Cygnus2018-2019: A busy week back

The children returned to school brilliantly and seemed to have grown so much over the holidays. They really are settled into routines. We had a busy week assessing tricky words. Some of you may have noticed a score out of 45 even if your children are only on set 1 or 2. This is because by now they have been exposed to lots of our 45 words through big book story sharing or through phonics. Please keep relearning all sets of words. Whilst your children may recognise words from current sets it is easy for the to forget the previous ones. As your children approach the end of the words, I will be encouraging them to start learning how to spell these words although this can happen at any stage.

I have had a couple of questions about reading. Children love rereading their books as it gives them confidence and reinforces words. It is still important to talk about pictures as picture clues are part of the reading process. If you think your child has memorised the words, try pointing to them out of order. I would far rather they become happy secure readers than racing ahead. You can also be talking about punctuation. There are lots of ideas at the back of the books to support hearing your child read. I am introducing a new system from Monday. Every time a child reads at home ten times (different days) they will be rewarded with a special certificate. I will then select children to go and celebrate with Mrs Hulford.

We have started practicing our letter formation in family groups. Last week it was the curly caterpillar family. I will be sending this home as home learning to reinforce what we are doing in school. Home learning will be sent out on a Friday and I would like home learning to be returned the following Friday morning. Everyone should have a plastic wallet that was handed out with a laminated name in it at new parents evening. Please can you put this in their bag.

We celebrate lots of WOW moments in schools. These are moments where children have done something for the first time or have been really polite or tried really hard. I am sending some speech bubbles home in the plastic folders next Friday for similar moments at home. It might be " Jack lost a tooth last night and the tooth fairy came" or "Jack helped tidy the table after breakfast for the first time" or "Jack rode his bike without stabilisers for the first time". These are all moments that add to the children's learning journal and helps to create a wider picture of what your children can do.

I sent out a costume letter on Friday. It seems strange thinking about a Nativity so early on but there are only about three weeks to go. We have tried to keep the costume letter as simple as possible. We are very busy with rehearsals and it is going to be gorgeous.

This coming week, I am out of school on Tuesday afternoon on a course and all day Friday as I have internal meetings. The children are very familiar with the adults who will be covering my class. I like to let children know what is happening as it saves any worrying.

On Tuesday we shared our holiday news with our learning partners. We thought about what we had to do to be good listeners including sitting opposite each others and taking turns.

I love watching the children get excited about creating tall towers and then independently use the language of length. This is the difference between adult led learning and child initiated.

We have been trying really hard to write our caterpillar letters. Everyone was very keen to have a go. I say that they might not be able to do something yet but it is the trying and keeping on going that counts. I teach this as resilience.

We went on an autumn welly walk to collect 6 objects as 6 was the number of the week.

Back in the class we used our objects to find different ways of making 6 by sharing the objects between 2 hoops. This reinforces the concept of part, part, whole and that the whole number 6 can be made up of different numbers.