It has been lovely to welcome the children back this week after a break over half-term! 

This week, we have been exploring fireworks! We have been creating firework patterns in glitter, using chalk to draw fireworks onto black paper and even made some magical firework art. The children drew a firework design onto a black sheet of paper, trace over their design with PVA glue and then cover their picture with salt! The magic came next - once the excess salt had been shaken off, the children used water colour paints to drip colour into their fireworks and watch as it washed through the salt and filled their design with colour! 

We learn about the senses at the beginning of the week - naming the five senses and passing round objects to feel, look at, smell, listen to and even taste! The children loved smelling the oils and herbs and tasting delicious chocolate. We then continued our search for things we could see, smell, feel and listen to (but not taste) outside on our Welly Walk! The children found leaves that were soft and spiky, rosemary to smell, wet grass to feel and birds and planes to listen to! (A full description of this activity and more photos can be found on Tapestry).

Later on in the week, we used our senses (especially hearing!) to listen to some fireworks. We watched a video of fireworks and listened carefully to the sounds they made. We then read a poem about fireworks and became detectives, looking out for the words that described the fireworks. The children thought of lots of onomatopoeia words to describe the fireworks, such as 'bang', 'whoosh', 'fizz', and 'zoom'.  The children then had a go at writing some of these words (focusing on initial and final sounds) in their writing books. 

In maths this week we have learnt our number bonds to five and explored what the language "one more" and "one less" means. The children use part-whole models and numicon to show that 4+1 and 2+3 make 5. We then had our own picture of a piece of numicon and had to find our missing part to make 5! For learning about "one more" and "one less", we used a number line to help us see that when we are adding one more, we move up the number line and the numbers get bigger, but when you are finding one less, you move down the number line and the numbers get smaller. 

Your child will have brought home their first reading book today and a letter accompanying that to explain how early reading works. The reading books are fully decodable texts that your child can use to practise sound identification, blending and increasing their confidence and fluency with reading. Please ensure you read with your child 5x a week when possible and log each time in their reading records. Reading records and books need to remain in the child's book bag throughout the week so that they are in school ready whenever the child is able to read with a member of staff in school. Any time they do read with an adult in school, it will be logged in their reading record for you to view at home. 

This week we also spoke about the Student Council. Children have had the opportunity to put themselves forward to be elected via class vote next week. Two students from each class will be chosen for student council. They will get the opportunity to attend meetings with different teachers, talk about school life and what they would like to change and make their mark on the school! If your child has put themselves forward, they will have brought home a slip just asking you to help them think of one reason they would like to be on the school council and to practise saying it, as when we come back on Monday they will have the opportunity to say why they want to before the children vote.  

Have a wonderful weekend and see you all next week for week 2! w