h, b, f, l Our topic for this half term is ‘Around the World’. In Literacy this week we visited Africa and listened to the West African Asanti Tale ‘The Leopard’s Drum’. Osebo the leopard has a fine drum, a huge drum, a magnificent drum. All the animals would like Osebo’s drum, but he won’t let anyone else have it, not even Nyame, the Sky-God. So, Nyame offers a big reward to the animal that brings him the drum. They all try — the monkey, the elephant, even the python — and all fail. In the end, a very small tortoise succeeds in outwitting the boastful leopard. The class helped to re-tell the story by sticking pictures in the correct order. They also imagined they had succeeded in taking the drum to the Sky-God and talked to their friends about what they would ask for as a reward. They drew pictures of their chosen rewards and wrote a label underneath. Most children are already able to hear, say and write the initial sound in words and even represent some other letters in sequence. This week in phonics, we learned a new set of letter sounds: h, b, f, l We have been playing a great game this week in phonics to help us identify the initial sound in words http://www.crickweb.co.uk/Early-Years.html Thank you to the parents who came to visit us during the phonics open morning. We hope you found it useful. This week in Maths, we have been learning to compare the length of snakes. Children compared the length of Onini, the python from the story and another snake to identify the shortest and longest snake. They also made their own playdough snakes and started to compare the length of their own snakes with their friends. Why not compare the length of two or three objects at home. Perhaps they could order the length of family members shoes. Remember to take a photo or let us know if they were successful! In addition to this, children also began to combine two groups of objects when making fruit smoothie recipes. They combined two different types of fruit and counted out a certain number of each. After that, they counted all of the fruits to find out how many they had altogether. Remember to use your own fruit bowl at home to find the total of two different types of fruit e.g. how many apples and oranges? Our topic for this half term is ‘Around the World’. WB 14/11/16 I hope your child is looking forward to the woodland visits which will begin next week on Friday 25th November. Children should arrive at school in their woodland clothes (they could wear their uniform underneath waterproof clothing). Please provide your child with a small bag containing one small drink and snack. They will carry this to the woods themselves. Children will get changed once they return to school. Please remember to provide a bag big enough to contain all of their woodland clothes and perhaps a carrier bag for dirty wellies. To help the children gain more strength and coordination in their hands, they have been using their pincer grip to carefully place small pebbles on the leopards spots this week. They also used small cotton buds to paint black spots on a template of a leopard. They practised their scissor skills when cutting a spiral to create a snake to hang from the washing line in the classroom. We listened to some African drumming and joined in tapping rhythms with our own African drums. The children explored different materials and sounds when making their own drums. Next week we will be visiting America to find out about ‘Thanksgiving’. If you have any American souvenirs, remember to bring them in. More evidence of learning is constantly being added to your children’s learning journeys and literacy/maths files. Remember to come and have a look during open classroom each Thursday. Look for the staircase symbol to find out about ‘next steps’ for your child’s learning.