We are off to a flying start with our letters and sounds!

Hope you have all enjoyed a good week managing to avoid the rain showers unlike us! …The heavy rains this week reminded us just how tricky it is to keep 30 excited 4 year old’s  from becoming over zealous in puddles!  Despite wearing wellies many of our little ones had to change into spare clothes as they just couldn’t help themselves!!

We chanted  the nursery rhyme :

Doctor Foster went to Gloucester
In a shower of rain;
He stepped in a puddle,
Right up to his middle,
And never went there again.

This week has been very busy staring learning our sounds. We don’t learn sounds in alphabetical order but in an order that allows us to blend and make words quickly. This week we have covered s a t p.

We use lots of methods to learn, reinforce and practice all our new sounds.  All our sounds have an accompanying action – please see the above images to see the actions. For ‘a’ we have used taking a bite out of an apple rather than the ants up the arm action.

You can find out more about this phonics programme here: http://www.letters-and-sounds.com.

 Check how the sounds should sound by watching this video clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqhXUW_v-1s

Tricky words this week have been ‘ he’ and ‘ she’.

We learn all of the sounds and tricky words rapidly and then spend the Spring term reinforcing and revisiting.

In other news,  this week has been ‘ interview week’  for various  members of our school community. Mr Quinn, ( Head teacher) Mrs Morgan,  ( Office admin) Mr Norris, ( school caretaker ) and Henrietta and Sam the head girl and boy have all been to visit us. They gave us a brief description of their roles and then opened the floor to questions. It was lovely to see the children thinking hard for appropriate questions. They were all enthralled by Mr Norris’ leaf blowing machine and quite liked the sound of the residential trips that our head boy and girl spoke about that take place further up the school. Best question of the week goes to Jack, who after listening to the many jobs Mr Quinn has to accomplish in a day asked: ‘ Do you like fish and chips?’ !

Our number work has seen us ordering more numbers, making patterns and matching actual amounts to written numbers.

Our first Number Bag of the year. The chosen number was ‘7’ and  lots of items that showed either the number ‘ 7’ or 7 objects  were brought in.  Friends to come and hold up her various items representing number 7! This weeks number bag has gone home with the lucky number being number 4!  We can’t wait to see what is brought in  next week to represent number 4.

Have a great weekend all.