Good morning, we have been very busy settling back into school routines and would like to draw your attention to our new gym slots for term 3. From next week we will be having gymnastics on a Thursday and ball skills on a Friday. Please can you send your child with shorts and gym shoes on both days and remove any earrings or jewellery too, this will be a great help. On a Thursday because it is gymnastics please could your child wear socks not tights, joggers or leggings for safety. If possible could your child please also wear shoes that they can get on and off by themselves, this would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

In literacy we are continuing to revise and learn our initial sounds and this week we have been learning all about the letter uU for the sound unicorn and uniform in addition to the sound that u makes in the words umbrella and up.  The children have loved building a den in the class for under to help reinforce this phonics work. The children are continuing to concentrate hard developing decoding skills making 3 letter words with a, e, i, o and u in the middle. I hope you are now beginning to see in your child’s reading that they are becoming more confident at deciphering 3 letter words due to their phoneme knowledge and can now make 3 letter words well helping our writing skills. I have included a homework task involving rhyming 3 letter words. Thanks for your support with reading and helping your child gain confidence and in turn this will develop their fluency. The children enjoy being word detectives skimming and scanning for words using finger torches in class but this could be adapted at home with your child’s own books.

Topic Toys – the children are now having a go at reading unfamiliar stories and texts using their knowledge of the reading strategies across the curriculum. We are currently exploring the topic toys and how they work so if you have any books or are playing a game can you please support your child to understand the rules or encourage them to have a go at reading less familiar words. Through toys we are looking at forces, magnetism and how toys have evolved so if you have any of your childhood toys or game, it would be nice if you could look at them together too.

In maths, we are continuing are looking at addition. Counting quickly in 2s, 5s and 10s. I will add some Education City games for the children to try out.

For health and wellbeing, we are looking at safety and medicines alongside the continued importance of sharing, caring and social skills.

Thanks again for supporting your children with their homework tasks and have a good weekend.

Thank you for all that you do at home to support your child’s learning.

Wishing you a lovely relaxing week ahead.

Mrs Carey