Driffield Church Of England Voluntary Controlled Infant School

This week we have continued to learn about the creatures which live under the sea. I have been extremely impressed with the children's knowledge about sea creatures and the facts they have remembered from our learning last week. This week we also looked at some photographs of Victorian seaside holidays and compared them to some modern pictures. The children were surprised to see the men in smart suits and the ladies wearing long dresses with hats. They also thought that the Victorian swimming costumes were very funny.

In phonics this week, the children have learnt four new digraphs: oo as in zoom and moon, oo as in book and look, ar as in march and card and or as in horn and fork. I sent home a phonics sheet earlier this week, it clearly shows all the new Phase 3 digraphs and trigraphs we will be learning this half term. Please support your child to spot these sounds when they are decoding new words as it will help them to read a growing number of words independently. For example: 'oa' in the word boat. Your child will need to segment the word into the three phonemes b-oa-t and not the four letters b-o-a-t. If your child doesn't spot this in a word they are attempting to read, point out the digraph to support them. if you are at all unsure please don't hesitate to ask. 

In maths this week we have been investigating the mass of an object. The children have been using bucket balances to find out if objects are heavier or lighter than a glue stick. In today's lesson, we used cubes to find the weight (mass) of 4 different objects. We then worked out which was the heaviest and which was the lightest. 

Next week, we are very excited about our visit to The Deep on Thursday (22nd Jan). The children will need to come to school in their school uniform as normal. Please make sure they are wearing comfortable shoes and that they bring their coat with them as normal. The children do not need to bring their book bag to school and they do not need any money with them on the day. A packed lunch will be provided by school. This will be a wonderful experience and it will enhance our learning and it will ignite further enthusiasm for our learning about Under the Sea. 

As always, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Have a lovely weekend with your family.

Kind regards

Mrs Dean & the Hedgehog Team