Friday, 26th January 2018
Early Years Newsletter
This week's news from Kindergarten and Reception
Dear Parents,
- We continued with our work related to Senses and Emotions, we introduced the children to the sense of taste by making smoothies. We walked up to Sainsburys to buy the ingredients.
- We talked more about the Red Zone (the place where we might feel angry, scared, frightened etc) and ways to cope when we are feeling overwhelmed by our emotions and are out of control.
- The children are being challenged to think about how big their problems are and when they can try to fix something by themselves or whether they need to seek help from a grown up. We also talked about how small problems need small reactions.
- Using margarine, cocoa powder, icing sugar and flour, we made a delicious, edible chocolate playdough exploring the sense of taste.
- We set up a tasting station where the children were able to taste: peppers, cranberry juice, tumeric, peas and olives and then they decided if the foods were sweet, sour, bitter or salty. The most popular reaction was YUCKY!
- Our question for the survey of the day was Do you like chocolate? The children had to vote I do or I don't.
- We had a fun time during Show and Tell and we were all fascinated to discover facts about the solar system!
- To explore the sense of sight, we set up cameras with macro lenses and the children choose objects to photograph. We then printed the pictures and the children had to try and work out which object it was.
- The children enjoyed playing a guessing game. One child was blindfolded and they had to use the sense of touch to work out which friend was standing in front of them.
- In the garden, we used an interest in firefighters to create a fire-themed reading game. We shouted out the word that was on fire and the children had to put it out using water sprayers - this was a very popular game!
Learning in Kindergarten:
- We recalled the letter s using a selection of objects beginning with this sound.
- We taught the sound a using the Jolly Phonics song and we wrote on mini whiteboards.
- We sorted objects/pictures which start with s and a.
- In Maths we jumped on number mats to count on from a given number. We played this every day as a warm up.
- We recorded some numerals after counting teddies from our counting jar.
- We played a matching game with numerals up to 20.
Learning in Reception:
- We designed our own smoothies and wrote a list of the ingredients that we wanted to include so that we could use the lists when we went to Sainsburys to buy the ingredients.
- In phonics, some of the children reviewed the sounds we have learnt so far and some have started to learn to recognise the digraphs: sh, ch, th and ng. We read words with these sounds and wrote some captions.
- In maths, we continued to explore number doubles. The children sorted dominoes finding those that had number doubles on them and those that didn't. We also played a game where there were different numbers of bears hiding under cups and the children had to choose two cups to look under. If they discovered a number double, they could keep the bears.
- 11 was the number of the week and we made the number on the abacus and talked about what each digit means.
- To reinforce the children's addition and subtraction skills they played a game where they started with three objects and then had to roll a dice. They needed to make sure that they had the same number of objects as the numbers on the dice - that meant they either had to take objects from another child if they didn't have enough, or share out their objects if they had too many.
- We have done a lot of work on letter formation using a cursive script.
- We read the poem Chocolate by Michael Rosen and as we read the children held a chocolate button in their closed fingers. By the time the poem finished, the chocolate had melted and they enjoyed licking it from their palm. After this, the children used all five senses to explore chocolate and we helped them to make their own poem by writing down their ideas for them.
Notices
- Show and Tell will continue every Thursday. Please help your child to consider what they want to say to their friends as we had a lot of showing but not much telling this week :)
- Please make sure your child has a pair of wellies that fit as we spend a lot of time outside or going on walks.
Action Homework
We have sent home a poster to explain the idea behind How big is my problem. We have also sent home a blank poster. We would like the children to think about an example of a problem from an Emergency to a Glitch. We would really like you to use this idea at home as it will help them to regulate their emotions and reactions over time.
When the children are showing big emotions, we talk them through the poster and decide how big their problem is and whether they can fix it by themselves.
When the children are showing big emotions, we talk them through the poster and decide how big their problem is and whether they can fix it by themselves.
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