Another busy week…
Here’s a snapshot of another busy week, here in Foundation:
We have also been busy with writing inspired by our story; The Princess and The Wizard by Julia Donaldson. Be sure to take a look at our phonics focused display to see the work by our Star Writer this week. Well done Teddy!
In Monday’s PE, the children enjoyed their first gymnastics session. On Thursday, F2 began to learn a very special dance based on animal movements, which links to next week’s celebration focus.
On Friday we had a lovely reflection time, where we spoke about our special friends and the people in our lives who make us feel loved. You can take a look at our thoughts and feelings in the scrap book located on the reflection cube in the classroom.
Home-link Challenge
Next week in class we will be thinking about the celebration of Chinese New Year. Please introduce your child to the celebration and any facts you can find. We will be watching a video to introduce children to the celebration. You can find the link here if you would like to watch it at home together too.
First week back…
Welcome back Foundation!
We hope you all had a fabulous Christmas and New Year.
This week, our Turrets and Tiaras topic has got off to a good start! The children have loved exploring the new role play area. They have enjoyed dressing up and acting like Kings and Queens. In literacy, we looked at different castles around the world and the different parts of a castle. The F2 children designed their own castles and wrote invitations to a party at a castle.
In maths, we are looking at the number 7. The children used Numicon to make 7 in different ways. The children were brilliant at noticing the numbers within 7.
“I can see 6 and 1.” “I can see 5 and 2.” “I can see 3 lots of 2 and 1 more”
At the beginning of the year, the F2 children did a self-portrait. On Wednesday, the children used the mirrors to draw another self-portrait. It was great to see the progress from September to now! Come and have a look at their updated self-portraits.
Christmas Party!
What a great end to the Autumn term! Have a lovely Christmas Foundation and Year 1/2.
Turrets and Tiaras!
This week the children spoke about their current interests and what they would like to learn about after the Christmas holidays. Kings, queens, princesses, knights and unicorns were all popular suggestions, so we will be starting with a Turrets and tiaras theme!
Preparations are already under way…
To help prepare your child for the topic, we would like you to either introduce or re-introduce your child to our royal family as a People and Communities focused Home-Link Challenge.
You could find pictures of the royal family and add their names, draw a picture of a castle or palace which is one of their homes, maybe look at past kings and queens and make a ‘family tree’ together, talk about the places you might see the queens image (money, stamps etc.) Anything you like! It would be lovely to have some writing and/or artwork or creations to put on our role play display board too.
If you would like to send us images to print, please send to our email address: stjameseyfs@spherefederation.org
Enjoy the break with your families. We look forward to welcoming you back on the 6th January!
Christmas Fun!
Well done Foundation for another amazing term!
Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year!
A Wriggly Nativity
A huge well done to our superstar performers in Our ‘Wriggly Nativity’ this week. We are so proud of your hard-work over the past few weeks, learning lines, songs and dances.
Thank you to our families who provided costumes and came to watch us in the audience.
Home-link Challenge w/c: 9 December 2019
F2 Children
Please practise letter formation/ handwriting.
Using the sheets we have previously sent home with phrases to say and follow for formation will help.
Some particularly tricky graphemes to write are: e, f, g, k (with a loop), q, w, y.
Common reversals (facing the graphemes the wrong way) to practise are: a, b/d/p, j
Please encourage your child to use a pencil as this requires additional physical skills such as the correct pressure to apply and pencil grip.
F1 Children
Strengthening your child’s writing and fine motor skills can be through picture drawing or drawing a pattern for your child to follow. Like the examples below:
Please encourage your child to engage with one of these activities at home. Marks can be made using pencils, felt tips, chalk, paint- anything that leaves a mark!
Another busy week in Foundation!
In maths our focus number is number 6. F2 children used the Numicon to make 6 in different ways. We have also been making up number stories using the polar animals. We are going to continue this learning next week.
We try to make phonics fun and active for the children. This week we played Musical Blending. The children dance around and when the music stops they jump on a CVC word and blend it. This is a simple game you can play at home!
One of the challenges this week was to paint an icy picture using their fingers. The children mixed white and blue to make different shades of blue.
The Gingerbread Man
“Run, run, as fast as you can…”
This week, Foundation are learning the story of The Gingerbread Man. We started the week by learning our new story with actions for re-telling, before F2 created their own story maps.
We have used the tale in Maths to think about ordinal language (first, second, third etc), by ordering when each character is met in the story.
Today we made our very own gingerbread men. We looked at the recipe on the computer and followed it step by step as a class, taking turns to add ingredients and mix them (after washing our hands of course!) We then all rolled our own piece of dough, used the cutters to make the shape and later decorated them once baked. We used so many skills…
- Listening and understanding.
- Getting information from print, linking to technology and reading.
- Careful measurements.
- Fine motor skills; rolling, pressing, mixing.
- Choosing our own way to do things when decorating (characteristic of effective learning)
- Health and self-care; hygiene practices when handling food.
and best of all, we got a yummy treat at the end of it!
F2 followed their baking by writing some instructions for others to follow should they wish to make their own gingerbread man.
Ask your child how to make a gingerbread man.
If you do make one at home, just be careful he doesn’t try to run away!
Community Week
We have had a great week thinking about our local and school communities, about the people who keep us safe and look after us and about our own personal identities.
Some of the people who work in our school community shared the work that they do with Foundation…
Children shared their favourite places from their local community…
and their special items that identify them and make them unique…
and we had a special, exciting visit from Wetherby Fire Station where we asked lots of questions and got to explore the fire engine! We are so grateful for the people who keep us safe in our community.
We have learnt to value and be proud of the places and people in our community this week. Thank you to everyone who makes our community the wonderful place it is.