Week 20 and 21

Dear Parents, 

Our days are always filled with lively and purposeful activities. The children are deeply engaged in Montessori work, choosing materials from the shelves and exploring them with curiosity. Both collaborative partnerships and individual activities are encouraged as part of their learning journey.

All Nursery children are encouraged to develop their cutting skills, and many have been actively practising this recently. They begin by cutting small strips and pasting them onto paper to create collages. As their confidence grows, they progress to cutting more complex lines and incorporating cutting into their artwork.

Meanwhile, our Reception children have been busy practising reading, segmenting, and blending sounds, while also balancing a range of other learning activities. Please be reminded that in a Montessori environment, each child works at their own pace and engages in activities that suit their individual stage of development.

We have also welcomed a number of parents to join us for our December and January birthday celebrations, and these have been a wonderful success. The time and effort you put into creating posters and sharing little stories about each milestone during the celebration truly added to the pride and joy of the birthday child. We thank you for your enthusiasm and continued support in making these celebrations so meaningful.

As part of our ongoing unit on Houses and Homes, the children developed an understanding that there are many different types of homes within their local environment, as well as homes found around the world. Through shared discussions and literature, they explored how people live in different communities. The story ‘Stone Soup’ was read to support this learning, highlighting how people contribute and work together within their homes and neighbourhoods.

Building on this, the children used the story ‘The Three Little Pigs’ to investigate the materials used in house construction and to compare their strength and durability. This led to thoughtful discussions about which materials make structures stronger and more stable.

The children also explored both two-dimensional and three-dimensional shapes found in buildings. They identified shapes commonly seen in houses, such as squares for windows, rectangles for doors, and triangles for roofs. In addition, they matched three-dimensional shapes to different types of structures, for example: cones for huts, cuboids for houses, cylinders for lighthouses, and square-based pyramids for the pyramids of Egypt.

Year 1 additional learning covered – Week 20 and 21

Phonics   

To identify sounds represented by more than one letter, for example /ch/, /th/, /qu/, /ng/, /ay/

Some children are beginning to learn about alternative sounds such as /ee/ can also be written with ‘ea’. 

To use phonic knowledge to read decodable words. Reading and writing CVC words,words with adjacent vowel / consonants using sounds covered, words with double consonants such as bell, mess, mitt, back. 

Language / Literacy – Reading. Guided Reading groups – Practising fluency of reading and gaining the confidence to recognise sounds and blend them to read words and sentences.  Reading comprehension, to be able to answer direct questions about the book.

Language / Literacy– Writing / Speaking –  Story: ‘This is our house’ by Michael Rosen

We re-read the story.

The children learned to make simple inferences about the events of the story and connected them to ‘feelings’. 

We discussed the rules that George ( the main character) had and whether we thought they were fair or not. We linked the rules to our classroom rules and home rules. The children wrote some of the rules out and created their own poster. 

Maths – 

Capacity

The children used familiar language to describe capacity including, empty, full, half – empty / full, nearly full / empty

More fun was had reinforcing the language used and understanding.

Subtraction – take away

Introduction to how we arrive at a smaller number by taking away a quantity. 

Measurement – Handling data

The children learned to answer non-statistical questions (categorical data) and how to record, organise and represent categorical data using: lists, tables and block graphs

Important dates for Semester 2

Further information will be shared closer to each date. Please note that unless otherwise stated or indicated as ‘parents are invited,’ these events are for children only

11 Feb – Montessori Lunar New Year presentation (a group of parents will be invited)

13 Feb – Lunar New Year celebrations

3 & 4 Mar – Montessori student-led presentations (parents are invited)

2 Apr – Easter Egg Hunt

13 Apr – School Photos

23 Apr – World Book Day

22 May – Fun day

4 Jun – End of Year Performance (parents are invited)

 

Kind regards,

Montessori Team