Next Week in Challenger T2Wk6

What a treat it was to see the beautiful stars made by Challenger children. They

all found the perfect place for their creations on the tree this morning and now it looks wonderful!

We have had a successful week in Challenger and children have particularly impressed with the way they have grasped part - whole models in maths. This is a key representation which we use to model partitioning. We start with concrete objects in the model, progress to a pictorial representation and then to numbers, as below. These part whole models show the ways that five can be partitioned.

In phonics and reading for the remaining few weeks of term, we will be consolidating learning from the first two terms. There are no new shared readers until after Christmas. The remaining weeks of term will provide opprtunities to formally assess the children and gauge progress in Year 1 objectives. Children should have brought home their RAG-rated CEW dinosaur which they coloured to show which words they are secure with or need to work on. I will be checking knowledge of these spellings next week. CEWs have to be learned separately as they are not decodable. Our Success for All scheme calls these 'red' words (as opposed to 'green' decodable words). If they did not bring home their dinosaur, there is a list to be found by clicking the buttons at the top of the class page.

In writing next week children will produce a letter to Father Christmas. Children will be formally introduced to the idea of editing their work.

In maths we continue to look at the compostion of numbers and will introduce the bar model.

Have a great week everyone!

Science - we conducted investigations to find out whether materials were transparent or opaque. Also we tested materials for absorbency. When we used the microscopes to look closely at the materials it was clear that the different structures would have allowed greater or lesser absorbency. We even had some cries of 'Wow!' as children saw these materials close up.

Christmas Stars

Two more children tackle the perpetual puzzle and are successful!