This week in Dexter class

Christmas has arrived in Dexter Class! The Christmas Elf arrived on December 1st and has been delighting the children with his letters. Today we had to be a bit quieter than normal as he had stayed up late with Stick Man and so they wanted to sleep all day. The children put up the tree and decorated it with the help of Mia, an ex pupil who came back for work experience today.

Our book this week will be Stick Man, a well loved rhyming story written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler. We will be looking at key vocabulary, story mapping, ordering the story by 'boxing up' and then we will go on to some more in depth reading ,drawing and writing activities to explore the magic of this story further.

In Phonics we are continuing with digraphs and these will include oa (as in boat), oo (long as in zoo) oo (short as in book) and igh (night). The number of sounds that children are learning is building at pace and so it is essential to keep up the reading so that children are moving through the books which help them to become confident in recognising these sounds in words. We are also practising the tricky words look, all, are, you, see, they, she, this, that, then, them and with. We are very lucky to have Granny Lynn coming in to read with the children on a Monday afternoon and we thank her for taking the time to support our class.

In Maths we are continuing to look at composition and ordering of numbers 1 to 5, adding one more and taking away 1 to give less. We are counting forwards and backwards and learning to order quantities and numerals. In addition we will be exploring four sided shapes.

We will be talking about the changes that the Winter season brings and using the story of Stick Man to discuss the changes throughout a year.

Thank you to you all for bringing in additional bits of costume for the Nativity and for submitting your ticket requests. Thank you also to those of you who are able to assist with transport to and from Horsfall House in a couple of weeks time. I will send home a form for any drivers to fill in just to add to our record in the school office and I will let you know which children you will be transporting nearer the time.

Tomorrow morning the fabulous Friends of Amberley have arranged a very special treat for the children which I am sure they will tell you all about when they come home tomorrow afternoon-Oh no they won't, oh yes they will!