It’s hard to believe that we’re already in the final half term of the year! We’ve got lots to do, so we really appreciate all the hard work you put in with the children at home – thank you so much!

Maths

I know some people have been taking little trips out to the shops so that the children are familiarising themselves with the different coins and the concept of some coins being more valuable than others. Please continue to do this over the coming weeks. Our classroom learning about money is still a couple of weeks away, but the more familiar the children are to begin with, the better.

Thank you to everyone who is practicing telling the time at home too. Again, the classroom learning is a while off yet, but the more prepared the children are, the better!

We are now coming to the end of the fractions unit where we focused on halves and quarters. Next week, we will move onto a geometry unit focusing on position and directional language.

Here is the video to accompany the final lesson in the fractions unit.

Lexia

Some children will have a Lexia password and login Sellotaped on the inside of their blue reading record. This is a website designed to help with their reading.

Access Lexia here Please encourage your child to login for a few minutes as often as possible. Ideally, each child would complete approximately 40mins a week. The children do login at school, but we are unable to provide them with the amount of time they really need to benefit fully from the program. Please record in their Reading Record when they have used it.

Thank you so much for your support with this. It can make a huge difference to your child’s confidence and ability in reading.

Reading/Phonics

On Wednesday your child bought home their next reading book. This book has been read in school with them following the Little Wandle Scheme – it is directly matched to your child’s reading ability. We will read your child’s new Little Wandle book in school on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The book sent home on Wednesday is now for you to read and follow up at home.  Your child has also bought home a school library book of their choice – this is not matched to their reading ability and is therefore a book to share together.

We visit the library on Tuesdays and Thursdays where they can be changed.

Please record ALL reading in your child’s reading record so that we can see that reading, story sharing or other reading for pleasure has taken part every day at home.

Reading records and reading books are expected to be bought into school every day to be monitored and to record when your child has read in school.

Phonics

All groups have been recapping on previously learnt digraphs this week in preparation for the phonics screening next week.

The screening will take place one day next week. The children have done so much practice that I honestly doubt they will even notice they’re doing anything out of the ordinary! The pass mark for the screening (usually out of 40) is not released until a later date, so we will inform you of the results in the end of year reports. I hope that makes sense. Please do grab me if you have any questions.

Spellings

You will notice that we are now beginning to repeat some of the spelling words from earlier in the year.

Some children will now be given separate spellings which will be stapled into their reading records on a Friday. They will then be ‘tested’ on these the following Friday as usual. If your child comes home with spellings stabled into their reading record, please ignore the ones below.

We are continuing to learn words taken from the Year 1 National Curriculum. These are ‘common exception’ words that your child is expected to be able to spell independently in their writing by the end of Year 1. You will notice that some of these words your child is familiar with from Reception. Please practice writing the words below together.

We will ‘test’ these spellings next Friday. The scores will be in your child’s reading record for you to see and to continue practicing any words that they need further support with. We are starting to focus a lot more on these words when writing and will be using the Year 1 spelling list in all of our writing sessions.

This weeks words are…

was

friend