Phonics

This week in Phonics we have continued recapping our Level 3 sounds and tricky words, helping the children to build confidence in their reading and writing. Some children have also continued revisiting Level 2 sounds, practising blending and segmenting CVC words and writing words and simple sentences independently.

We have also been completing our Level 3 phonics assessments this week. The children have worked incredibly hard and should be very proud of themselves for showing everything they have learnt throughout the year.

Maths

In Maths, we have been continuing our learning about odd and even numbers, recognising whether numbers are odd or even, even when they are arranged in a doubles pattern.

We have also been exploring different ways to partition a set of 5, understanding that the same number can be split into smaller groups in many different ways. Using our learning from the song Five Speckled Frogs, we allocated counters to represent the frogs on the log and in the pool. As we sang the song, we discussed how many frogs were in each place and represented these amounts on dice frames. This helped us to understand that the same number can be represented in different ways and encouraged us to use spatial language to describe the arrangements we could see.

We have also been working on building numbers beyond 10, focusing on the numbers 10 to 13 and exploring how these numbers are made.

Drawing Club

This week in Drawing Club we have been reading Commotion in the Ocean, which links perfectly to our new topic, Under the Sea.

We enjoyed reading and discussing the story and learning lots of new vocabulary. The children drew some of the sea creatures from the book and labelled pictures using their phonics knowledge. They then used their imaginations to create their own sea creatures by combining a person with a sea animal! One example was "Miss Octopus", with Miss Evans' head and an octopus' body. The children wrote sentences alongside each piece of work to describe their creations and showcase their fantastic writing skills.

PE

We have continued practising for Sports Day in PE this week. The children have been learning how to use a howler safely and effectively, as well as developing their ball skills by practising rolling a ball accurately. Everyone has been showing great determination and enthusiasm during our Sports Day preparations.

St Barnabas Procession

This week we also took part in our St Barnabas Procession. The children were incredibly sensible and respectful throughout the event and joined in beautifully with the responses, including "St Barnabas... pray for us." We were very proud of how well they represented our school and participated in this special celebration.

Another Fantastic Week!

The children have continued to work hard across all areas of learning and have shown great enthusiasm, especially during their phonics assessments, Drawing Club activities and Sports Day preparations. We are looking forward to another exciting week of learning next week!

Star of the week: Congratulations to Elias, who was our star of the week this week, for his fantastic phonics assessment results! Elias 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