Welcome back to school after the Christmas break!

Phonics
In phonics this week, we learnt two new sounds: ‘ff’ and ‘ll’, as well as the tricky word ‘of’. The children practised saying the sounds, learning the actions, blending and segmenting words containing these sounds, and writing them on whiteboards. We also enjoyed playing a “say it, write it” game, where a sound was called out and the children had to write the correct sound on their whiteboard.

Maths
In maths, we began developing our subitising skills and practised matching arrangements of 3, 4 and 5 dots to the correct numerals. We also matched familiar dot patterns to those found on a dice. The children then played a dice game using a number track from 1–10, where they tried to beat Miss Evans to 10! We discussed how many spaces to move based on the dice roll and reminded the children that we count on from where we are, not the space we are already on.
We also started our new topic on length, height and time, focusing this week on length and using vocabulary such as short, long, not long and not short.

Drawing Club
In Drawing Club, we read The Tiger Who Came to Tea. We discussed how Sophie might have felt when the tiger ate all the food and drank all the drinks, and shared our own ideas about the story. The children then had a go at drawing the tiger and writing the word tiger, as well as drawing the café and writing the word café.
Using our imaginations, we then designed a special way for the tiger to get home by creating a tiger bus. The children came up with some fantastic ideas, including buses with orange stripes, wings, and even magic fairy dust! We also discussed our four vocabulary words from the story and explored their meanings.

PE
In PE, we focused on developing ball skills. The children practised rolling a ball towards a target and stopping a rolling ball, both independently and when working with a partner. They did a great job listening carefully and practising control. We also practised getting changed into our PE kits for the first time, the children did a fantastic job. 

Star of the week: Congratulations to Logan, who is our star of the week, for working hard on writing his own name. Logan will be taking home his certificate and Wilfred the Elephant to write in the book all about his time spent with Wilfred over the next week and will bring him back next Thursday.

Please remember to read with your child, even for just 5 minutes! Please also remember to record it in the reading record. We will only change your child's book if you have read with them 2 or more times in that week! Reading books are changed on Tuesday's and Friday's. Please also remember to have the library book in your children's book bag on Thursday to be changed. 

Any issues or concerns we need to know about, please speak to the Acorn team before and after school or email at: acorn@st-barnabas.kent.sch.uk

Well done to all the children for such a positive start to Term 3—we are very proud of them!