Sneak preview of our theme next week.

We are now moving into our new topic area about "Can I switch it on'

As the nights are drawing in and it is getting dark outside we are having to turn on those lights earlier and earlier.

As part of our maths within this topic this week we  will be talking to the children about time. Beginning simply with the concept of ' night' and 'day'.

Our story this week is Night Monkey and Day Monkey written by Julia Donaldson.

This story is also going to help introduce the nnnnn sound and ddddd sound found in a lot of the cvc words the children are starting to blend.

You may have heard the children talk about their “Dojo” points recently so we thought we would give you a little information about these funny little creatures

 

We have created a character for each child in the Foundation unit as a way of rewarding positive behaviour. When we have noticed the children doing something positive and they have shown that they are a good role model to the rest of the class, we ask them to press on their dojo character.

 

They are then shown a list of skills and we reinforce how well they have done by pressing the skill they have used. It then adds points onto their own personal Dojo.

At the moment the children are just enjoying the experience of getting a Dojo point. There may be certain times in the year where we set challenges to reach  a certain number of points.

 

We have decided to do that over the next half term in fact! We have added an extra little character to our class. He is called Sleepy Head!

Lots of the mums and dads have been letting us know that they have been having long nights where their children have had trouble sleeping. As parents too,  we remember those days (some of us are still going through them!) We wanted to see if we could help, even if it was just a small gesture. 

 

Sometimes having a little incentive from school can just give parents a tactic, helping them to persuade their little ones to go to bed.

 

We had a chat with the children and talked to them about the reasons why they needed a good night's sleep. We talked about how they need to sleep if they want to grow strong and healthy. The children themselves said that they are often grumpy and tired if they have not had a good day and can sometimes end up getting into trouble. We also talked about how mummies and daddies also need a good night sleep so being woken up doesn’t help them be in a good mood!

 

So as an incentive we said that if they had had a good night’s sleep, the grown up they come to school with could just quietly let Mrs Boon, Mrs Lindley or Mrs Gerrard know, either in person or send us a message on Tapestry, then at some point in the day we would take their child aside to let them put a Dojo point onto Sleepy Heads character. We reminded the children that it has to be the grown-ups that tell us not them! When Sleepy head has reached the grand total of 100 points, we will arrange for a mini pyjama party one afternoon!

 

We are going to keep this reward quite low key as we are always very careful not to build up children’s expectations that they will get a reward every time they do something correctly. We want them to understand that feeling proud when they reach a goal is also a reward in itself.  

However, as it has been a difficult year and so many of you have mentioned sleeping as a cause for concern we thought we would try to support all of your efforts!

 

If you want further information about bed-time routines that can help, here is one link that may be of assistance. Let us know if you want to have a more detailed chat.

 

https://www.booktrust.org.uk/books-and-reading/tips-and-advice/bath-book-bed/faqs/

 

One other Dojo incentive we will be introducing next week – Show and tell Dojo!

If you have uploaded something from home on your child’s Tapestry Journal, then we will give them a ‘Something from home’ Dojo and give them some “Show and Tell’ time where they can talk about their achievement or activity.

Let us know if you are having any trouble with your child’s Tapestry account so we can get you all connected.

 

Welcome b b b b b b back!

This week as the children are probably still thinking about Halloween and bonfire night is on its way.  We are going to have 'Room on the Broom' as our story focus this week.

If you haven't got this story to read with your child, then watch this video.

or you can click here and you will be taken to the  BBCiPlayer to watch the longer animated tale.

We will be looking at the witches b b boots as a way of linking it to our RWI letter of the week 'b'

Down the boot, back up and around the laces!

We will be sorting out our school wellington boot collection into matching pairs and painting a beautiful matching set of boots for the busy witch to wear!

We will be watching  Evie and Dodge learn about the letter b and we will go on a letter b hunt around the classroom. Why not have a letter b hunt at home too and send us a photo of the things you find by adding an observation on your Tapestry journal. We love to see the things you do at home!

We will be learning a simple song about the story too. Here is the video that gave us the inspiration but we will try and make our own video  and swap it over so you can see us all singing along!

For children who are already familiar with the letter b we will be extending  their learning by looking at the 'oo' sound used in 'room on the broom'

To support this we will also be looking at the stories of "Poo at the Zoo" and Dear Zoo.

Poo at the Zoo is also the phrase that we say to help the children remember the digraph 'oo' (a digraph is when two letters join together to make one new sound)