Learning about time
Thanks to everyone for sending a photo of your child as a baby. This topic is always fascinating for young children, especially when they realise their teachers were babies too! Most children find the concept of time diificult because of its abstract nature. In the early years, the focus is mainly on the aspect of sequencing events and using the vocabulary of time.
This week, we’ll be learning how to read o’clock times as well but it’s important that children have the concept of time.
For many children time only exists in the present and they find it more difficult to remember past events than to imagine a future event such as a birthday.
Talk to your child about past events and use the language of time, such as:
- yesterday,
- today,
- tomorrow,
- last week,
- last month,
- quicker,
- slower,
- before,
- after,
- earlier and
- later.
Set your child challenges and time them. For example, ask them to tidy their toys away and time them. Talk about how long it took. Were they quicker or slower than yesterday?
As you begin to tell a story emphasise the opening phrases ‘once upon a time’ or ‘a long time ago’. When you have finished reading the story discuss the sequence of events. Use the language first, next, and then, and finally.
As always: have fun and keep it playful!
Egg rolling… in the snow!
Despite the weather, egg rolling still happened in the back playground on Thursday. A path was cleared so there were no snow drifts to contend with and there were some eggstraordinary egg rollers. Here are the winners from each class.
Have a relaxing break.
Super Science Day!
My task during Super Science Day was to make slime by causing a chemical reaction to happen between different materials. The children worked brilliantly together to make some pretty disgusting, gooey slime!
Super Science Day Talk Time
We don’t normally set specific homework tasks in the holidays, but we encourage you to spend some time discussing the nine science activities your child will have taken part in, especially considering what they have learnt. The learning objectives were:
- I know that dyes are made up of other colours
- I know why objects float
- I can create a gas with a solid and a liquid
- I know that static electricity creates a charge
- I know about irreversible changes
- I know the effects of a chemical reaction
- I know what exercise does to my body
- I am aware of acids and alkalis
- I know what happens when you mix water with oil
Check out the pictures from the day to help jog your child’s memory of each activity… Can they match the learning objective to the photo?
More Super Science Day
Is it magic? No! We learnt that opposite charges attract so the balloon’s negative charge is attracted to positive charges on clothes, hair and walls. This is what makes them stick to each other.
Super Science Day
We used static electricity to make the can roll without touching it!
The end of another busy term!
We’ve reached the end of another busy term in Reception. The time has flown!
Here are just some of the ways the children continue to impress us:
- Manpreet, Sachpreet and Noorpreet have been busy practising their letter formation and form all letters beautifully.
- Ismail, Albert, Theo, Josh and Ethan are making great progress with their independent writing.
- Isaiah has become the ‘King of Challenges’, by being so busy with his learning and engaging in every activity on offer.
- Dylan is well on his way to becoming an author! He writes stories every day.
- Ripley, Alex, Martha and Mia are becoming great mathematicians and love to challenge themselves in this area.
- Isaac and Thomas are fantastic readers and if you want to know about ‘split digraphs’, ‘Shy i and Tuffy y’ they are the people to ask.
- Lewis continues to impress us with his creativity and has given us lots of ideas.
- Gabby, Ishaan and Nicky have impressed us by the way they keep trying even when they find things hard.
- Humairah and Ben are consistently helpful and polite.
- Lori and Karam have tried really hard this term with their phonics and writing.
- Kai and Farai are the ‘kings’ of model building and storytelling with their models.
- Filip has become a confident talker and shown great knowledge and interest in our topic on minibeasts.
- Grace, Pia and Phoebe have made great progress in all their learning and become confident members of the class.
Have a great break and see you next term!
Learning about addition in Reception
There are two types of addition situations that children will encounter in Reception.
The first is combining – where two sets are put together to make a new set. Here, the statement ‘I wonder how many there are altogether?’ is appropriate.
The second is counting up, where an original amount is increased resulting in a new total. In counting up it is useful if children can recognise a small number of items without counting.
Children need lots of practical addition opportunities before they are introduced to the formal addition sign. You can help at home by playing board games which involve counting on and providing lots of practical opportunities for addition.
World Book Day
Thank you to all who volunteered to read to the children.
Polling station opens early
As you know Moortown Primary is used for a polling station in May. Tradition was broken this week when we became a polling station on a Thursday in March; the councillors being elected were not from the local government but from each class in school. Well done to all those children who prepared and made speeches and congratulations to those who were elected.
