This week's storybook focus has been 'The Giant Jam Sandwich' The rhyming story tells how four million wasps invaded the fictional town of Itching Down. At first, the villagers are unsure what to do, until Bap, the town baker, points out that wasps like strawberry jam, so they decide to build a gigantic jam sandwich to trap the pesky insects. It works, even though only 3,999,997 of them get trapped while the last three fly off in fear, never to return. The villagers celebrate, and the birds carry off the sandwich. As part of our Drawing Club sessions, the children thought up imaginative ways to move the giant sandwich and conjured up other tasty, sweet treats for the wasps.
In Phonics, the children have been reviewing sounds and practising their reading by blending the sounds together. Some of the groups have been learning new Special Friend sounds. These sounds are a combination of two or three letters that together represent a single sound, like "sh" or "ay". These letter combinations are taught to help children learn to read and spell and the children have practised reading and writing words that contain these sounds. Please ensure you listen to your child reading at home, if your child has completed their reading homework on Oxford Owl there are free Read Write Inc reading books that you can access.
As Mathematicians we have been subitising amounts to 5. We have been counting and ordering numerals to 20. We used 10 frames, counters and Numicon Tiles to make 2-digit numbers to 20. By placing counters on the ten frames this helped the children to develop their number sense and to understand what 2-digit numbers look like. They were able to see that numbers 10-20 are made of a full 10 and an amount on the next ten. We also used 10 frames and counting objects to find the pairs of numbers to 10 (Number Bonds). Today we launched our Sunflower Challenge, the children shared their knowledge of sunflowers, and we talked about some of the learning linked to sunflowers they would be doing over the next couple of weeks.
As Designers, we followed instructions to make a jam sandwich. As writers, we recalled how we had made our sandwich and used our phonics knowledge to write instructions.
We learnt a poem called 'Sliced Bread'. We wonder if your child can recite the poem at home?
As Scientists, we learnt what a habitat is and talked about some of the different habitats insects and bugs live in. In Pairs, we created bug house habitats using paper and other natural materials like sticks, bark and pinecones, and we have put these in our garden to encourage more bugs to visit us.
Our Golden Rule focus was 'We listen, we don't interrupt'. Maris, Yara and Femi were awarded Behaviour Heroes for best listeners this week.
Next week we will be thinking about the story 'Doug, the bug that went boing!' We will be using Explorify to look at close-up images of Sunflowers and Insects. As artists, we will be taking inspiration from snail shells and using chalk pastels to create spiral snail patterns.
On Wednesday, we will visit the Museum of Natural History for our 'Bug Bonanza' workshop and explore the museum to find other creepy crawlies. Children will not need a packed lunch on this day as a school-packed lunch will be provided. All children must wear school uniform. If you have offered to help on our trip, please come to the Main school entrance at 9.10. We will ask you to read and sign our risk assessment. Thank you

Coming Up:
Wednesday 7th May trip to the Museum of Natural History.
Bug-themed Bake Sale after school on the last week of term, day to be confirmed.
Legoland Trip Friday 4th July. You can now pay for your child on the My Child At School App.
If you would like to join your child for this family trip, please fill out the sign-up sheet outside our classroom so we know whether there will be one for 2 adults coming. We will then be able to add you to the online booking system so you can pay online. Alternatively, you can pay for your child and adults in cash.