Chinese New Year

Kung Hei Fat Choi (Happy Chinese New Year),

We have been learning all about China this week and the Chinese New Year celebrations.  We have found out where China is on a globe and have looked at all their lovely decorations.  We have had a really good go at making our own decorations - we have made lanterns, dragons, lion puppets, lucky money envelopes, cards and paintings.  We have even had a go at doing some Chinese writing !  It is very tricky and looks very different to our writing.  Lara was very good at it.

This year is the year of the snake and as a special treat Xander's mum brought in her pet corn snake called JINX.  She told us all about how to look after it.  Did you know snakes only have one meal a week - a dead mouse - and they swallow it whole.  On the computer we saw a photo of a snake that had swallowed a whole sheep !!  Luckily Jinx wasn't quite that big.

In PE we have been doing Chinese dancing with our lion puppets and scarves.  Don't we look great?  It was really good fun pretending to be lions and dragons.  We have also learnt a Chinese song and played all the instruments, trying really hard to keep to the beat.

We have tasted some Chinese food aswell - noodles and prawn crackers - and we have had a go at using chopsticks - very tricky !

On Tuesday it was Pancake Day and we all had a turn at tossing a pancake.  We shared pancakes with lemon and sugar too - yummy !  We seem to have done a lot of eating in Grasshopper Class this week.

Whoops

In maths we have been learning ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd etc) up to 10.  It would be great if you could do some practising at home.  Perhaps you could practise lining up your favourite 10 toys and see if you can answer questions like 'Who is 3rd?'

We have now learnt nearly all of our sounds so please keep having a go at them over the half term.  Some of them are quite tricky (especially the ones with 2 letters and 1 sound eg oa, ai, ow etc).  Keep a look out for our new sounds in your story books - I bet you will find quite a lot.  Here are some handy links for helping you to practise your learning at home in the holidays:

phonics games




Well have a lovely week off.  See you soon.

Grasshopper Class

Jess has arrived !

Hello there,

We have been learning about pets this week.  We have talked about our pets at home and have discussed pets that we would like to own.  Mr Balls brought in his guinea pigs on Tuesday.  They were called Bandit and Smokey and they were so cute.  He told us all about how to look after them and I think we all want a guinea pig now !  Miss Carter and Mr Balls brought the guinea pigs round so that we could all say hello - it was a real treat.

 

 

 

 

We have also made our own pet homes - we had some really good ideas.

 

 

Something really exciting happened this week - the zoo sent us the PERFECT PET.  He is a little puppy called Jess and we love him already.  Every week Mrs Young and Mrs Ball will choose someone to take Jess home for the weekend.  You will have to look after him really carefully please and I am sure you will have loads of fun.  Remember to fill in his diary so that we can see what you have been up to and, more importantly, remember to bring him back on Monday.  We will choose someone every week who has been working really hard in class - which will be quite tricky as everyone in Grasshopper Class works so hard.

We have been learning to count in 2's this week - hopefully you've all been practising at home too?  Why not try counting your toys in 2's?  We have also been looking at pictograms about pets - we were amazingly good at this - Mrs Young and Mrs Ball were very impressed.

Thank you to ALL the parents who came along to our phonics session on Monday.  It was a fantastic turn out - the best yet.  If anyone has any questions about how we are teaching the new sounds please do come in and ask us.

Remember that READING CAFE is on every Thursday and is really good fun.  There is always a good story and lots of different craft activities to try.  Also you can have a cup of tea and a biscuit and a good chat !  AJ, Thomas and Tony have been to reading cafe lots of times and have lots of fun.  Why not come along and give it a try?

Well must be hopping along now.  See you next week.

Grasshopper Class

Dear Zoo

Hi Everyone,

This week we have been reading Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell.  It has lots of really good describing words in it and we have been learning how to describe different animals using words like - fierce, small, long, scarey, slippery etc.  We have also written to our local zoo asking if we could perhaps have a pet of our own to keep.

Well you would not believe what the zoo have sent us .........

On the first day they sent us a deer - we had to send him back because he was much too big.

On the second day they sent us a snake - oh dear me Mrs Young did not like that (even though Bailey thought we could keep it because his grandad used to have one and he knows a lot about snakes).  Anyway Mrs Ball said it was far too scarey so we had to send him back too.

On the third day they sent us a really sweet little monkey - but he was quite naughty and kept on jumping about all over the place.  We don't have enough room for a monkey so I'm afraid we sent him back aswell.

On the fourth day they sent us a FROG - goodness me what can we do with a frog? He was far too jumpy so he's gone back to the zoo aswell.  We've got the weekend now so Mrs Young is hoping that the zoo thinks really hard and sends us something a bit more 'pet-like' on Monday.

On Thursday we had a brilliant time having a go at karate.  We had to copy the instructor doing lots of jumps and kicks and it was great fun.  Mrs Ball was surprisingly good at karate too - I wonder if she goes to a club? 

 

 

But Jessica was our KARATE QUEEN.

We have been using the instruments this week in music and learning to keep a beat.  Have a look at the pictures of our fantastic bands.

On Monday we have a phonics drop in (in our classroom) at 9.00 to show mums and dads (and carers) how we are learning our phase 3 phonics.  We hope to see lots of you there - it will only take 25 minutes and it will be really useful.

Must hop along now.

Grasshopper Class