We had yet another busy week in Oak Class!  This time, we were busy getting ourselves ready to celebrate Mother’s Day.  First, we read the story “My Mum” by Anthony Browne which helped us to think about all the many things that our lovely mums do for us.  We then drew some lovely pictures of our mums and wrote about how special they are to us.  Finally, we made some handprint gifts which hopefully all our mums will have received by now!  We hope all the mummies had a wonderful Mother’s Day and enjoyed the spring sunshine!

In our maths lessons, we worked on ordering numbers up to 20.  The children worked very confidently, using the large number line in the classroom to support themselves and check the correct sequence of the numbers.  We then decided to challenge ourselves a little more, by ordering numbers out of sequence (e.g. ordering 5, 8, 13 and 17).  The children worked with their ‘Walk and Talk’ partners which encouraged them to talk about the decisions they were making and use the terms ‘more than’ and ‘less than’.

If you would like to have a go at ordering numbers at home, why not try one of these caterpillar games:

http://www.topmarks.co.uk/ordering-and-sequencing/caterpillar-ordering

http://www.ictgames.com/caterpillar_slider.html

In our phonics lessons, we learnt two new sounds.  The first was the trigraph ‘air’ as in h-air and f-air.  We decided that the action for this sound would be to touch our hair.

Next we learnt a sound that is usually taught as the trigraph ‘ure’ as in, are you s-ure?  This is how the sound appears on our sound mats.

Occasionally, this sound is also taught as the quadgraph ‘ture’. (Yes, that’s right, a quadgraph!).  Within the set of video clips that we use to support the children’s learning in class, this sound is taught as ‘ture’ as in ‘adventure’.

The children were very taken with the idea of a ‘quadgraph’ and we didn’t really have time to look at the distinction carefully, so we will certainly be revisiting this sound and adding an action to it (in its trigraph form) next week.

Our number of the week was 17 and here’s what our Star of the Week found to fill up the number bag.  He was a very thorough number detective, finding the number 17 hidden on all sorts of tickets and receipts!

Our new number of the week has been chosen as number:

Finally, the children especially enjoyed washing the babies in the water tray this week. Many of them were very dirty it seems and needed a good scrub and hair wash! Afterwards, the babies were carefully wrapped up in towels and put down for a nap.

Many of the children have also been enjoying using the large wooden blocks in the classroom to build increasingly complex structures!  In this photo, a group had worked together to build a working ramp, complete with walls and obstacles.

And last, but not least, Miss Lizzi’s building club continues to be a weekly fixture.  Here some of the members are enjoying serving each other food in their restaurant complete with individual seats and tables.

The children started off the week with a rather special and unusual experience: our very own archery lesson!  Specialist sports teachers worked with the class to teach them how to use a bow and arrow correctly.  All the children showed fantastic focus and skill and many of them talked excitedly about the lesson for the rest of the week!

Back in the classroom, we continued with our current focus on animals by reading the story of ‘Farmer Duck’.  The book tells the tale of a poor duck who has the bad luck to live with a very lazy farmer.  Can you remember who helps the duck? And what happens to the lazy farmer? What would you have done to help the duck?

Weekend Challenge: pretend to be one of the animals on the farm and write a letter to the lazy farmer – tell him what you think he should do…or…pretend to be the lazy farmer and write a letter to the duck – what do you think he should say to the duck?

We learnt two new sounds this week; the digraph ‘oi’ and the trigraph ‘ear’.  The digraph ‘oi’ can be found in words like oi-l, oi-n-k and c-oi-n.

The trigraph ‘ear’ can be found in words like ear, h-ear and f-ear.  For our action, we decided to touch one of our ears!

Occasionally, when we have a spare five minutes before lunch, we watch a clip from the CBeebies series Alphablocks.  In this clip, the Alphablocks have some fun with the ‘ear’ sound.

In our maths lessons, we continued to think about teen numbers.  This week, we used a set of balance scales to help us compare different teen numbers and support our understanding of the concepts of ‘more than’ and ‘less than’.

Can you remember what happened to the scales when we put 15 cubes in one side and 15 cubes in the other side?  Why?  Use your folded arms to show what the scales looked like.

What happened when we put 18 cubes in one side and 14 in the other side?  Why? Again, use your folded arms to show what the scales looked like.

Weekend Challenge: if we had 16 cubes on one side and 18 cubes on the other side, what would we need to do to make the scale balance?  How about this one – if we had 12 cubes on one side and 17 on the other side, what would need to do this time to make the scale balance.  Record your ideas either by drawing a picture or writing a number sentence.  Can you come up with your own number balance problem? Bring it to school and see if one of your teachers or one of your friends can solve it!

Yet again, our star of the week did a fantastic job of being a number detective at home over the weekend and filled her number bag up with all sorts of things related to the number 16.  Here’s what she brought in to show us:

Our new number of the week has been chosen as number:

It has been a particularly busy week in Reception with World Book Day on Thursday and our trip to St. Matthew’s Church on Friday.  We also managed to find time to squeeze in our usual phonics and maths lessons, as well as lots of opportunities for play, play and more play!

We started the week by reading the story of ‘The Cow who went Oink”.  This is a lovely story which encouraged the children to think about difference and how it can actually be a good thing.  The story is about a cow who only knows how to say ‘oink’ which puts him in a rather tricky situation with the others cows and with the other farm animals, who laugh at him. Luckily, he meets a pig who only knows how to say ‘moo’ and the two become firm friends.  Can you remember how the cow and the pig helped each other?  Can you remember why the cow and the pig have the last laugh?

During our maths lessons, we have been starting to think about how we can apply all our super number knowledge when we are solving tricky number problems.  This week, we wondered which creatures might be inside the Ark if we know how many legs there are in total.  For example, if there are 8 legs altogether inside the ark, which creatures might be inside? Remember, there is more than one correct answer!

Our number of the week was the number 2, so we started to think about how we can count in twos (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20).  We thought this might have been a handy way for Noah to have counted the animals as they went into the Ark!

Weekend challenge:  if there are 12 legs inside the ark, how many creatures could there be inside the ark?  how many different answers can you find?

We have also been singing a song about Noah and his Ark – you might like to sing it at home…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PivDOQH1RQ0

On Thursday, I was a bit confused when I opened up the classroom door as none of the children had turned up for school!  Instead they had been replaced by two Snow Whites, Little Red Riding Hood, Elsa and Anna, a Dashing Prince, Captain Flinn from Captain Flinn and the Pirate Dinosaurs, Princess Mirror Belle, The Selfish Crocodile, the Witch from Room on the Broom, Superman, Batman and Batgirl, two Spidermen, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Sugar Plum Fairy, A Handsome King, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, a Ninja Turtle, Charlie from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a Brave Knight, a Scary Vampire, a Power Ranger, Bob the Builder and Curious George!  Here they all are, in their fantastic costumes, sitting in the Reception children’s carpet spots!

In keeping with our animal topic, lots of the teachers dressed up as animals.  There was a frog, a bird, a cat and a dog!  Can you remember why they dressed up as these animals? Which characters were they pretending to be?

During our phonics lessons this week we learnt two new digraphs – ‘oo’ and ‘ar’.  The ‘oo’ digraph is a bit naughty as it sometimes makes a long sound and other times it makes a short sound.  The trouble is, you can’t tell which sound it’s making just by looking at it. You have to try both and see which one sounds best and makes sense within the word.  For example, it makes a long sound in the word m-oo-n but a short sound in the word b-oo-k. Here is the action to help us remember ‘oo’ and distinguish between the two versions:

We also decided to pull our arms apart when saying the long ‘oo’ sound and push them back together when saying the short ‘oo’ sound.

Here is the mouth shape for the long ‘oo’ sound:

And the short ‘oo’ sound:

We also learnt the digraph ‘ar’ as in c-ar and f-ar.  Here is the action and mouth shape for this digraph:

Finally, we finished off the week with a very special visit to St. Matthew’s Church.  We walked to the church with our walk and talk partners thinking very carefully about how to keep ourselves safe when walking along the pavement and when crossing the roads.

Weekend challenge: can you make a road safety poster showing other children how to keep safe when walking on the pavement and when crossing roads? can you remember the three things to remember to keep safe? what is the curb and why do we stay away from it?

When we arrived at St.Matthew’s Church we were met by Mother Helen.  She explained that she would be giving us a tour of God’s House and she encouraged us to think about the things we have in our own homes and to look for similar things in God’s House.  For example, she asked us to think about one of the first things we do when we wake up in the morning (i.e. we wash ourselves) and to look for somewhere people might be ‘washed’ in the Church.  We also looked for somewhere to sit (just like our living rooms at home), somewhere to listen to music (just like our sound systems at home), somewhere special to eat and drink (just like our kitchen tables at home), somewhere special to read (just like a special reading place at home, perhaps snuggled up in bed) and finally, somewhere to keep our clothes (just like our wardrobes at home).  She also talked to us about how important it is to look after God’s House and, before we left, the children all helped Mother Helen to do this by doing some tidying and recycling.

A huge thank you to Mother Helen for inviting us to visit the Church and for giving us such a special tour which really helped us to think about the things we find in God’s House and how important it is to look after His House, just like we look after our things in our own homes.

Another huge thank you to the mums who came on the trip with us!