Term 3

This week, students have been exploring the wonderful world of nursery rhymes, in Reading, students built their background knowledge by exploring a range of familiar nursery rhymes using QR codes and iPads. They listened to different poems, shared their favourites and discussed what they noticed. Throughout the week, we focused on the poem Twinkle Twinkle Southern Stars, where students learnt to identify rhyming words, explored new vocabulary and listened carefully for words that have the same ending sounds. They also investigated onset and rime by building words such as star, car and jar, helping them recognise common spelling patterns.

Students participated in a variety of hands-on rhyming games, sorting pictures into rhyming and non-rhyming groups, highlighting rhyming words in poems and working with partners to explain why words rhyme. 

In Writing, students drew their favourite nursery rhyme and recorded key vocabulary from the poems they explored. As the week progressed, they matched rhyming pictures and words, completed sentence starters inspired by Twinkle Twinkle Southern Stars, and created lists of words that rhyme with -at. Together, we also co-constructed vocabulary anchor charts to support students' oral language and writing.

In Phonics, our focus sounds were /b/ and /h/. Students practised identifying the sounds, matching them to letters, and reading and writing words containing these phonemes through a range of explicit and hands-on learning experiences.

In Personal and Social learning, students have been exploring different emotions and developing their understanding of how people may feel in different situations. They learned about facial expressions and body language associated with emotions such as happy, angry, sad and excited. Through discussions and interactive activities, students explored ways they can recognise emotions in themselves and others. Also, they learned how they can support people when they are experiencing different feelings.

Students enjoyed participating in an emotion game. They used their facial expressions and body language to represent different emotions.

Students have also been learning about resilience and how we can respond positively when we face challenges. They were encouraged to reflect on a time when they showed resilience and represented their experiences through drawings. We discussed the importance of having a positive mindset and continuing to try even when things feel difficult.

To further develop our understanding of resilience, students explored the concept of the Learning Pit. We discussed how practising new skills, making mistakes and trying again can help us achieve our goals. It has been wonderful to see students actively engaged in their learning and confidently sharing their ideas and experiences with their classmates.