Our focus book this week was Jack and the Beanstalk. Throughout the week, we shared different versions of the story and became confident retelling key events. We were very lucky to receive a visit from ‘Jack’ on Thursday who wanted our help! He explained that his Mother had asked him to sell their cow but that an unusual stranger had offered him some magic beans. He asked the children what they thought he should do.
The children gave some Jack some excellent advice with some children referring to the story ‘You should take the beans because they will be magic!’ and some thinking about what his Mum would say ‘Don’t do it Jack! Your Mum will be so cross!’.
In our creative areas, the children created some art work based around beanstalks and castles. The children explored ways to create doors for their castles and some even created paper locks.
Next week, we will continue our learning based around Jack and the Beanstalk with a focus on the Giant. We are going to help him to measure his giant footprints to find out what size his new shoes should be!
In Maths this week we began using a new resource called a rekenrek. The children used it to show off their fantastic knowledge of numbers up to and beyond 10. When using a rekenrek the children are required to use their subitising skills to move groups of numbers around together rather than counting e.g. When asked to move 4 they should look and move 4 beads together rather than counting and moving 1,2,3,4 individually. We were so impressed with how well the children took on this new challenge and how quickly they became confident demonstrating their number skills on the rekenreks. We look forward to continuing to use these new resources next week.
In Phonics, we will review the digraphs- ff, ss, ll, sh, ch, th and ck. Please do continue to work on reading, writing and exploring words containing these sounds at home. We would love to see and celebrate any lovely writing on Tapestry!
Please do remember that all children need their water bottles everyday and a sun hat. As the weather improves, we will not be allowing children without sun hats to play outside on particularly sunny days.