Chinese New Year

This week we have been learning all about Chinese New Year. It has been an action packed week with lots of exciting learning taking place. To understand why the Chinese zodiac is made up of 12 different animals, the children learnt all about the story of the Chinese animal race and that this year is the Chinese Year of the Rat. In Literacy, the children had to write ordinal numbers and the animals that came either first, second, third or fourth. Some children even composed some sentences independently, which related to the story. Some of the other activities this week have included making a paper dragon in art, writing their names vertically (like the Chinese) using black paint, producing a paper lantern and the children also made red lucky money envelopes, which are traditionally shared during the Chinese New Year celebrations. 

In the Secret Garden this week, the theme of the Chinese New Year continued, with the children making four of the animals from the Chinese zodiac using natural materials. These were then used to help retell the story that the children had already learnt in class. 

In maths, the children have been learning to handle data. They were very excited to get a letter from Cliff the Chameleon, who could't decide what colour to wear for a party, so the children initially had to vote for a colour, which was recorded to find out which was the most popular. We talked about how this information could be presented so it was easier for us to see the results. They then went on to look at some pictures to record how many of each colour chameleon they could identify. 

Mr Horne has been most impressed with the children's ICT skills as they have been working very hard for him. Most recently, they have been using the Paint programme to produce pictures of Dinosaurs linked to our most recent topic. this has developed their mouse skills as well as their general computing knowledge. I'm sure you will agree, that the pictures look amazing!

Congratulations to everyone who was awarded a 'Well Done' this week. There were no birthdays, but I know we will be celebrating some more next week. 

This week the children are bringing home some Green and Red words in their RWI phonics wallets, which they can use at home to improve their reading skills. For your information, Green words are those which are phonetically plausible, whilst Red words are the tricky words. A guide which includes ideas for using these in a fun way at home has been written and hopefully shared with you, but you can also find a copy below should you need it. It will also be saved on the school's website. Please spend time using these, as this will improve your child's blending  and reading skills. If you have any questions, please feel free to speak to your child's class teacher.

Green and Red words learning ideas
File Size:	312 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

---

Next week we will be starting a new topic called 'People who help us'. As people need to be able to quickly respond to emergencies in various types of vehicles, we are asking the children to bring in something with wheels for Show and Tell next week.

Have a lovely weekend everyone!