to Rachel Bright within the next few days. Fingers crossed we receive a response! SHOUT OUTS to Olivia and Brooke for their fabulous independent working and wonderful sentence structuring. Mrs Worstencroft is ending the week by creating emotions graphs with the children by looking at the range of emotions that the characters experience throughout the story.

In maths we have been exploring how to add a one digit number to 10 without using our fingers. We explored Base10, Numicon and in some cases number lines. The children are beginning to see patterns in numbers are coming up with some great reasoning. SHOUT OUTS to Mya and Astyn this week for their wonderful mental maths and participation with the lessons. The children have enjoyed lots of interactive games in maths this week and I promised I’d leave the links on the website for them so here goes:

https://www.mathplayground.com/math_monster_addition.html

http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/numberbond.html

https://www.mathplayground.com/number_bonds_II.html

https://www.mathplayground.com/number_bonds_10.html

Some will need Adobe Flash installing.

We have continued to look at Ernest Shackleton in our History lesson with a little bit of geography thrown in too! The children have looked at how Shackleton travelled to the Antarctic, mapped his journey and then looked at the range of animals that might be found in that habitat. So a little bit of Science added for a good measure! The children are really enjoying this topic. SECRET TASK ALERT! If you see this blog – could you and your child find out the names of three different explorers? Perhaps a female explorer, one modern day explorer and one from the past? Good luck. (Simply jot them down and send them in on Monday.)

In handwriting we have continued with our ascending (tall) letters and we are definitely seeing these transferred in to their everyday writing. Keep up the good work!

Phonics homework this week is related to segmenting and blending, sound buttoning and reading real and alien words. There is also a challenge of create your own alien at the end. The children can be as creative as they wish with this.

That’s all for this week!

Mrs Williamson on behalf of Team Sandymere!