Read all about it!!

May I take the opportunity to thank everyone who attended Hazelnut and Cherry Classes' Reading Cafe this afternoon! Mrs Hough and I were extremely pleased to see so many of you there, to see all the fun, excitement and super learning from the children. So thank you for your commitment to us at East Harling Primary and to your child's education!

Sorry for my croaky voice... gotta love those Winter germs! I hope we gave you a brief outline of Read, Write Inc and how to support your child. If you have any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to ask a member of staff or look at the Ruth Miskin website.

For pronouncing those sounds...
http://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/resources/sound-pronunciation-guide/

For support in blending sounds...
http://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/resources/parent-tutorial-teaching-sound-blending/

Here are only a few of the highlights of today's fun...

Exploring "Hairy Letters" on the I-pads and playing I-Spy with the magnifiers and pictures.

Rosie and Daddy's crocodiles... make sure they don't each your books at home!

Bubblewrap crocodiles...watch out they are already eating the sounds!

Practising our sounds using the large magnetic phonemes

Annie teaching Daddy how to sound out his words! Well done Daddy!

"Once upon a time..." Enjoying traditional tales

Lots of Crocky-business going on here...

I think the grown-ups loved helping out today!

Storytime with Mummy!

I LOVE this picture! James was feeling shy... Crocodile wasn't though!

We love sharing stories!

Playdough letters formation!

Writing on the phoneme frames

Making CVC words with the monkeys- they do like to ch-a-t!

Pleased as punch!

Never too early to write!

We hope you enjoy lots of bedtime stories tonight!

The proof is in the pudding...

Funky Fingers this...
Funky Fingers that...

I am sure you have all heard about it, seen it and some of you may have even done it!
But here is what it is all about...

Below are a selection (sorry I cannot include them all) of my dear Hazelnuts' name writing assessments. It shows their name writing skills when they entered school in September, and now, a term on.

As you can see, they have all made fantastic progress. Letters are more recognisable, more controlled and increasingly better formed. Children are more confident and are attempting writing / mark making activities of their own choice. The children are adopting better pencil grips (the golden "Pincer Grip" / "Tripod Grip") as their muscles strengthen and become increasingly coordinated from their shoulders to their finger tips. This will then support (in time) to smaller writing, consistently sized writing and writing on the line.

But never fear... That doesn't mean Funky Fingers is finished! We still have a way to go to get "Our Hulk Hands"... But it is working and most importantly we are are having fun too!

Apologies but our film showing our warm up was too long for the blog! So stay tuned for a shorter version coming soon....

Christmas hits East Harling

Christmas has hit Early Years this week! 

Thanks to Mrs Biddell, we are lucky enough to have a Christmas tree in our outside area! It was so exciting but before the adults could even get the decorations out, Ollie from Hazelnuts had had a genius idea and began decorating the tree with the Numicon! This then led to a fabulous child-initiated maths activity involving writing Christmas tags with numbers and finding the correct numicon piece!

 And then Edward brought in a fabulous tinsel shooting star! Well that just had to go on top!
And we just HAD to wear Cherry Class' elf hats and pose!

We have been using our phonics to write letters to Santa, using our Fred Fingers to sound out words. We even drew pictures of our wishlist so that he knows which colours we would like! Although I am not sure how he will get a wishing well down a chimney...

 

We have looked at Google Earth to see where Lapland is and we even tried to zoom in... but there must be heavy Santa  security at work as it wouldn't let us see anything in Lapland, unlike when we looked at Norwich and East Harling etc. 

The week ended with us taking a walk to the post office in the village so that we could post our letters! Even Mr Wrinkles has sent a letter... Lets hope he has been a good boy this year.

A HUGE thank you to all the Mummies and Daddies who helped Hazelnuts and Cherries walk to the post office!

HELP!! Harling's Burning!

Hazelnuts and Cherries took their first steps into the local community on 24th November to visit the local fire station.

We were very excited to walk into the village, looking at the sights and familiar surroundings. When we reached the fire station we were welcomed inside by some of the Cherry parents who are brave fire fighters and help to keep the community safe. They had very kindly opened the 'unmanned' station for our visit and talked about their job.

We got to try on the uniforms and use the walkie talkies. We saw the fire engine and even got to squirt the hose ourselves! It was very powerful! the fire fighters showed us "behind the scenes" and we were able to see historical fire fighter artefacts and ask questions!

We saw some of the tools that are used to help rescue people who are trapped in cars and free them from car accidents.

Miss Grant and Mrs Hough even had a race! They had to get dressed in full fire fighter uniforms like the fire fighters really do in times of emergencies! A real alarm was even sounded so the teachers knew when to go... There was lots of cheering and excitement! We do have a video of Mrs Hough's victory that will hopefully be uploaded later...watch this space!

Hazelnuts and I would like to thank all  the parents of both Hazel and Cherry classes for their help in walking to and from the fire station, and for opening the station and giving us a fantastic and memorable experience! Thank you!!

Hazelnuts celebrate the Festival of Lights (Diwali)

Diwali is a Hindu festival celebrated in November around the world and marks the celebration of the fight of Prince Rama over the ten-headed demon Ravana. In Hazel class we have been learning about this special celebration...come and see...

We have made our own diva lamps using our Funky Fingers and some airdry clay. It really works those muscles and is a lot tougher to mould than Playdoh! We used tools to decorate our divas and checked that they were big enough to hold a tealight candle. When they have dried we will decorate them!

We have watched Bollywood dances and turned our arms and feet to it... We watched the children on Boogie Beebies and the adults in the music video for Jai Ho and copied their dance moves. We even got to wear authentic Indian clothing... What do you think?

We have learnt about how Hindu women paint their hands with henna paste and that these are called Mendhi patterns. We didn't paint our hands... instead we used our hands to make biscuits (with Mrs Sait cutting carefully around our hands on some dough)! Look at our chocolate/caramel Mendhi designs!

We had to use our "Funky Fingers" to squeeze the icing pens and we had to concentrate really hard!

 Some Hazelnuts used the felts to create Mendhi designs by drawing around their hands, or cut out one of the hand templates, complete with their designs!

In the Outside Area, we had coloured rice, lentils and pulses to make Rangoli patterns. At Diwali time, Hindus design Rangoli patterns on the ground outside their homes to welcome guests and bring good luck...
This was our Rangoli activity before...and during...

 We hope everyone had a very Happy Diwali this year!