This week's newsletter - Well done to our Superstars - Millie Beck and Billy Carter

FOUNDATION STAGE NEWSLETTER Friday 30th April
NEWS ROUND-UP
We got a VERY exciting delivery from Meanwood Valley Urban farm this week – an incubator and many eggs which we are very excited to be caring for.. We began our 21 day count down on Tuesday, and are really looking forward to seeing our fluffy friends emerge when they do. Next week, we hope to get a live webcam positioned so that we can watch the egg-action throughout the night, if we so wish..!
We have continued our Dinosaur topic this week, researching using video clips on the Espresso site. We are going into our final week of the dinosaur topic next week, but I doubt very much this will be the last we hear about dinosaurs!
BLOGSPOT
Our giant diplodocus has been painted this week….look out for him – and other news - on our new Reception blog. This is an immediate way for us to share information and our experiences with you. You can access it at http://robinhoodfoundationstage.blogspot.com/. Please do!

Numeracy We have worked with our 2D shapes (circle, square, triangle, rectangle, pentagon and hexagon) to copy, create and continue repeating patterns including variation in colour, shape and size. We have also introduced 3D shapes, this week printing to notice the 2D faces.

Literacy
We have shared the Dinosaur song with the children, providing lots of talking points. We have used this as a stimulus to discuss the different types of dinosaurs and how we could sort and classify them by their features (herbivores, carnivores, land, sea or flying dinosaurs etc.)

Topic
We have used our mapping skills to create an imaginary map of a dinosaur world using a key to highlight areas such as swamps, deserts, ice caps and forests. The children then programmed our robots to navigate the maps avoiding the perilous areas, giving just one set of instructions…

NEXT WEEK
We will focus on 3D shapes (cone, pyramid, cuboid, cube, sphere and cylinder) using mathematical language to describe the shapes, talking about corners, faces, sides.

Help us by:-
Find 2/3D shapes around the house or in the supermarket. Ask your child to name them, and tell you one fact that they know about them!

NEXT WEEK
We will be drawing and labelling our dinosaur puppets, practising our handwriting and phonics. We will also be working with a partner to create a TV news broadcast about the extinction of dinosaurs..

Help us by:-
Continuing to read at home – 3 or 4 times a week (whilst the books are nice and short) really does impact very quickly on your child’s reading. Remember – re-reading improves fluency and is very valuable.

NEXT WEEK
We will be exploring the theories of extinction, beginning to appreciate that we make deductions about the past based on clues that may remain.
We will be looking at the Ice age and exploring if we can ‘rescue’ our dinosaurs from blocks of ice or stop them from melting. We will predict our ideas and then record our findings from our investigations.
In the DT area we will be designing and making our very own dinosaur puppets..

Our handwriting is a key area for improvement this half term, so your support with that at home would be very much appreciated. Many of the children are forming the ‘o’ incorrectly, as they begin at the bottom and travel clockwise, which presents many problems later on. This week (and next) we are concentrating on the letters ‘o’, ‘a’ and introducing ‘d’. Please encourage your children to write these letters for you at home and insist they do so correctly, starting each of these letters at the top right, and moving anti-clockwise around the circle…Practise ‘little and often’ really works with this small but important aspect of writing, as does drawing, colouring in and cutting using scissors. If you would like more advice, please let us know… Thanks for you support.

Baking is back in Reception… This week the children created Dinosaur biscuits to share with their friends. Our thanks to Mrs Dunne for the loan of the fabulous cutters!
REMINDERS
BOX MODELLING – is a big focus this half term. Thank you for all your boxes, cartons and newspaper so far……please continue to send them in..
PARENTS/CARERS – All children are asked to change their books during school time on a weekly basis. Please feel free to come back into class to change books more frequently should you wish to do so.
WEEKLY SUPERSTARS
Millie Beck for having a fantastic attitude to everything
Billy Carter for being a fabulous member of our class

Look who's been in our outdoor area!

Who said that? Find out what we know about dinosaurs...

New Areas of provision

Over the Easter holidays, we have revamped the classroom (and been invaded by dinosaurs!) If you haven't seen the new areas yet (parents/carers!) please have a look at the pictures we've uploaded.
Mrs S

The Dinosaur song..

Hi,
We've been up to our eyes in dinosaurs for an entire week now! We have created a HUGE diplodocus outside using modroc, we have created small ones inside using clay, we have watched video clips and are busy learning the dinosaur song - see it here www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0FOZ0-VpcU - it has been VERY popular indeed!

We are busy recording voice files to capture all the incredible facts we have collected over the past week.. We will be posting a factsheet and a video soon!

We hope that you have all had a fabulous Easter, and have all made it back safe and sound despite the volcanic ash! Welcome also to our blog - another portal for us to share the work we are doing in class on a daily basis.. It's a great topic for the first half of this half term: DINOSAURS! We are confident that we are all about to have a great time... So watch this space!