Monthly Archives: April 2016

Literacy Term 4

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This term we will learn to become increasingly independent in all literacy tasks. We will have the opportunity to develop our skills in supporting and teaching our friends each week during our magnetic spelling activities. We started this today.  We had to collect all 26 letters of the alphabet first and arrange them in alphabetical order. We were wonderfully supportive to each other.  We then tried reading a word to a friend and got him/her to try making the word. Some words were very long!

The elephants also found out about a special story (mnemonic) that could help them learn how to spell ‘because’ correctly. Try asking them more about this at home. They tried to beat each other by racing to write ‘because’ as many times as they could manage in 1 minute.  They displayed their usual competitive attitudes! ! 🙂 We will be creating our own special (mnemonic) story on Thursday!

 

Term 4

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This term:

  • We will have PE on Thursdays and Fridays.  Please ensure your child has their PE kit in school everyday.  We will also have games outside every Friday afternoon – you may wish to send trainers to school on a Friday for this.  I hope to teach the children how to play rounders.  We will also have dance every Tuesday.
  • We will continue to go to library every Friday.  Children will only be issued with a new book if they have returned their book from the previous week.
  • Reading will be on Mondays and Thursdays.  Please check the reading diaries/record for more information.
  • Homework will continue to be issued on a Monday via the school Blog.  Please check the Blog every Monday.
  • We will be doing a mini forest topic.  This will involve 4-6 sessions in the forest.   More information to follow.
  • We will be trialing a new online reading programme for extra literacy revision.  This will require the children to log in for approximately 20 minutes per week.  More information to follow.
  • We will continue to be learning a new sound most weeks with revision weeks dispersed throughout the term.  The elephants and tigers will no longer be getting their sound books updated each week.  This is because they are progressing beyond the sounds provided on the sound sheets.   Instead their new sounds will be posted on the Blog with possible activities to try.  New words will continue to be sent home for the pandas and tigers.

Homework wb 18.4.16

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Welcome back!  I hope you all had a great Easter break.  I can’t believe we are into the final term already!

This week we are starting a new online reading package for work at home and in school.  It is called ‘Teach your monster to read’.  The game allows children to have their own individualised log in and to work at a pace that suits them.  The games must be carried out on a desktop PC or a laptop – they will not work on a tablet, yet.  As with all online homework, children should be closely supervised.

Your child will have their own personalised log in sent home with them on Monday.  Please keep this in a safe place.

This week please try:

  • Logging in with your child (more than once).  Encourage him to use his/her password and type his/her name with increasing independence.   This will allow him/her to develop their independence in logging in at school which will make life for Mrs Duncan much easier! 🙂
  • Helping your child create his/her monster.  This will be the graphic they use for the entire game.
  • Play 1 or 2 games at the most.  I do not want the children to race ahead at this stage.  Once we become more independent and confident users we will be able to work at a more personalised pace.
  • Writing a comment letting me know how your child got on either on the Blog or in the homework diary.

Additional Homework

  • Please revise the three most recent sound we have been focusing on.  Elephants: ow (as in snow), ay (as in play) and ph.  Pandas and Tigers:  wh, qu and th.  You could hunt for them in reading books, watch Alphablocks YouTube episodes based on the sound (search for alphablocks ay for example) or find toys or objects that contain the sounds .  You could also try spelling some words on mini whiteboards.
  • Reading – reading will be on Monday and Thursday this term.