Another week, another traditional tale!

This week we will be sharing the story of Cinderella… Just like Puss in Boots and Dick Whittington... A tale that has been passed down through generations. We will be looking at several versions of the story and talking about how they are similar and different. 

In our phonics sessions we will be exploring the ‘s’ sound and how it doesn’t always appear as ‘s’ like in Cinderella.

Have a go at blending this week's sounds with the Alphablocks...

For those who are beginning to use their special friends (two letters that make one sound). We will be focusing on the 'er' digraph... 'er' as in Cinderella!

Here's Abbi telling you all about the 'er' digraph...

Can you think of any words with the 'er' digraph in?

Well where will Cinderella live now that she’s happily married to the Prince?
...In a castle of course! This is our Makaton sign for the week. Check out how to sign 'castle' with Lucinda and her Mum here.

We will be looking at castles from around the world and talking about their key features. We will then apply this knowledge to construct our very own castles. Watch this space for pictures of our creations!
Here is the key vocabulary we will be covering:

Can you have a go at creating your own shape castle at home? (Attached below)

In maths, we are coming to the end of our 'Alive in 5' topic... The children have been amazing at representing five in different ways and applying their number knowledge to solve problems. Check out some of the activities we have been doing in the PDF below or follow this link.
This week will be exploring capacity and trying to find out which magic potion bottles will hold the most liquid. We'll also be making cakes, carefully measuring out the ingredients. 

Our song of the week is ‘Sing a song of Sixpence’ – we will be using this as a hook to explore how things have changed since the olden days. 

Our weekly dance n beats will be ‘Knock, Knock' just like the Prince knocking on all the doors to find the owner of the glass slipper!

 

This week to continue with our ‘Once Upon a time’ topic… We are getting stuck in to two stories that both feature cats as their main characters! They also both set off on exciting adventures to London!

These stories were created 100’s of years ago and have been told in lots of different ways.

We’ll be starting the week off with ‘Puss in Boots’ (of course featuring our special friend digraph ‘oo’)

Welcome back after your Christmas Holiday.

Did any of you go to see a pantomime?

Over the next few weeks we are going to be learning all about tales that have been used in pantomimes.

Oh yes we are........

To start off with we are going to read a couple of stories written by famous storytellers from a long time ago. The Snow Queen was written by  Hans Christian Anderson and Snow White was written by the Brothers Grimm.

Here is a quick reminder of the stories.

 

 

Our stories support our phonics as usual and for children just starting to learn their set 1 RWI sounds we will be looking at the letters   's' and 'a' for the apple that snow-white bites into. 

     

Click here to visit Evie and Dodge introducing the letter 's' as well as using the CBeebies alphabet songs to sing about words starting with the 's' sound.

Maybe have a go at blending a few single sounds together to make a word using 's'?

For children who have moved onto their set 2 RWI digraphs (special friends)  we are going to start applying the 'ow' and the 'qu' special friends into our writing.

 

If you want to have a go at home practising your phonics much in the same way we do at school take a look at Abi's phonics for 'ow' and 'qu'.

 

 

Our rhymes this week are introducing Princesses, Princes, Kings and Queens!

 

Our 5 minutes of morning movement is Drip Drop Rain..... see below. 

To learn how to communicate in different ways we will continue our focus on signing. Our signs this week are all about the weather.

For our maths this week we will be starting our White Rose Maths  "Alive in 5" focus.

We will be introducing the concept of zero and learn how to count backwards from 5 and then count backwards from 10. 

We will be singing the song "5 currant buns in a bakers shop" to help the children take one bun away at a time and count back to having no buns left ..... 0!

 

 

This week we are going to ask the question - Do animals sleep at night too?

We will be using the story "Owl Babies" to teach the children about nocturnal animals such as owls, foxes, bats and, hedgehogs and badgers.

Here is the delightful animation of the story.

As usual we will be linking our phonics to our story of the week.

We will be checking that the children recognise the letter 'o' and are going in the anticlockwise direction as they try to write it.To help with that we have started to say "back around the orange" This gives the children a little prompt as to which direction they go when they start to write it.

We will also be introducing the special friends (two letters, one sound) 'oo' as in twit two! and  we will be explaining the 'ow' in owl.

  

As some of the children are not able to be in school at the moment here are a couple of phonics lessons for you to play.