W/C: 25th November

It's been another busy week of fun and learning in Holly Class and the children have been working really hard on their nativity rehearsals.  They are remembering more and more of the words to all of the songs now, as well as actions that go with them.  Please can all requested clothes to be worn under costumes be brought into school by Monday at the latest.  If you have any queries or problems with this, please speak with Mrs Park or myself so that we can help you.  
 

As part of our 'Celebrations' topic, we have been celebrating 'weddings' this week and our book of the week has been 'The Scarecrows' wedding'.  The children have enjoyed designing wedding outfits for Betty and Harry (the scarecrows in the story), as well as painting colourful wedding cakes for them too.  A few of the children have even chosen to 'get married' in our role play area too. 

In maths, we have been learning about how whole numbers can be split into smaller parts.  For example, 5 can be split into 3 and 2 or 1 and 4 etc.  There is a link to a Numberblocks episode which helps to explain this and that we have watched together in school:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08dr1l3/numberblocks-series-1-the-whole-of-me . 
Children can continue to explore this concept at home in lots of practical ways, for example; having 5 sweets and keeping 2 and giving 3 to you or playing with 5 cars and parking different amounts between two different carparks.  
 

In phonics, we have been learning the new sounds 'sh' as in 'shell',  'nk' as in 'pink', 'ng' as in 'ring' and 'th' which can make two sounds (one voiced and the other unvoiced) as in 'thin' and 'them'.  Words to practice reading and writing could be: shell, shut, ship, pink, think, wink, sing, long, song, think, this, moth.  We have also learnt the new tricky words, she, push, he and of.  
 

Next week, we will begin the countdown to Christmas and children will be learning about Advent and what this means to Catholics.  This will include getting the classroom ready for Christmas and decorating our Christmas tree!