Dear parents,
This week in Kites we have been looking at polar animals, after the children took a keen interest in them last week. We have read books ‘Sneezy the Snowman’ by Maureen Wright and ‘Jonty Gentoo’ by Julia Donaldson as well as ‘When Grandad was a Penguin’ by Morag Hood . Coincidentally, we were visited by a family of penguins who we think must have got lost on their way to Antarctica. This has led to some great discussions about where penguins come from and we did a lot of research about animals in the Arctic and Antarctica- looking at climate and how animals are adapted to these specific environments. The children particularly enjoyed this Penguin dance.
In Music, we worked on keeping the rhythm or pulse with known nursery rhymes and explored what happened when we changed the tempo of the song, ‘We are Family’ (By Sister Sledge). We had a good boogie, but Miss Worlock showed us that if we slowed the tempo down so did our dance moves! We also explored pitch with an online Music maker- we observed how the music trees got smaller the pitch got higher and the taller the trees, the lower the pitch. We got to change the tempo too.
In Phonics we are now in new groups- which are chosen to suit the needs of your children and we have analysed gaps in sounds; focusing on these in whole class and 1:1 teaching. We are going over sounds that children have forgotten or found tricky from last term and some children are revising special friends and using these in reading and word writing. When the children get to this stage, they had to learn how to spot the special friends (digraphs), Fred talk (by segmenting) , then read the word (blending).
An example of this stage is here: Special friends, Fred talk
In Maths we have been looking at pattern in number . Children who did this activity have got a copy of it in their bag with the numbers they need to focus on practising noted on the sheet. Any help you can give you child to practise forming these will be really beneficial. I have also recorded a Ten Town formation video attached to help with the rhymes.
In PE- we had the chance to explore our new playground equipment. We warmed up by moving like different polar animals, then practised balancing on beams with beanbags on our heads and making different routes with the stepping stones. In Art the children have been completing their colour mixing activity by making rainbows and will then be moving on to a project next week by studying Mondrian. In cooking we have all managed to make a bird feeder to help the birds through the Winter.
Next week we are continuing to look at polar animals with a focus on bears- of all different shapes and sizes. We will be writing postcards from Antarctica, doing a bear scavenger hunt, looking at more non-fiction books, writing facts and questions as well as continuing our fantastic Mondrian project with our helper, Joy. Our main book focus will be We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, which we will be using to focus on performance and sequencing. In Maths we are looking at bonds to 5 and 10; using these to explore number sentences .
Challenge: Can you write a fact about a polar animal and share it for show and tell? You will earn a team point for having a go!
Reminders:
Monday 20th PTA AGM & meet the Head Teacher evening
Thursday 23rd KS1 Drama 4 all workshop in hall am
Monday 27th Kites weighing & measuring
Wednesday 29th Chinese New Year – year of the snake
Tuesday 11th Safer Internet Day
Thursday 13th Disco
We hope you have a great weekend, see you on Monday!
The Kites Team.
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