This week, we said goodbye to the grasslands of Africa and headed east on our magic carpet. Our next stop (as inspired by the story of ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’) was the Yangtze River, which is the third longest river in the world in the third largest country in the world – China! Unfortunately, we couldn’t find a safe landing spot, so instead, we looked down on the river as we flew over it (and a few of the other 1,499 rivers in the country!).

We discovered that something rather special is happening in China at the moment; this weekend, celebrations will be taking place to mark the Lunar New Year, also known as the Spring Festival. “Lunar New Year is celebrated in many Asian countries, including China, Vietnam, the Koreas, Singapore, and Malaysia. Though some traditions are shared, others are unique to each country’s cultural identity” (https://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/festivals/chinese-new-year-vs-lunar-new-year.htm)

As we were visiting the Yangtze River, we decided to learn more about the traditions that are specific to China. First, we read the story of the Chinese zodiac which explains how the 12 years of the zodiac cycle were named after the 12 different animals in a race across a large river – just like the Yangtze! The Jade Emperor decided that whichever animal won the race would have the first year named after it.  The second animal to cross the finish line would have the second year named after it, then the third, fourth, fifth and so on. We all thought the rat was not very kind and friendly and we felt sorry for the ox.  Can you remember why? There was lots of discussion about which animal we thought should have one the race!

2023 will be the year of the rabbit and you can revisit the story here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/stories/lets-celebrate-chinesenewyearperformance

Have a look at the zodiac picture below.  Can you use the words first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth to talk about the picture and the story of the zodiac.  Find out which year you were born in and use the zodiac picture to find out which animal year you were born in. 

Can you find out when some of the people in your family were born?  This chart will help you find out about the grown-ups in your family and which animal year they were born in:

We also felt a bit sorry for the pig and wondered why it had come last in the race. We thought it might be because pigs are not very good swimmers. We decided to ask Google about this and discovered that pigs are actually very good swimmers and that there is a place in the Bahamas called Pig Beach where you can find pigs swimming in the sea!

We read the delightful story of The Pig in the Pond which made us all laugh, especially at the end! You can re-read this story by Jill Barton and Martin Waddell here:

Next, we met a girl called Abbie who explained how she and her family prepare to celebrate Chinese New Year by cleaning their house and decorating it. Later, Abbie watched a parade on the street and saw a dragon dance! You can re-watch these clips here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/chinese-new-year?collection=chinese-lunar-new-year

Our last spotlight story of the week was another story set on a river with lots of animals and a man called Mr Gumpy! We learnt that the word ‘squabble’ is another word for ‘quarrel’ which is used in the version of the story of the Chinese zodiac that we read. We talked about these words meaning to argue or to not agree with someone you are talking to. And we agreed that everyone argues sometimes but it is kind and friendly to do good listening when you disagree with someone, listen to their ideas and try not get too cross! You can re-read the story here:

In our phonics lessons, we learnt 3 new sounds: z, x and sh.

Please note that x is quite a tricky sound to say – it might help to think of it as two sounds (k and s) said together. If you Fred-talk the word f-o-x, it might help you to isolate the final sound and hear this as ks.

The sound sh (as in ship, sheep, fish, etc.) is the first of several digraphs we will be learning. A digraph is a single sound (or phoneme) that is represented by two letters (or graphemes). In the Read, Write, Inc Phonics program that we use here at St. Matthew’s, we call digraphs ‘special friends’. Here are the picture prompts for these sounds:

And a reminder of the handwriting sayings:

In our maths lessons, we have been matching numerals to quantities and playing lots of games of ‘show me’: your partner calls out a number (or shows you a numeral) and you have to quickly show them the same quantity on your fingers (without counting your fingers!).

The reverse of this is a game we play called ‘do not count, see the amount’ – where your partner shows you a quantity of fingers and you have to say the amount without counting – by subitising instead.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/numberblocks-see-the-amount

We hope everyone is having a lovely weekend, see you on Monday!