In week 7 we looked at the Nursery Rhyme Little Miss Muffet. We discussed some new words we learnt in the Nursery Rhyme and discovered that a tuffet is a small stool that can be covered in material and curds and whey is another name for cottage cheese. We created a background using large crayons to colour in the objects and then used edicol dye to paint over the top. We practiced how to hold our paint brush and making strokes from left to right, just like when we read and write. We listened to the Nursery Rhyme and watched a clip on the interactive whiteboard.  We then sang the song using differnt tones of voice.

After watching the clip we selected our favourite part of the Nursery Rhyme and drew a picture and wrote a sentence about it. When we write we need to remember to use a capital at the beginning of a sentence, sound out our words, put spaces between our words and use a full stop at the end of the sentence.

Some of our favourite parts were;

Ethan: My favourite part was when Miss Muffet was frightened away because it was funny.
Kristian: My favourite part was when the red back came to see her before she was eating her food because I liked the spider.
Luca: My favourite part was when the spider sat next to Miss Muffet because I like it and when she screamed.
Brooklyn: My favourite part was when Mrs Muffet sat on her tuffet because it looks like a stool.
Holly: My favourite part was when the spider sat next to her because she got scared.

We then looked at the text and identified the various conventions such as, capital letters, long and short words, full stops and where the passage begins and ends. We also answered blank level questions about the Nursery Rhyme. We are very good at predicting what may happen next.

We made a spider using egg cartons and then explored the concept of measurement using a ruler and unifix blocks. We created a web for our spider using origami and then recorded its length. 

We are exploring the concept of addition and looked at what addition means. Addition or adding is to combine numbers or objects together to create a total. Just like 4 apples plus or add 3 apples equals or makes 7. We can write our addition sum using symbols; 4+3=7. You can use these new terms at home to help reinforce the concept of addition.

We have commenced our phonics programme and have looked at the letters; s, a, t, p, i, n. We are now using this knowledge to begin blending simple consonant-vowel-consonant words, such as;
sit             nip
sat            nap  
sin            sap
at             pat
am           snap
tap           tip
tin            pit  
You can help at home by sounding out simple consonant-vowel-consonant words eg. Time for B-e-d. Assisting and encouraging your child to read words by sounding and blending letter sounds. Assisting and encouraging your child to form simple words when writing.

This week we are looking at the Nursery Rhyme of Humpty Dumpty. We revised what is a word and practised counting them in a sentence using counters and body movements. The sentence, "This is a cat" has 4 words. We are working towards recognising the number of words in more complex sentences, for example "The elephant likes to eat bananas" has 6 words. 
We used this knowledge to cut out and match words to Humpty's Brick wall. We then counted the number of words in the sentence. We also created rhyming words to fill Humpty's brick wall. We are continuing to look at initial long sounds in words such as s,l,f,r,v,z,n,m. You can practise with your child by emphasising the initial sound in words and get them to identify which sound it starts with. Games like 'I spy' are also great to emphasise the initial sound.  We are continuing to unpack the elements of a narrative using the Braidy tool. As a class we read the story "A Sausage went for a walk' without seeing the cover or pictures the students were read the story and then designed a front cover for the book based on what they heard. We then read the story looking at the pictures and using the Braidy tool unpacked each element. We retold the story as a class using the pictures to assist us. We discovered that the story had a rhyming pattern that helped us to retell it. We then retold the story individually and recorded our retell. These recordings have been placed on a QR code in our work sample books and you will be able to download a free phone application to hear your child's retell. 

Using the Braidy symbols we then created our own version of Humpty Dumpty using a narrative sequence. We explored the elements of a setting (when and where), character, kick off/ initiating event and plan. These are some of our narratives sequences. 

Lily: On Friday in Spring Humpty Dumpty felt excited because he found a friend so he went home and had a sleep over. 

Luca: Today on the wall Humpty Dumpty felt excited because there was soft grass on the ground so he went home and played. 

Sophie: On Sunday on the brick wall Humpty Dumpty felt sad because he fell off so he made a sand castle instead. 

Sebastian: Today in the snowy hills Humpty Dumpty he felt happy because he built a snowman so he ran into the snowman to break it instead of breaking himself. 

Holly: In the deepest darkest forest Humpty was freaked out because there was ghosts coming out so he ran to a friends house. 

We are continuing to look at the 0-9 number pattern and explored how each decade has the same pattern. We then sequenced numbers on the Interactive Whiteboard and then we each were given a number and had to line up in numerical order using the number pattern we had learnt. To practise these skills we used missing number boards and had to fill in all the missing numbers in the correct order, used number cards on the mat and sequenced them using the number board to help us, played the caterpillar sequencing game on the computers and sang the 100 song on the Interactive whiteboard. 

In Science we watched a clip about egg laying animals. We then chose an egg laying animal to draw a picture and complete a sentence. These are some of the animals we chose;
* octopus                       * birds
* ladybug                       * snakes   
* chicken                       * turtles
* fish                            * dinosaurs    
 

This week we looked at the Nursery Rhyme Jack and Jill. We discussed the words in the Nursery Rhyme and learnt that one meaning for the word 'well' is; a deep hole dug in the ground to get water. We also learnt that 'crown' can mean the top of your head. We made our own Jack and Jill and then explored rhyming words we identified in the Nursery Rhyme.  We then sorted the rhyming words into groups. We also looked at the text of Jack and Jill and identified different conventions, such as the title, capital letters, long and short words and full stops. You can see our beautiful Jack and Jill work hanging up in our room.

We looked at the Braidy tool which helps us to learn all the elements of a narrative. We then created a class narrative using the Braidy doll. We focused on the setting (when and where), characters, initiating event, actions, feelings and a conclusion. After we created our narrative we then independently retold the story using the symbols. Our focus when using oral language is to use full sentences, connect our ideas, and include greater detail.
 
We also helped Mrs Beale to sort all the pictures of the Nursery Rhyme back into the correct order. When then individually recited the Nursery Rhyme.

We began our phonics programme and explored the letters 's' and 'a'. We looked at our mouth formation when saying these sounds and words that start with each sound. We also wrote the sounds and looked at the directionality when writing each letter. We need to remember not to take our pencil off the page when writing the letter 'a' and which way our 's' starts. 

In Mathematics we explored the concept of volume and had to identify the buckets with the least and most water in them. We then sequenced the buckets in order from full to empty.

We revised numbers to 10 and the 1-9 number sequence. We are using this knowledge to develop our skills when identifying numbers before and after.

Last week we looked at the Nursery Rhyme Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. We made our own star artwork and added information we had learnt about stars from the Magic School Bus Sees Stars video. You can see o8ur star artwork hanging in our classroom.
Did you know...
* That the sun is a star.
* Stars are made of gas and dust. 
* Stars give us light, heat and energy. 
                                                                * Stars can explode and new stars are formed from their dust.

In Mathematics we looked at groups of stars and discussed which groups had more or less. We practiced this skill using one to one counting and subitising (visual recognition of a small group). We also look at positional language and followed the instructions to place the stars in the correct place. We focused on the concepts of behind, next to, under, on, front, in, beside, top, bottom, left and right. We explored the concept of size and height and used direct measurement to compare objects.

In Literacy we have continued to develop our knowledge of text conventions and the elements within a narrative. We are learning about words, text direction, capital letters, full stops, exclamation marks, question marks, identifying the start of a passage of text, long and short words. We are very good at identifying the cover of a book and its title. At home, I can practice pointing to the words as you read the book.

We are continuing to focus on initial sounds in words and have been looking at detecting and producing rhyming words. We are very good at detecting rhyming pairs and are now focussing on detecting and producing mutiple rhyming words.