Willow

FOLLOWING ON FROM THE WELFARE EMAIL SENT DURING THE EASTER BREAK, IF YOU HAVEN'T BEEN IN TOUCH WITH ME OR BEEN INTO THE UNITED CHILDCARE PROVISION DURING THE PAST TWO WEEKS, I WOULD BE MOST GRATEFUL IF YOU COULD EMAIL ME AGAIN AS WE WANT TO ENSURE THAT ALL OF OUR FAMILIES ARE STILL WELL. 

PLEASE USE THE:

willowclass@ruishton.oak.education EMAIL ADDRESS

MANY THANKS.

Sunday 24th May 2020

On the Oak Partnership YouTube channel, you will find a range of staff from the Oak Partnership reading stories and the weekly virtual assembly recordings.  Click here.

Under the maths tab, I have added some materials to practice secure counting to 20 and number recognition for numbers 0-20. I have also added a Hairy Maclary one more, one less game under the appropriate tab.

Under the English tab, I have added reading and writing resources related to Jack and the Beanstalk.

You can also look at all of the activities on the Virtual school.

I hope that you are enjoying the photos which show what we your classmates are doing at home. Stay safe.

Mrs Curry 

You may also enjoy some of the following games

Blast off  is a mental maths game for 5 to 8 year olds which can help you to know your two digit numbers and help with addition and subtraction skills. It covers different vocabulary such as more than, less than, count on and count back.

Symmetry Matching   Symmetry matching game involving mirroring pictures, shapes and patterns along lines of symmetry.

 Shape train patterns  is a sequencing game where children from 3 to 8 years of age need to complete the pattern of different coloured 2D shapes. Three levels of difficulty.

The Teddy Numbers game can help you to learn numbers to 15. Learn the digits and words for the numbers and it game can help you learn to count too.

Ladybird Spots  - Three different counting, matching and ordering maths games based on the numbers 1 to 10 for early years children.

Being out of routine can be very challenging for children, I am therefore attaching some reward chart templates which may be useful.   

Phonics

Please find below a link for Phonics Play, a website to support the development of phonics.  The username and passwords are as follow:

Username:  march20

Password: home

https://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/

16/3/2020 - The above activities can be downloaded and printed or they could be the prompt for reading/ maths discussions with your child.

They are aimed at consolidating the number bonds to 10 work which we have been doing and developing an understanding of what is being read.

Free resources and activity ideas!

The following website may be useful for parents to access at home.  It outlines resources which can be used across the curriculum and may support home learning or the consolidation of activities being practised in school.  

The following code should be used when access the site:

Code UKTWINKLHELPS

World Book Day 2020

This year we had a new challenge - to come to school dressed as a word!  There were lots of fantastic costumes and the children enjoyed looking at all of the different costumes throughout the day as well as sharing books with some of the year 5 children from Sycamore class in the afternoon. 

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Our focus story this half-term is Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  The children all felt that Goldilocks was very naughty not to have listened to her mum and to have gone into the Three Bears cottage without permission!

To help us get more involved with the story and for those children who hadn't tried porridge, Mrs Keene arranged a porridge tasting session this week.  The children LOVED it as you will see from the photos!

Science Activity

We filled a balloon with bicarbonate of soda and put some vinegar in a plastic bottle.  We carefully put the neck of the balloon over the neck of the bottle and then tipped the bicarbonate of soda into the vinegar.  The children were very excited to see the balloon inflate!   They then enjoyed using the pipettes to put vinegar into their own pot of bicarbonate of soda and watching the results.  

                         Sticky Ice activity

As we are currently in winter, we talked about the weather and what we know about ice.  The children were able to tell me alot about what they already knew about ice.  

We tried an experiment with adding salt to ice cubes floating in water.  When a piece of string/ wool is laid on top of the ice cubes and the string/ wool is then slowly elevated, some of the ice cubes stick to the wool/string.  We talked about what the salt might be doing to the ice to make it 'sticky' (especially as the ice cubes had been very slippery when Mrs Curry tried to get them out of the tray!).

Chicks in Willow Class

We have enjoyed having the incubator in Willow class and the children have been very excited to see the eggs hatch this week.  We have talked about the life cycle of a hen in science and worked together to make a word bank of topic words for the chicks which helped the children to label chick pictures.  However, the best part was holding the chicks, as you will see from the pictures below! 

Helicopter Stories

On Fridays, we now have a 'Helicopter' stories session.  The children are all given the opportunity to make up and tell  their own stories to Mrs Curry, who writes the stories in our class book.  

We then act out the stories, with the story writer choosing who plays the roles in the story and how it should be acted.  The children have loved the 2 sessions which we have had so far!

Active Children

Alongside the Pre-School, we are working with SASP to ensure that all of our youngest learners develop a healthy, active lifestyle as early in life as possible.  To help us with this, we have asked for your input, to enable us to understand what you already do at home and what school/pre-school could offer to broaden or enhance experiences.

You should all have received a link asking you to complete a short online survey and we would be very grateful for as many responses as possible, to help us gain a fuller picture.

Activity guidelines from the Chief Medical Officer are attached below. 

In school, the children are active for up to 90 minutes a day (as part of their play-times), they regularly take part in 'The Golden Mile' (a walking/ jogging route, which they complete before playtime) and they are encouraged to be as active as possible during the school day by accessing free-flow provision.

Additionally, they will undertake a range of activities away from school.

Further advice and guidelines to reduce sedentary behaviour and improve sleep amongst the under 5s can be found on the SASP website, the link for which is below.

Week ending 11th October

In phonics this week we have continued to practise consolidating previously taught sounds whilst introducing new sounds: /p/, /g/ and /o/.

In maths we are looking at closely at how numbers are made up.  For example, we are thinking about different ways of adding two numbers to make 4 and 5.  This will help the children to have a really sound foundation for future maths teaching.

The children have also enjoyed a second PE session with the sports coaches as you will see from the photos.

Week ending 4th October

Thank you to all of the parents who attended the KS1/EY harvest service.  We hope that you enjoyed seeing your child taking part in their first school 'performance'.  They all did brilliantly!

This week in phonics, we have learned the sounds: /t/, /i/ and /n/ and we have started to think about how we blend these sounds to make words.

We have continued to use the Numicon resources to help the children start to develop a secure understanding of number and how it is represented.

Phonics and maths

We have started to learn phonics in groups this week.  So far we have learned the sounds: /m/, /a/, /s/ and /d/ and we are learning how to write them.

In maths, we are using Numicon to ensure that the children have a secure understanding of the numbers 0-10.

The children are also enjoying a range of activities to develop a range of skills, including fine motor skills for writing.

Welcome to a new school year!

The children are all now settling well into our class routines.  They are enjoying staying for lunch and we look forward to them staying for full days from Monday 23rd September.

Please be aware that school lunches must be ordered online by a Wednesday evening for the following week.  If you have any queries or problems, please speak to the staff in the school office.

I will add information about what we are doing and add clips of activities/ songs which we have enjoyed in class.  For example, the children are enjoying the Dough Disco, so I attach a link below.

PRIME

To develop a lifelong love of learning and valuable life skills, we aim to support every child to develop a positive learning and life approach.  As part of this, you will increasingly become aware of the characteristics of PRIME. 

Nelson (our school mascot) accompanies and illustrates each strand of this.  

I attach a 'poster' to identify each of the characteristics of PRIME which we will be aiming to develop in every child during their time at Ruishton school.  Please see below.

Behavioural Expectations

For your information, I now attach an outline of the behaviour expected of our children as they move through Reception class and on into Key stage 1.  This should be read in conjunction with the school's behaviour policy.  

As the children progress through Willow class, they will be supported and guided towards meeting the level of behaviour expected.  This is a gradual and ongoing process.  Please speak to Mrs Curry if you have any questions.

Maths Games

Have a look at the addition and subtraction section of the website.  You can set the sliders to change the level of difficulty.  Have a go!