Home » EYFS – Newsletter – 22.03.24

EYFS – Newsletter – 22.03.24

Saludos Amigos! We have reached South America on our World Tour and the children have had a great time exploring the varied wonders of this continent. Each day the children were presented with a new location or landmark in South America for them to find out where it was. Some children guessed, where others used the books and brochures in class to look for clues. So through the week we learned that the world’s tallest waterfall is Angel Falls in Venezuela; the world’s driest desert is the Atacama Desert in Chile; the ancient citadel of Machu Picchu is in Peru; and the statue of Christ the Redeemer overlooks Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

Around our classroom were lots of opportunities for the children to further explore aspects of South American culture. Miss Devine kindly lent us her Peruvian poncho and jacket that she picked up on her travels last year so that we could take a close look and use this as inspiration to design our own patterns. The children also enjoyed using the watercolour palettes to carefully paint rainforest creatures from the Amazon jungle and used their imagination to design a magical door inspired by the Disney film Encanto (set in Colombia). The children have also been encouraged to engage in back and forth conversations, asking each other questions about where in the world they would like to see and answering each other in full sentences.

In Phonics sessions this week, we have finished learning the last sounds of the phase 3 – ‘air’ (chair) ‘ure’ (pure) and ‘er’ (pepper). The children have worked really hard to rehearse using these sounds in their reading and writing. After Easter break, we shall be revisiting all of the learned sounds and helping the children to become more confident in using them independently.

Maths work this week has focused on exploring the names and properties of 3D shapes. The children have enjoyed their hands on with hunting for shapes in our environment and playing 3D shape ‘Top Trumps’ to investigate and compare shapes.