8.11.18 Sandymere Learning Update

Date: 8th Nov 2018 @ 9:41am

Welcome back everyone.  We hope that you all had a wonderful half term.  We have started this half term with lots of exciting activities already and we’ve welcomed a new child into our classroom too.  We hope he will be very happy at Over St John’s. 

In English we have turned our attentions to non – fiction texts.  We began the week by sorting books into fiction and non – fiction and discussed the features.  Perhaps your child could hunt for some non – fiction books around the house or even at the local library?  We have also begun to explore asking and writing questions using question marks.  With the arrival of a mystery present, we had to come up with a range of questions to ask to try and find out what was inside.  Ask your child what the present was.  The children will be looking at the books Toys and Games from around the world towards the end of the week and exploring the features of non – fiction texts in more detail.

Maths has been about addition this week and the children have been encouraged to use a range of models and images to explain the addition processes.  I was very impressed with their use of part, part whole models, 10 frames and number sentences as well as practical resources.  Well done children.

As we are approaching Remembrance Day on Sunday we spent some time talking about the significance of the poppy and why people are wearing them.  As part of our work we shared the book Flo at the Somme and discussed the roles of the different people and animals who were involved in WWI and WWII.  We then retold the story in simple sentences and pictures. 

In art this week we explored colour mixing.  We wanted to see how we could change the shade of red by adding black, yellow and white.  We then used our new colour mixes to create poppies.  You can see these poppies trailed along the windows of Sandymere and Oakmere classrooms.

All children have new reading books and new reading days.  Please see your child’s folder for their new day.  We will Benchmarking children over the next few weeks to measure progress in reading and monitoring children’s application of phonics for decoding and comprehension of their books.  Please keep asking your children questions about the text as well as listening to them read.  A huge thank you to all the parents that are listening to their children read regularly. 

That’s all for this week.  Have a wonderful weekend and I’ll see you on Monday.

Mrs Williamson on behalf of Team Sandymere