We are becoming much more confident adding two numbers together. This week the circles have been developing their skills in working out ‘rainbow 10s’.  These are the two numbers that go together to make ten. They have been learning to solve missing rainbow 10s numbers such as 6+?=10 using a variety of different materials and thinking processes.

The triangles are developing their skills in adding using cubes and their fingers. They enjoyed using the bean bags and roller to develop their skills in counting in 10s. They have also been learning to use numberlines to add 1 quickly.

Many of the children also chose to be a ‘teacher’ during maths time. They demonstrated a very good understanding of new maths concepts which they confidently taught to others.

Here are a selection of maths photos from this week.

Today we painted our clay Diwa lamps.  We confidently mixed and created a range of colours using only red, blue, yellow and white.  We also tried to share nice comments about each other’s designs as part of friendship week.

P1D will be visiting the beach ballroom on Wednesday 25th November to attend the children’s literacy awards.  Please ensure your child arrives to school promptly on this day.  We will be having a late snack so please encourage your child to eat a big breakfast on Wednesday morning. School uniform must be worn.

I have spoken to the parent helpers that we require for the trip.  If I did not speak to you about the trip then you are not required.  Thank you very much for your offer to help – I was overwhelmed by the amount of offers we received!  We have limited spaces on the bus and in the beach ballroom.

We have been talking about friendship as part of anti-bullying week.  Today we watched a short film which showed us kind friends and unkind friends.  You can watch it again here.

We discussed the kind and unkind birds with our friends and tried to think about ways that the small birds could have acted differently.  We also spoke about being different and decided that the small birds might have been being unkind because they thought he was different.   Many of us thought that the big bird was the most exciting bit of the video and decided that it is good to be different.

We based our story writing on this fantastic video too.  The elephants were introduced to ‘openers’.  These are special words to begin our stories.  They all achieved their target of starting their sentences with an opener.

The pandas and tigers worked hard to remember finger spaces and full stops.  They are becoming very confident at sounding out words with less help – even managing tricky words like ‘pushed’ and ‘pecked’.  Well done!

Here are a selection of the finished stories! 😉

Today we were experimenting with torches in a dark room.  We used black paper and torches to try making Batman signals.  We really enjoyed attempting to make large or small shapes with the torches and tried out various stances to see what affect it had on the light omitted. We also tried covering the torches with our hair, fingers and clothes.

Literacy

– new sounds and new words.  These will be issued on Wednesday.

– reading.  This will be done on Thursday for all groups.

Maths:

Circles – using the whiteboard that your child should still have in their schoolbag please make a noughts and crosses grid.   Write 9 simple addition sums in the different sections of the grid such as 4+3, 5+ 4 etc.  You could also include some learn-its .  Take in turns to complete a sum and draw in a naught or a cross.  The winner is the first to get a line of noughts and crosses.  If your child manages this you could try it with harder sums such as 9+6, 7+5 etc using the count on method that was explained at parent’s evening.  We ‘throw’ the big number in our head and then use our fingers to count on.  The children should be able to demonstrate this if you have forgotten. 🙂

Triangles – please use the numberline that was sent home to practice adding 1.  If the sum was 6+1 your child should place his/her finger on 6 and then add 1 by stepping onto 7.  The idea is that over time your child will be able to mentally add 1 without using the numberline and learn that adding 1 is easy because we go to the next number.

Optional extras

Please watch the ‘fluheroes’ video clip that has been created by the NHS.  This will help prepare your child for the flu vaccine this week.   Click here to watch it.

Continue to revise ‘Learn-its’.  1+1, 2+1, 2+3.

Our favourite things:

• playing with the clay.  Katie
• the clay – it was fun to play with.  Timo
• putting my three fingers in the clay and scooping out the inside.  Alex
• giving everyone seeties.  Veer
• making the assault courses in the forest.  Neve
• getting sweeties.  Kian
• count in tens.  Axel

We have learned:

•  how to build a superhero den.  Aila
• about Diwali.  Holly
• about oo.  Max

What should we do next?

• more clay.  Everyone
• go back to the forest.
• learn higher numbers like 100 and 1000.  Scott
• making dinos with the clay.  Enzo

We have been celebrating Diwali this week.  We watched some videos about different families getting ready for Diwali and related this to our own celebrations.  We made Diwali lamps today for golden time with clay. We enjoyed exploring this new texture.

Next week we will paint our Diva lights and then you will have a new beautiful, hand made decoration for your homes! 🙂

Veer shared some of the things he does to celebrate Diwali. He told us you get sweets and presents.  He even brought some sweets for all his friends.  We enjoyed eating them! Thank you Veer!

The elephants have been working with our students Miss Tait and Miss Cameron to find out about WOW words (adjectives).  We did a science experiment related to the theme of fireworks and then made glittery firework pictures.  We used WOW words to describe our fireworks.  We were very proud of the finished result. We will miss Miss Tait and Miss Cameron when they return to university the week after next.