This week in Dexter Class
Last week we were very lucky to have musical performances from concert pianist Claire Hammond and also from Mr Will Howick, parent, governor and cellist extraordinaire! He played movements such as 'The Swan', 'The Elephant' and 'The Donkey' from Carnival of the Animals by French Composer Camille Saint-Saens. He also treated us to some less well known pieces and the children were completely mesmerised and we watched a film in the afternoon of an orchestra playing the Carnival accompanied by animations for each animal.
In Maths this week we are consolidating our learning of addition, subtraction, doubling (multiplication) and sharing (division) and we will be looking at some worded problems and recording on squared paper to help children feel confident and prepared in Year 1. They are more than ready for the challenge and some of their mental maths and rapid recall is quicker than mine!
Our book for the next two weeks is Where the Wild Things Are by the author and illustrator Maurice Sendak about a little boy called Max who is quite wild and goes on a very strange adventure one night. Today the children listened to the story and looked at the story map before creating their own version of what they would do if they were feeling wild-this made very interesting reading with lots of stamping of feet and shouting!!!
As we draw towards the end of the reception year we are consolidating all our learning not just in maths, literacy and phonics but all other areas of the curriculum and we are using our Mind-Mining Mole Floor book to help us. This is based on our school wide initiative of retrieval practice to help children to 'learn and know and remember more'. The children love our mind-mining activities and Miss Cale was super impressed when she came in to see what they were up to.
We are going to take advantage of the fact that the rest of the school is out on Wednesday and Friday. We are going to be doing some large scale art work in the hall on Wednesday based on our class book and will also make some masks and look to re-enact the story. On Friday we will be making 'Wild Thing' pizzas which the children will hopefully enjoy. We are keeping a close eye on the chrysalis and also our snails as we prepare to return them to the wild before the Summer holidays.
Our children will be welcoming the 'Dexter Class of 23-24' children tomorrow and I know they will be fantastic at showing them where everything is in school and being kind and helpful. The classroom is going to undergo a bit of a facelift over the summer but all the most loved resources will still be available. In September, your children will spend some of their afternoons back in Dexter Classroom with me to support their transition so they will be i instrumental in deciding the new layout with me and testing it out.
