Another busy week at school with the children eagerly embracing all opportunities to learn.
Maths
We read the story of Zog by Julia Donaldson and explored mathematical ideas based on the dragon flying lesson. For example: The dragons are practising their flying. First there were 7 dragons, 2 flew away, how many left? This progressed to the children making up their own subtraction problems.
During our busy finger sessions, the children also began looking at number bonds to 10. They used tweezers to pick up pompoms and placed them into the holes of Numicon pieces. We are planning to continue to investigate number bonds next week. At home, parents can challenge their child to separate objects into pairs of numbers that, when added together, give the number 10. Perhaps use 10 favourite toys or 10 pieces of fruit.
We also played the ‘Compare the Number’ game suggested in my blog on Monday. I was impressed at how well the children listened to each other’s ideas.
Letters and Sounds
This week we revisited the following sounds:
ee – see, feet, meet, deep, week
igh – tight, light, fight, might, high, right, tonight
oa – coat, goat, soap, road, boatman
oo (short) – look, good, foot, cook
oo (long) – zoom, moon, food
All these sounds can be found in children’s Letters and Sounds books. Watch the following short video to hear how each sound is pronounced.
Now that the children are familiar with the sound of each letter, we are also learning the letter names. One way of explaining this to children is that a dog makes the sound ‘woof’ but its name is ‘dog’. We played ‘Alphabet Bingo’ in our Letters and Sounds lesson and the children enjoyed playing the game independently during learning through play.
We are scientists!
As you are probably aware, Reception 2 are particularly fascinated by colour mixing and enjoy experimenting with different materials in the water tray. It was lovely to hear the children declaring that they were ‘scientists’ and we decided to create our own science experiment.
The children were very keen for me to share this experiment with you at home. I have a feeling they would like to try it again!
You will need:
Milk (whole or 2%)
Dinner plate
Food colouring (red, yellow, green, blue)
Washing up liquid
Cotton buds
What to do:
Pour enough milk in the dinner plate to completely cover the bottom to the depth of about 1/4″. Allow the milk to settle.
Add one drop of each of the four colours of food colouring — red, yellow, blue, and green — to the milk. Keep the drops close together in the centre of the plate of milk.
Use a clean cotton bud for the next part of the experiment. Encourage your child to predict what will happen when you touch the tip of the cotton swab to the centre of the milk. It’s important not to stir the mix. Just touch it with the tip of the cotton swab.
Now place a drop of liquid dish soap on the other end of the cotton bud. Place the soapy end of the cotton bud back in the middle of the milk and hold it there for 10 to 15 seconds. Look at that burst of colour! It’s like fireworks night!
Add another drop of soap to the tip of the cotton swab and try it again. Experiment with placing the cotton bud at different places in the milk. Notice that the colours in the milk continue to move even when the cotton bud is removed.
Story Telling
The children have been adapting the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff this week. Each day we retold the story with different characters. Ideas suggested were unicorns, dinosaurs, knights, kings and princesses.
My favourite suggestion was The Three Trolls who stamped and stomped across the bridge instead of trip, trap. Guess who popped up from under the bridge shouting ‘Who goes stamp, stomping over my bridge’? Yes, it was The Big Billy Goat Gruff!
Handwashing Station
Finally, I thought I would share this picture of a super ‘handwashing station’ created by the children using the building blocks. We did, of course, ensure that the children understood we must use clean, fresh water when washing our hands for real. However, I thought it was a lovely example of how the children have embraced the way the world has changed in recent months.
Wishing you all a wonderful weekend.
Mrs Palmer