Sh, sh, sh, Our Sheep are Asleep

 These sheep are so sweet. We had a great time getting covered in glue and threads of cotton wool to create them. 

We have been learning about the 'sh' digraph this week. A digraph is two letters that make one sound. It is different to a blend like 'gr' or 'bl'. Other digraphs we are learning at the moment include 'th' and 'ch'.

We have enjoyed reading this poem by Christina G Rossetti. As well as reading White Sheep, we have been finding and reading 'sh' and words that begin with 'sh', then writing them on our mini-whiteboards during our phonics programme. I used these words from Sparklebox to display with our woolly sheep.

I cheated a bit with this display and reused the counting stars from this earlier 'Our Street' display blogged about here.

Bird Feeders

Our first Mountaineers Discovery session this term was all about winter - and during winter birds can get pretty hungry. One of our Discovery activities was making bird feeders.

 The children smeared margarine all over the outside of a small pine cone and rolled it in bird seed. The bird feeders were hung outside for the birds to feast on when there are no children about. You can use peanut butter or lard for the bird seed to stick to, but we used margarine at school, that way we don't need to worry about peanut allergies.
(Another teacher in our block of classrooms came up with this great activity!)

It was great to see lots of new Mountaineers join our session (we call our pre-school visitors Mountaineers - because they are scaling the heights of learning). Part of establishing a feeling of belonging and inclusiveness at our school includes displaying each child's name and photo on our Mountaineers photo board. Today I was busy taking photos of lots of lovely new smiling faces. When our Mountaineers turn 5 and start school, their photo is moved from the visitor part of the wall to join their new teacher and classmates photos.

Snowflakes

Snowflakes

Snowflakes are our friends
They descend when winter comes
Making white blankets

By Kaitlyn Guenther

I have my fingers crossed that we will have snow at school again this year (but it seems unlikely). So we have been reading this beautiful haiku together this week to get us in the mood for winter. I love the picture my mind creates when I read this, and the children in my class were able to imagine their own mind picture. One girl talked about how her mind saw the snow covering everything, "softy and fluffy, like a blanket".  

(Click here for a pdf of the poem.)

 We made paper snowflakes today to decorate the classroom with our descriptive winter words. 

I told the class that they had to make at least one snowflake for our classroom and any others they made they could take home. Some children enjoyed cutting and unfolding their snowflakes so much, they made one for each member of their family.

The great thing about this activity is the instant result, a few cuts and you have something quite pretty (or interesting) when you unfold your paper. The children felt successful, and that is something I love to encourage!

Our Favourite You Tube Songs

These are some of the You Tube clips that we have been enjoying lately.

  This is my personal favourite!