Class blog 12.9.25

Our first full week has been completed and we have achieved so much learning.

Most of the Reception baselines have been completed and we have begun to get into a regular routine.

Phonics has begun daily . Reception have learnt their first 4 sounds and have had a go at blending them into words .We have also continued lots of games to practise our oral blending and segmenting skills. We are learning to form each letter correctly as we go and we are trying extremely hard. I have put in their book bags some words to have a try at if you would like to over the next week and a mini reading book that you can look at together and talk about.

In English we have drawn our family and begun to read our new text Avacado baby. We had a look at an avocado and those that were brave enough had a taste. We talked about their experience of babies and what they thought a baby needed and what they are able to do.

In maths this week, the children will be encouraged to quantify sets of objects by subitising, rather than counting. When subitising, children can say how many there are in a small group of objects by ‘just seeing’ and knowing straightaway without needing to count.

Subitising can be categorised as ‘perceptual’ or ‘conceptual’. Perceptual subitising is used for very small sets of objects (initially up to about 3) and conceptual subitising is used when sub-groups can be perceived within a larger set and the whole is recognised, e.g. if 6 dots are arranged in a dice pattern, children may recognise this as ‘two 3s’ and know this is 6. Some arrangements are easier to subitise than others, e.g. a set of 3 dots arranged in a triangular pattern may be easier to recognise than a random arrangement, and children need to be exposed to many different arrangements.

The focus for this week has been perceptual subitising. It is important that adults working with children are aware that the aim is to support children in moving away from counting for sets that can be subitised, so avoid counting ‘to check’ unless necessary. If a child names an incorrect quantity, an adult might make a suggestion such as, I think when your friend looked, they saw 3; let’s have another look, before counting if the child is still unsure.

The activities this week provide opportunities for children to:

• represent the number in a given set using different objects – e.g. showing the same number on their fingers
• name quantities with number words, (e.g. “I can see 3.”)
• match sets to numerals
• make their own arrangements that can be subitised.

Some activities are aimed at supporting children in identifying small groups of 2 or 3 within a larger set, without needing to quantify the whole set. This will support them in identifying 2s and 3s in different arrangements and will help them when they begin to move towards conceptual subitising.

Subitising is an essential feature of developing number sense. It can support children’s understanding of cardinality when counting (where the last number in a count identifies the number in the set) as they link a known quantity such as 3 with the counting sequence ‘1, 2, 3’. Subitising will also help children to identify groups and units in a repeating pattern.

We have compared groups of objects saying the language – more than,fewer than and recognising when they are the same.

White rose maths has an app called 1 minute maths which reception children have had a go with to practise their subitising skills. It's free to download.

This week we made cheese scones and ate them for our snack. They learnt a new skill -rubbing the butter into the flour and were brave enough to have a taste.

We have mixed some paint colours and printed with apples.

In RE we looked at pictures of the natural world and the animals and plants, fish and birds that God has created. We talked about their favourite thing that God has created.

Everyone was looking very tired today so have a good weekend with lots of rest.

 

Class blog 5.9.25

 

This week we have spent three days getting to know our new children and settling the other children back in. The children are very tired but have been amazing and happy to be back among their friends.

We have been exploring our new areas in the classroom and practising how to put things back when we have finished and have been learning how to play together and to sometimes have to wait for a turn.

We have had a big focus on saying please and thank you – thankfulness is our Christian value for this half term.

The children have had opportunities to talk about their holidays and to tell us all about the special people in their lives and have enjoyed lots of stories and singing.

The new children have coped brilliantly with dinner time, PE and music with Andy and Mr Clarke. We are encouraging the children to try the vegetables and to use a knife and fork. It would be lovely if you could reinforce this message at home.

They enjoyed baking apple muffins and everybody tried one.

I have been impressed the children’s independence skills. Please allow them to keep practising putting on shoes, coats jumpers etc on their own.

Reminder- Please can every child bring a full change of clothes and a book bag for letters ,paintings and books so that the books aren’t damaged in rucksacks.

Enjoy a lovely weekend together and we'll see you all next week.

Thank you

The Early Years Team.