Happy New Year to everyone and I hope you have all had a lovely family Christmas. Thank you for your generous Christmas gifts which were much appreciated (even though my waistline is considerably bigger as a result!) and I look forward to seeing you all again on Tuesday.
In terms of the coming weeks, can I ask your help in providing a strong home focus on Time in Maths over the next few weeks? Time is a very difficult concept for lots of children and it can be a real struggle teaching it in class. We have so far looked at the main features of time – using analogue clocks – O’clock, half past, quarter past and quarter to. Also the fact that each division on the clock face represents 5 minutes. We then moved on to look at corresponding digital times on a 12 hour clock. Despite lots of confidence, most children struggled with this, and only a handful were ready to move on to a wider variety of times. Could I ask that you help by drawing more attention to the time at home at various times of the day? Watching TV programmes and working out how long the programme lasts, or bus/ car journeys, baking, cooking times etc. will all provide extra opportunities for learning and then hopefully when we revisit the concept in the next few weeks the children will be more prepared.
In terms of Literacy we will be investigating Greek Myths for the next few weeks which most children usually really enjoy. I attach some weblinks to help them investigate the stories further at home and I trust you will encourage your child in this. Discussing the stories, in terms of settings, characters and the challenges faced will really help prepare your child for writing their own myth over the coming weeks.
Thank you for all your support last term, I have a lovely class and I am really enjoying my time with them. If anyone has any queries about anything posted please don’t hesitate to come and see me. See you on Tuesday! Mrs Kirwan
