02.12.22 The Gingerbread Man
Blog 02.12.22
This week we finished off our mini topic of traditional tales with the story of ‘The Gingerbread Man’. We talked about the key features of the front cover of the book and what information if can tell us about what the story is going to be about from the pictures and what characters we might come across. We added new masks to the woodland cottage so we could be different characters from the story and we have really enjoyed taking turns to be the gingerbread man and saying “run run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me I’m the Gingerbread Man”.
This week our rainbow challenges have been:
Literacy – cut and stick the different pictures from the story in the right order to make a story map
Maths – cut and sort the numbered gingerbread men in order 1-10
Fine motor – decorate your own gingerbread man
Funky fingers – pick up the pom poms with the tweezers to make an outline of the gingerbread man
Role play – take on the role of a character from the story of ‘The Gingerbread Man’ and retell the story
Phonics – use the picture to write different CVC words
ICT – count the buttons on the gingerbread man and find the number to match
This week we have introduced focused morning jobs. The children have been grouped into knights, castles and dragons and they come in and find their morning job at one of the tables. This week the focus has been handwriting and letter formation, cutting skills and ordering numbers. These will change weekly but it has made a real improvement to the engagement of the children to focus their learning straight away.
The reception children have started to learn Set 2 sounds from the Read Write Inc. phonics program. So far we have learnt to recognise ay ee and igh and have practised writing words using these sounds. We have learnt all the red words for this term so have been playing different games to ensure we can recognise these in different contexts.
In maths we have been looking at squares and rectangles and talking about how they are different even though they are both 4 sided shapes. We have also been singing a different number song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR-cfDsHCGA and this one has been a real favourite with the group.
In nursery children have been practising their scissor skills and cutting straight, curved and bendy lines. They have also been practising their pencil control and grip and have really enjoyed following the pathways the gingerbread man took throughout the story. They have also used different types of resources to make their own repeated patterns.
On Monday with NUFC we practised throwing and catching. We used our arm to point in the direction of our throw to make our aim even more precise. We played a team game in 2 groups against each other to try and get as many bibs in the other teams half of the playground to win the game.
On Tuesday we had a very busy day. We went to the post box at the top of Lacey Street and met Russell our local postman. We posted our letter to Santa in Reindeerland and found out why it is important that we put a stamp on the envelope as well as the right address. When we got back to school we watched a video clip which showed us what happens to the letter once it leaves the post box and all the different places it goes before reaching its final place.
We also went to Church for our Advent Service with the rest of school and listened to Reverend Alison telling us about this special time of year in the Christian church. We sung the songs we had been learning in school and Miss Sheridan played the organ for us.
We had our first whole school rehearsal for the Christmas play and we did a great job of dancing in front of the Year 5 and 6 children in the cast on stage.
On Thursday morning Bertie the Elf arrived from the North Pole. We found him sitting with a pile of presents with numbers on. We opened the first one and it was a new book and we have more to open each day for an advent calendar. We all think that he might be a mischievous elf so we need to keep on our toes to see what he gets up to during his time at Longhoughton!
To end the week we did some baking with Mrs Whaley and we made gingerbread men. We talked about the different ingredients we needed and looked at the recipe which told us how much of each ingredient we needed and worked together to measure out the correct amounts. We made enough so we could eat some but also saved some so we can decorate them too.
Every week we are lucky to have Mrs Woodhouse join us in school to help us with our reading. We like reading to her and talking about the different stories and we also play word games too.
Next week our focus story will be ‘The Jolly Postman’ and our role play area will be changed into a post office so we can write our own letters and wrap parcels and pretend to be like Russell our village postman.