Friday, 2nd February 2018
Early Years Newsletter
This week's news from Kindergarten and Reception
Dear Parents,
- We are learning about Zones of Regulation, a way for children to identify how they are feeling and strategies to change how they are feeling. We looked at the Yellow Zone - the place where we might feel like we are annoyed, frustrated, anxious or starting to lose control by being over excited, and we read stories where the characters are in the yellow zone
- Our How big is your problem? poster is helping children to decide if they need help to fix a problem or if they need an adult to help them.
- We made a calm down zone in the classroom where children can visit if they feel they are in the yellow/red zone. We have put soft cushions, gentle music, sand timers, sensory bottles and other toys that promote ways to calm down.
- Using our sense of sight the children had to find matching pairs of stickers and place them side-by-side on a paper.
- In Eco, Mr. Rehman introduced the children to the word reusable and he presented them with newspaper. They then reused the newspaper to make gorgeous pictures of animals.
- During our French lessons, the children learned about colours.
- We watched short animated clips about familiar characters and the children had to identify which Zone they were in by looking at their behaviour.
- Using the sense of touch, the children explored the properties of goop (cornflour and water).
- The children made faces on crackers showing different emotions. They used olive spread, olives, peppers and peas.
- We sang a new song called Boom Chicka Boom then the children chose how we would feel when singing it: sad, grumpy, happy, excited.
- In the garden, we have started to make a Forest School area with a log circle and fire circle. This will be used to introduce Forest School Activities that we can then follow up when we go on trips to the woods.
- We met Larry the Listener who shows the children how to listen with their eyes, ears, mouths, hands, feet, whole body, brains and hearts.
Learning in Kindergarten:
- Using their fingers the children learned that if you add more fingers the number gets bigger and if you take some fingers away, the number gets smaller.
- The children had to close their eyes and count the clinks of coins being dropped into the jar.
- The children used the number mats to count up to 10 (or 20) but started at different numbers, not always at 1.
- We wrote s and a and sorted pictures beginning with these two sounds.
- Using the interactive whiteboard the children played some initial sound games.
- We introduced t and played musical statues. When the music stopped, we showed them a sound and they had to recognise and find objects beginning with the chosen sounds.
Learning in Reception:
- Some children continued to revise the sounds: sh, ch, th and ng. These are fairly tricky so we will probably spend another week learning about them. We wrote the caption The man is rich and played full circle with these new sounds.
- Some children continued to consolidate their ability to segment and blend CVC words using the Phase 2 sounds (letters and sounds).
- We played a loop game where the children had to read a word and work out who had the next matching card so they had to listen carefully to each other in order to be successful.
- The children wrote a recipe for a calm down cake which we baked at the end of the week. As well as the classic ingredients like eggs, butter, sugar and flour we also added ingredients that help us calm down if we are in the red/yellow zone. For example: a spoonful of counting to 10, a sprinkle of going for a walk, a jug full of stamping our feet.
- In maths we started to look at addition and subtraction through the use of money and we will continue with this next week.
- 12 was the number of the week and we made it on the abacus to show it is made up of 10 and 2.
Action Homework
There will be a phonics activity in your tray on Friday please check before you leave school.
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