Beechwood Primary School

Foundation Stage Blog – 12 January 2018

The FS staff would like to wish all the parents and children a very Happy New Year. It has been fantastic to see the children saying goodbye to their parents at the green gate and independently walking into school, such a positive start to the term. A highlight this week was when the children chose their first ‘Library Book’ and ‘Free Choice’ book (linked to their level of RWI phonics). Please ensure your child’s books, flashcards and yellow reading diary come into school every day in their book bag. We encourage parents to record when they have looked at the library book with their child and whether their child was able to answer questions about the story, in addition to this it would be lovely to see records of when your child has read their ‘free choice’ book at home. The ‘Library’ and ‘Free Choice’ books will be changed on a weekly basis (FSR books will be changed on a Tuesday and FSF books will be changed on a Wednesday). Alongside the Library book, Free choice book and RWI home learning (for some children this will be practising their sound sheets and some children will have a red ditty book) please practise your child’s RWI flashcards on a regular basis. If your child is confident with their RWI flashcards they are now ready to start making words, so feel free to take the flashcards off their treasury tag and use them to make simple CVC words e.g. cat.

This week the children were introduced to the topic of Winter. During this week’s inputs the children have talked about the four seasons and hibernation; talked about signs of Winter; looked at information about Winter and explored a snow scene; talked about clothes people wear in Winter and why; and we have also learnt about Arctic animals. The children have continued to explore the topic of Winter during their English exploration times this week and some of the activities have included: making snowflakes; breaking magnetic letters out of ice and then identifying sounds / making simple words; tracing Winter words; building an igloo with sugar cubes; building an ice castle using junk modelling materials; CVC snowmen word matching; making snowmen with glittery white play dough; making a snowman using different media & materials; and weaving ribbons through baking trays to develop fine-motor skills. During this week’s adult-led English activity the children have been reading words/ captions and then drawing a corresponding picture to match, which has enabled them to demonstrate and develop their blending skills. In the outdoor learning environment the theme of Winter was explored through activities, such as, painting ice cubes to explore colour mixing and tracing snowflake shapes onto tracing paper.

This week’s Maths has focused on counting up to 20 objects, ordering numbers and counting back. During our Maths inputs we have been helping Muddles the puppet to put numbers in the correct order; counting objects on a plate and then comparing them with an amount on another plate to identify is there are more or less; counting with 1:1 correspondence; exploring people getting on and off a bus, using a dice, to explore addition and subtraction; explored how a 20 bead string is separated into groups of 5 and then used the bead string to count back from 20. During this week’s Maths exploration times activities have included: painting snakes with a given amount of stripes on them; hunting for different amounts of shells and pebbles hidden in the sand; cutting and sticking to continue a winter themed pattern; throwing the correct number of bean bags onto a number card; playing a smaller version of the bus activity; sorting using compare bears and counting elephants; making play dough snow balls to match a given number; snowmen size ordering; winter counting sheets; making lego towers and then finding the corresponding number card. During this week’s adult-led Maths activity the children have been working on identifying numbers up to 20 and matching the correct number to a group of objects, some children have been estimating and then counting groups of objects.

It’s that time of term where we kindly as you for a termly voluntary contribution of £10, alternatively a ½ termly voluntary contribution of £5 can be made, to help replenish our messy play and creative activities. Please send any donations to the school office. We also appreciate any junk modelling donations. Thank you for your continued support.

For help with your Childs reading please take a look at our Reading guidance 2018 booklet.