Welcome to the Owls Class (EYFS Unit)

Week Commencing 6.5.24

Our theme is: to be an artist ...

Last week we learnt what being a pilot was like.

This week we will be visiting Berkhamsted Art exhibition and we are making our own works of art to exhibit at the event! The children have already enjoyed exploring the different textures they can create with different printing techniques. 

Megan would like to find out how artists paint so it looks so real. Ayanda told us she likes the way the paint feels on her hands. Catherine told us she loves bright colours and she loves mixing colours to make new ones. Lily told us she loves yellow because it reminds her of Spring and flowers. Rafa said he likes blue spirals because they make him feel calm. Tilly would like to know how different artists paint. Ralph would like to know why artists draw their own faces and Grayson is curious how some artists put metal together. Georgie-Jo told us that artists paint very very carefully. Oliver (from Owls) told us that his aunt is an artist and her pictures are like pictures from the past, like the ones we can see in museums. We are looking forward to seeing some pictures!

Literacy

We have created ideas and practised lots of independent segmenting (breaking down a word into sounds to write) last week. We are so proud of our children! This week we will be writing our own versions of Dear Zoo across the week. In our first lesson the children will choose their setting and their first unsuitable animal! They are very familiar with story now and this will give them the confidence to innovate and have a go at writing their own ideas. Children will have names of settings and animals on display to support their writing. In our first lesson we will give them the sentence structure support and they will be working with a partner so they can support each other.  Then as the week progresses we will give the children more independence in their own writing. We will be discussing what a sentence is to build up our own classroom ‘super sentence’ checklist - capital letters, full stops, finger spaces, can you read it and does it make sense? We will celebrate our children’s writing and children will read out their work to others. 
Maths

This week, the children will review the composition of the numbers 6 to 9 using the ‘5 and a bit’ structure, and then begin to explore how 10 can be composed. They will also develop a sense of the ‘ten-ness of 10’ by making their own collections of 10 objects.

When exploring how 10 can be composed of 2 parts, the focus is on developing the children’s ability to subitise the parts in structured arrangements. A key representation to support this will be the double dice frame, which will allow them to build on their experiences in Week 23. The children will be encouraged to recognise a larger part of 10 when it is presented in the ‘5 and a bit’ structure, and then subitise the smaller part. They will also be encouraged to see how finger patterns can be used to represent 2 parts of 10, using the ‘fingers up and fingers down’ approach that was used when exploring the composition of 5. The children can also be given opportunities to see the composition of 10 represented on a 10-frame.  

Connections

The children will already have experience of subitising small quantities and will use their existing skills to identify the ‘5 and a bit’ structure of the numbers 6 to 9. They will have previously built towers of blocks and made patterns of numbers to 10 in different ways, and they will build on these skills to further explore numbers between 5 and 10. 

When the children can compose and flexibly de-compose numbers mentally, they will become more fluent in their knowledge of number bonds and will be able to use this knowledge to become efficient when calculating in Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2. Understanding and recalling how 10 can be composed is especially important as it underpins our number system.

EAD/UW

Inspired by nature the children will be creating their own insect pictures using paint, print or collage. We will be part of the Berkhamsted Art Exhibition this year! Please go and have a look at the weekend at the Swing Gate art on display along with other Berkhamsted artist works.