Welcome to Cygnus Class 2016-17: January 2017

I was just sorting through my files on the laptop and thought I might send some links.

Here is one of the phonic cards that we use to support our writing. It doesn't use our cursive script but children are starting to understand that we read lots of different styles but in handwriting we are trying to write in cursive. See if the children can show you the actions a they say the sound. Also, we are learning the alphabet song and that every letter has a name as well as making a sound. Please help your child to make links between the two.

The sounds with two letters (graphemes) are called digraphs.

Don't forget Geraldine Giraffe and Mr Thorne
http://mrthorne.com/phase-2 or http://mrthorne.com/phase-3/ ( we haven't covered all of these sounds yet as we are only in week 4.)

There is also phonics play
www.phonicsplay.co.uk/

Oxford Owl
www.oxfordowl.co.uk

Handwriting

A great site for parents is http://www.teachhandwriting.co.uk/

It is an interactive site with lots of ideas. Go into the How to improve handwriting the letters of the alphabet section although other bits are very interesting. You need to look at How to form continuous cursive letters; Beginners. Be careful with a few of the letters as there are alternatives, These are the ones we teach, the remaining letters are the same.

Continuous cursive looped g letter animation

Continuous cursive straight v letter animation

Continuous cursive straight w letter animation

Continuous cursive top and bottom looped lower exit f letter animation

Continuous cursive looped y letter animation

Continuous cursive z exit stroke letter animation

Continuous cursive x - 2 stroke letter animation

Hope this helps.

Hello, I hope you had a lovely weekend. Well done to all the children who got stickers for reading three times last week or a certificate for reading 4+ times. They got a well deserved clap in assembly on Friday. I wonder how many certificates we will need this week.

I was really pleased when a mum told me how her son had been learning how to spell the 45 tricky words. He demonstrated this in his writing. It is lovely seeing the class develop as writers and many of the boys love their writing and are very proud of what they are doing.

Today we read a book called The Polar Bear and the Snow Cloud. The story is about a little polar bear who was very lonely and the only friend it had was a snow cloud. To make the bear happy, the cloud kept making snow and getting it to form shapes such as an owl, a whale, a seal and a deer hoping this would make the bear less lonely. For a while it did until the bear realised that he could not lay with the snow statues. Fortunately along came another bear. We talked about feeling lonely and how we could help people who felt lonely. We thought about how different it was to have lots of friends. We shared what we would like to find under a snow cloud and had lots of different answers. These include mummy so that they could have cuddles although Jack said mummy so she could help him do the washing up, daddy so tat he could play games or buy army toys, Harrison said his puppies to feed and Zachary said his rabbits because he loved them.

Don't forget on Thursday we are having a morning start with parents in the hall.
See you then,
Mrs Bq

We were cutting winter and Spring pictures out to create a collage as part of our Persian New Year celebrations in Religious Education.

We probably all remember making paper tissue flowers at school.

Sustained concentration.

Ordering numbers 1-10/1-20. We then talked about 1 more and 1 less than a given number.

This class are jigsaw mad. The team work and co-operation is fantastic. I need to invest in some large trays for them to build on so they don't have to keep putting them away..

Letter formation on white boards. Really impressed with how the children are doing. White board writing is great as the children know it is not a permanent mark.