This week in Dexter Class

So here we are at the beginning of our third week in Dexter Class. Time is really flying by. Your children were all superstars today in the lunch hall. They ate really well and enjoyed their time with the older children and even went in the library afterwards! Remember to check out the menu choices before coming to school each day just so that all children know what they would like and whether or not they are having a packed lunch.

We are in our second week of Phase 2 phonics sounds and will be learning i n m d this week. Children are building their segmenting and blending skills and will begin to bring home worded books at the end of the week!

We also starting our first unit of maths work looking at matching, sorting and comparing. We follow a Mastery approach to maths which has proven highly successful in giving children really solid foundations on which to build their maths reasoning skills and problem solving abilities. This week we start by reading Noah's Ark and sorting the animals into pairs and putting them into our class Ark. We will then look at matching pairs of socks-I have a pile of clean laundry for them to sort and peg onto a line. We will then move on to looking at the properties of the buttons in our special button box, a collection that belongs to Mrs Crampton and is really quite amazing! We will compare similarities and differences and talk about all the different ways we can sort e.g. by colour, shape, size, texture etc.

In RE this week we will look at 'What makes us special?' Children will be encouraged to express their ideas about the meaning of ‘special’? Vocabulary might include treasured/loved/precious…Who are we special to? Can children express and give reasons? We will ask children to think about how they know they are special to others.

I will complete the Reception Baseline Assessment with each of the children this week and we will also be doing some more music, craft and working on fine motor skills with detailed mindfulness colouring. PE will be on Friday but I will also incorporate a yoga/meditation session this week as the children are building up the amount of guided adult time and this is a nice activity to help them focus and feel calm and relaxed.

Next week, children will begin their full timetable and so we will be planning in lots of opportunities for 'brain breaks' . Children may be more tired than usual and we will support them with the longer days and the extra routines. Please feel reassured though that they have all settled extremely well into life at Amberley and you can be very proud, I certainly am!