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Welcome back!

We hope you all had a lovely half term, it has been wonderful to see all the boys again. On Monday the boys wrote about their half term holidays and shared some of their magic moments, thank you for completing these.

We started our new topic of ‘Traditional Tales’. We began by reading the story ‘The Jolly Postman’, where the Jolly Postman delivers post to many traditional tale characters. Our role play area is now the ‘Jolly Post Office’.

On Tuesday morning Mrs Hillcoat came in to visit RGC and RGM to read a story to the boys in Spanish. The boys learnt a few key words and some other words within the story. They noticed that lots of words sound similar to English words. It was a lovely experience, which all the boys enjoyed. If you would like to share another language at school we would very much welcome a visit.

During phonics we have been consolidating the letter sounds taught so far and structuring sentences to include these. The boys are doing very well with this. We hope they enjoy writing sentences in their phonics homework this weekend.

In Computing the boys continued to explore the Bee-Bots, this week using an ipad app:

In Maths we learnt about doubling. The boys thoroughly enjoyed this concept and they used mental methods and their fingers to work out their answers.

For the maths activity this week, could you please explore doubling on your computer. The machine in the link below will double numbers up to 20. Before the machine calculates the answer, please double the number using your fingers. If doubling 6 and above, put one number in your head and count on with your fingers. Check to see if you got the same answer as the machine. Have fun!

http://www.iboard.co.uk/iwb/Function-Machine-603

Here are some other things we got up to this week:

The boys love to create models during their ‘Explore and Learn’ time (child initiated play). We welcome any unwanted recycling you have at home for the boys to turn into models at any point in the year.

The star boys for next week are as follows:

Monday: Rufus

Tuesday: Sahil

Wednesday: Udodi

Thursday: Zach (New show and tell theme to follow)

Friday: Alex Lee

Have a lovely weekend!

Miss Goring and Mrs MacNeill

4

Have a Happy Half Term!

We began our week by writing in our new ‘News books’. Each Monday we will be writing sentences in our news books about our weekends. The boys enjoyed listening to everyone’s weekend events.

At the beginning of the week we learnt about how to be safe when using computers, ipads and phones. We listened to a wonderful story and the boys were praised for their excellent listening, ideas and contributions.

This week in maths we learnt about 3D shapes. The boys thoroughly enjoyed naming and describing the properties consisting of the edges, faces and corners. They had great fun playing matching and memory games. One particular games we played was the ‘feely bag’ game, where you describe the properties of the shape for your friends to guess.

For the maths activity this week could you please find the following shapes: cube, cuboid, cylinder, sphere, cone and a pyramid. If you do not have all these shapes in your house, then using a selection of the shapes will also be excellent. Please play the ‘feely bag’ game, or alternatively cover some 3D shapes with a blanket. To play this, hide the shapes in a bag or blanket. Take it in turns to feel and describe the shapes to your family, by describing how many edges, corners and faces it has e.g. “This shape has 6 square faces, 8 corners and 12 straight edges”. The other person would then guess this to be a cube. Have lots of fun!

In Understanding the World we learnt about the sun. The boys were fascinated by the sun’s sheer size, heat and composition. We labelled the sun with facts that we learnt.

In PE the boys have been enjoying learning how to balance balls on tennis rackets, bounce and catch ball off of a racket and stop moving balls.

 

In Expressive Arts and Design the boys enjoyed making shadow puppets and making shadows using the Interactive Whiteboard.

The Show and tell theme after half term will continue to be ‘Weather’ for 2 weeks:

Monday: Louis

Tuesday: Mateo

Wednesday: Max

Thursday: Rhys

Friday: Rory

We hope you all have a relaxing and enjoyable half term!

Miss Goring and Mrs MacNeill

4

Chinese New Year

This week we have been celebrating Chinese New Year, Jamie and Jai told us about some of their family traditions, which were wonderful to hear. We learnt about the Chinese New Year story and how the twelve animals swam in a race and are used in the Chinese zodiac. The boys reenacted the race using masks and river sound effects. Furthermore, we created our own Dragon Dance to Chinese music.

This week we have had lots of fun exploring different types of measurement. At the beginning of the week we learnt about height and length. We investigated using hands as a non-standard form of measurement. The boys then measured each other using their hands, taking care not to overlap or leave gaps. During the later half of the week, we learnt about weight. Using the weighing scales caused much intrigue and fascination as to what would be the heaviest/ lightest and why. The boys have done very well to correctly use the associated vocabulary.

The maths activity for homework this week is as follows:

Select a variety of objects in your house to weigh. Make sure you have items of varying heights, lengths and materials. Estimate which objects will be the heaviest and the lightest. When estimating, give reasoning for your predictions e.g. this one is longer, or this one is made from a harder material. Weigh these in turn and then put the objects in the correct order in a line from lightest to heaviest. Talk about your findings at the end.

Next, measure everyone in your family using hands as a non-standard unit of measurement, as pictured below. You can also use a measuring tape to see what number this would be. Please write your findings in the comments box. Have fun!

 

During Computing, the boys learnt how to use the Beebots, which are small programmable robots.

 

In Expressive Arts and Design, the boys made Chinese lanterns. They also made some beautiful snow pictures. Furthermore, Reception completed some printing inspired by the ‘woodlands’, they even got to visit the art room with Miss Hawkins!

 

Here are some other things we got to this week:

  

Our starboys for next week are as follows:

Monday: Charlie

Tuesday: Demi

Wednesday: Jai

Thursday: Jamie

Friday: Jude

Have a super weekend

Miss Goring and Mrs MacNeill