Welcome back to all of you! It sounds like you all had lovely (and slightly more 'normal') half term breaks. Now we start our final half term as Green Class. I for one cannot believe how quickly this year has gone...

Our Maths for this week (and over the next couple too) is all about numbers to 20. Counting, ordering, writing, adding, taking away, doubling, halving, sharing. All the basic skills that are needed to have a solid foundation in number knowledge. We have been making our own number lines this week, from 0-20. If you ever get any spare time at home, correct number formations is a great and very useful skill to practise. 

We have been talking about consonant blends in Phonics this week, and the children are becoming more confident with what this is and in spotting them in words that they read and write. Consonant blends are when you have two consonants next to each other in a words (eg. stamp, frost, blunt, toast). These are still two separate sounds when we spell out a word phonetically (segment it), however it can often be tricky to hear both of these sounds when spelling the words to write them. We have been reading and writing them and using these in sentences too. To really check our knowledge, we have been spotting and reading them in alien words as well. 

The whole Federation is having a focus on sculpture this half term. We spent some time thinking about what an artist is. The children came up with great ideas but mostly thought that artists draw and paint. We then thought about sculpture and what that means. We made a class sculpture of a rainbow, using items and objects that we could find in our classroom. All the children got involved and loved it. We then learnt what an ephemeral sculpture is when they had to tidy it all away. Our next step was looking at famous buildings and landmarks from around the world, and using these as inspiration to make mini sculptures of them. We used resources and construction pieces from around the classroom. This lead us on to learning about an artist named Andy Goldsworthy. He is famous for making ephemeral sculptures in nature. We looked at some of his art work, discussed what they made us think of and how they made us feel. We were then so inspired by these pieces that we had a go at making our own outside, using loose parts and natural materials. We all had so much fun and the children showed a real creative streak when it came to their finished pieces. Maybe there are a few future Andy Goldsworthys in our class...

Well it's going to be a hot and sunny one over the weekend. We had a chat about how to keep safe in this weather and the children were full of ideas and suggestions. 

Keep safe and see you all on Monday morning!

PS - a quick note/request about sun cream. If you wish, your child can have a bottle of sun cream (named) that they can keep in their tray to use in school. This is not compulsory. A lot of parents find that putting cream on in the morning is enough to get their child through the day, and we do of course spend our outside time in the shade as much as possible. If you do choose to send sun cream in with your child, please ensure that you show them and that they understand 1. how their sun cream bottle works (spray bottles can be tricky for little hands) and 2. how much to put on. Of course we will help the children out, but as you can imagine, putting sun cream on a class full of little people can be quite time consuming... Thank you for your help and support in this.