October is the month of the Holy Rosary. This week we have introducing the children to simple, tactile, and sensory ways of reflecting on the lives of Jesus and Mary. Our child led worship on Thursday was about the Rosary. We looked at different sets of rosary beads we have in school and images of people praying with rosary beads. We have all now made our own rosary beads that we can use to pray the holy rosary in nursery and school. We all went into our prayer garden and said the Hail Mary, Our Father and the Glory Be.

Prayer and liturgy

This week we have continued our Creation and Covenant topic with ‘The sign of the cross’. Our key words this week were CROSS, PRAYER and SIGN.

We spoke about all the parts of the sign of the cross:

Start by touching the forehead with the right hand and the words ‘In the name of the Father,’. The hand moves up towards heaven.

Move right hand to join the left hand on the stomach whilst saying ‘…and of the Son’. The hand moves down towards earth. Jesus became man and came to earth.

Move right hand across the chest to touch the left shoulder then back to the right shoulder whilst saying ‘…and of the Holy Spirit’.

Finish with hands joined as you say ‘Amen’.

We then looked back to our discussion about Baptism, At baptism you are marked with the sign of the cross as you are welcomed into God’s family.

As the priest pours the water three times over the person to be baptised he says the words ‘ N. I baptise you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’

Learning Landscape

Our learning landscape this week has been full of activities to promote fine motor skills. A key component for writing.

We have been:

using tweezers to find and pick up treasure from underwater!
fairy sparkle sand filling
funky fingers threading using different sized pipe cleaners and objects with holes in which to thread
colour spot game
finding phonemes
gardening
pracitsing duck fingers (tripod grip) for writing
playing with the fairy kingdom we made
colour matching pictures using buttons
matching Numicon number patterns (one and two) with numerals
counting and matching keys to ‘2’
measuring ourselves for our height chart
…not to mention two outdoor PE sessions with Mr. Nay and one indoor exercise session with the nursery ladies, tap sticks and Spud and Yam music sessions and lots and lots of stories
…phew, it’s exhausting!

Home learning challenge

This week we have been focusing on One and another One before we fully introduce Two next week. Click here to watch the video and all will become clear

Maths in the episode

The structure of 2

The mathematics in this episode introduces the part-part-whole structure of number.

One and Another one come together to make Two (combining)

Two can be separated into One and Another One (partitioning)

Two can be represented using other vocabulary such as ‘twice as much’ and ‘pair

Counting to 2

Counting involves knowing the order of the number names and assigning one number tag to one object or event. This episodes saying “one, two” and using this to tag objects (e.g. tennis rackets) and events (e.g. steps, hitting the ball).

When you are out and about this weekend or playing games at home try counting ‘one, two’ or using the language that combines one object with another one. Enjoy!

Have a lovely weeked together with your loved one and I will see you on Monday

Stay safe and God bless

Barbara