Week 1

The Ducklings have had a wonderful first week back at school. Our story this week has been ‘What’s in the Witch’s kitchen?” by Nick Sharratt and we have loved giggling together at the spooky and not so spooky funny rhymes!

As a class we have learnt about Halloween traditions and how it was celebrated in the past. We used the Halloween theme in all our areas of learning from making rhyming potions in our silly soup game to counting spiders caught up in the giant spider web outside!

On Wednesday, we were lucky to have a visit from Mrs Ramprasad who talked to us all about Diwali and how it is celebrated in India. We looked at where India was on the map and compared it to where we live. Mrs Ramprasad also told us the magical story of Rama and Sita and about some of the different Gods in the Hindu faith. Our Ducklings then had an opportunity to try on some traditional Diwali clothes, bangles and bindis.

In Phonics we have learnt the new sounds ‘p’ and ‘g’ and we are learning to blend the sounds together to read ‘green words’ e.g. d-a-d dad! m-a-t mat! We have learnt that the green words are helpful because each letter makes the right sound. However, we have been introduced to one ‘red word’ this week: ‘I’! We discussed how the red words are tricky because not every letter will make the right sound. 'I' is one that we will keep practising and learn by sight.

In Maths sessions, we have started to build on our subitising skills (recognising the number without the need to count) and applying these to sounds and actions as well as objects and pictures. We have also looked closely at small quantities and observed whether the quantity has changed or only the arrangement. Finally, we met Numberblock Four and investigated the different shapes he could make using blocks, dots and counters to further develop our understanding of part–whole relations and the composition of number.

It's been a wonderful week of learning Ducklings, well done! We look forward to finding out what next week will bring :-)