What a wet end to the week we've had! Luckily it started off drier and we were able to get outside and go on leaf hunts. We read 'Stick Man' by Julia Donaldson and thought about the change in seasons. We then read some non-fiction books about Autumn so that we knew what signs to look for outside and changes with the weather. As we looked for leaves, we thought about the colours and textures of them. We used magnifying glasses to inspect them closer and did leaf rubbings and printing with some art materials. We have made an Autumn themed table in the classroom with some books and objects that we have collected. If you manage to get out for any walks and come across some pine cones, acorns, conkers or Autumnal objects, feel free to bring them in to school and we can add to our investigation table. 

'Sitck Man' also got us thinking about our own family trees. So we decided to print some tree pictures using our hands for the branches and broccoli for the leaves, then drew the members of our family and stuck them on. We are a very creative class!

Our Maths focus this week has been number 2. We think about number 2 being 1 and another 1. We have been busy using our learning from last week to find and collect lots of things that represent the number 2. We thought about our bodies and what we have 2 of. We looked at the maths resources again and found the 2 Numicon, showed 2 on a fives frame and looked at dice and domino patterns. We also watched two Numberblock episodes this week. 'Another 1' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVzv8cuTBIM and 'Two' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCUGLyVkMlM . These are the links for the episodes on YouTube if you would like to watch them at home or they are on Cbeebies iPlayer as well. 

Our sounds this week were i, n, m and d. We have been practising saying the sounds properly, thinking about words that start with each sound and also how to write each letter the correct way. We have also been practising our oral blending skill (by me saying the sounds 's-a-t' and the children telling me what I have said). We enjoy playing the instructions game where I ask them to do something like 'p-a-t your h-ea-d' and they have to do the action. We are also starting to look at listening for the sounds in simple cvc words that include the sounds we have learnt such as tap, sit, mat and tin. The children being able to hear and say all three sounds is the first step to spelling. We really are managing to fit so much learning in to our week in school! No wonder we're all so tired by a Friday afternoon...

Usually on a Friday afternoon we get to use the pirate ship in the big playground as an end of week treat. Today it was definitely too wet for that! So we watched Stick Man instead to support our learning from the book and to finish off our week. 

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend - I hope you all manage to stay dry!