This week we continued with our Going on a Bear Hunt topic. We made our own bear masks using available materials in the creative area and then used these masks to retell the story. We then decided to make our own version of Going on a Bear Hunt. We thought of alternative places we could travel through to find our bear and what we might hear and do as we went through these places. We came up with ideas such as walking through a jungle, a haunted house and a football pitch. The children each wrote a page for our story and that story book is now available to read in our book corner.

This week in maths we explored 10 frames. We worked on placing various numbers of counters on the frames and talking about the shapes and patterns we could see. We played a memory game where the children had to look at a 10 frame containing counters and then do the same on their own 10 frame. The children were encouraged to look at the patterns they could see to help them remember what they needed to do.

We used the apparatus in PE this week. We used the skills we had learned over the last few sessions to travel along the apparatus. We climbed over and under the apparatus and at times we rolled, hopped and crawled along them. The children have become quite confident in these skills gymnastics skills. Next half term we will be looking at a different area of the PE curriculum.

We are continuing to learn the sounds in Phase 3 of phonics. This week we learned the sounds ‘ar’, ‘or’ and ‘ur’, and practised reading and writing words containing these digraphs. Please continue to read with your child over half term and practise reading the tricky words on their tag.

Lately some of the children have been showing an interest in police and firefighter games and so after half term we are planning to do a topic on ‘People Who Help Us’. We would love to invite people into the classroom to tell us about their jobs and to answer any questions the children might have. We are looking for anyone who has a job in which they help people. If you know anyone who would be willing to come in and give us a short talk about their job, please let us know and we can organise this.

Our first week back after half term will be Science Week at school. We will be looking at the story ‘Can’t You Sleep Little Bear’, and we will be doing lots of experiments about light and dark. 

Have a lovely half term Toucan Class.