Welcome to Year R!

2023-24

In Year R, our teachers are Mrs Baker (Class 1), Mrs Fowlds (Class 2), Miss Draper (Class 3) and Miss King. Mrs Searle oversees all three classes as Assistant Headteacher and Early Years Manager. We are also supported by our dedicated Learning Support Assistant (LSA): Miss Drury, Miss Speller, Mrs Bright, Miss Croft, Mrs Eldridge, Mrs Jandula and Mrs Howlett. 

If you have any questions, please speak with your child's class teacher. You can speak to your child’s class teacher by phoning the school and requesting an appointment if they are not around at pick-up.

Keep referring back to this page for regular updates about the children's learning. 

Update - Thursday 28th March 2024

This week we have been looking at the Easter story, we have read this and sequenced it. We have been decorating our eggs, writing descriptive sentences about eggs and been creating cracked eggs with a chick popping out. 

This week we completed the phonics assessment for this half term, the children did so well and I am so proud of them! I have sent out emails regarding the areas that children need to work on, so please do this over the half term. We have also been reading longer words, for example: winking, mammoth, farmyard and earring. Children need to be confident with their digraphs and trigraphs to read these words so please keep practising at home. 

In maths we have been looking at number bonds to 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. We have been playing games with our friends where one friend holds up one part of the number bonds and the other holds up the other part (one person holds up 3 fingers and the other holds up 2 to make number bonds to 5). Jack Hartman does great videos on these number bonds that the children really enjoy watching, we have watched these in school so the children will recognise them. 

Have a lovely Easter half term, please share all the exciting things you get up to so that we can share these as a class when we are back after the break! 

Update - Friday 22nd March 2024

We have been exploring Spring. We have been looking at signs of Spring and what Spring means to us. We have learnt about pollination and migration, as well as identifying daffodils, buds, crocuses, and blossoms. We also found out why lambs are born during Spring.

On Tuesday, we sowed some cress seeds and monitored them in the classroom. Then, on Thursday, we sequenced the sowing process and wrote about it using instructions.  In maths we have been looking at number bonds to 8, we used part whole models and counters, as well as numicon to help us.

On the art table, we created a spring garden using shapes to create flowers, drew our own spring landscape, and made tube bees.

We have been practising writing numbers, as many of the children have been reversing them. They have been practising the numbers 3, 7, 8, and 5. If you can continue practising at home, it would be greatly appreciated. We have also been working hard to recognise and read tricky words. The children loved it when I had them stuck all over me, so I created some stickers for them. They had great fun challenging their friends' tricky word recognition.

Have a lovely weekend, and remember to send back reading books for Monday.

Update - Friday 15th March 2024

This week we continued our topic of ‘dinosaurs’, using the story ‘That’s not my dinosaur’.

The children have been learning how to recognise carnivores and herbivores, labelled dinosaurs and wrote their own ‘That’s not my dinosaur’ sentences. We have made our own fossils and used the iPad to take photos of them.

We have been practising reading longer words and words that end in -ing during phonics, as well as keeping up with the tricky words we have learnt.

Update - Friday 8th March 2024

This week, we had a mysterious egg delivery in the classroom. The egg hatched and made footprints all over the table. We wrote sentences to say what we thought was in the egg to practise writing sentences, remembering our capital letters and dull stops. We then had a surprise visit from a dinosaur, which the children found very exciting!

In phonics, we have continued to read longer words and spot the digraphs or trigraphs in them. We have also reviewed the tricky words to, go, into, of, and no. Please practise these at home to ensure children are confident with them.

In maths, we have been looking at numbers up to 10, their arrangements, and the number bonds to 10. Please continue to practise these at home.

We had lots of fun on World Book Day, and the children’s costumes looked amazing! The day focused on The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which the children enjoyed.
 

Update - Friday 1st March 2024

This week we have been looking at people who help us, with this week the focus being on nurses. We have looked at Florence Nightingale and read the Little People's Big Dreams book about her. The children have really enjoyed learning about Florence, what she did, and where she was born/ worked on the map. They have made their X-rays, sorted new and old pictures of nurses, and written captions to show the differences between nurses when Florence was alive and today.

In phonics, we have again used our knowledge to read longer words. This week we have focused on the tricky words: full, push, and, go, no, of. We have been reading longer sentences, practising spelling longer words, and recapping the tricky words this week.

In maths, we have followed our learning of 9 and 10. We have been looking at the composition of these numbers, representing one more and one less than numbers up to 8 and conceptual subitising to 10.

Update - Friday 23rd February 2024

For our first week back after half term and to introduce our new topic this half term, we have been reading ‘The Jolly Postman’. The children have really enjoyed reading this book, especially after sending and receiving their letters in half term. We have sequenced the story, looked at different stamps and posted digraph letters into the correct post box.

We have been reading longer words in phonics with the digraphs and trigraphs we have learnt. We have been reviewing the tricky words: the, I, put, pull, and full, focusing on why they are tricky and learning to memorise them.

In maths, we have been learning about the numbers 9 and 10. We have been looking at how to represent these numbers, form them and notice things in the environment comprising 9 or 10 things.

Update - Friday 9th February 2024

This week, we met ‘Keith the Cat with the Silly Hat’, another of our favourite Sue Hendra stories.  We created our own silly hats on the art table, and on the cutting table, we cut and matched hats to people who helped us.

In maths, Class 1 has been looking at height and length, remembering the vocabulary we previously learned in the school year. We have been using the words shortest/shorter/short and tallest/taller/tall to describe height and longest/longer/long to describe length.  We have been looking at ways to make towers that are taller, shorter or the same height as everyday objects.

We have been recapping all the phonemes, digraphs, and trigraphs we have learned and focusing on reading longer words in phonics.

We also had a trip to the local postbox this week. We walked there as a class and posted something special to you. 

Update - Friday 2nd February 2024

This week, we have continued our Sue Hendra topic with the book ‘Barry the Fish with Fingers’. The children have enjoyed this story and have made different fingers for Barry, sequenced the story and wrote their speech bubbles and captions for Barry.

In maths this week, we have been looking at odd and even, how to know if a number is odd or even and sorting numicon into odd or even columns. We have been looking at making doubles and finding numbers double.

In phonics this week, we have been reading longer words with the digraphs and trigraphs we have learnt, for example, sunset, laptop, chicken, magnet, market, chair, and ladder. We have been focusing on our tricky words: are, was, they, you and by.

Update - Friday 19th January 2024

This week, we have been looking at another Sue Hendra book: No-Bot, the Robot with No Bottom. The children enjoyed reading this story and found it funny that the robot had lost his bottom. In class, we have been painting our robots on tin foil, sequencing the robot story, writing labels for pictures from the story and creating collaborative pieces of work.

In phonics this week, we have learnt the digraphs (two letters that make one sound): ur, ow and or. We also learnt the trigraph (three letters that make one sound): ear. We have learnt the tricky words my, by and all, focusing on what part of these words is tricky.

In maths, we have been looking at mass and capacity. The children have been using scales to see which objects are heavier and lighter with a partner, understanding the capacity of containers, and have had the chance to explore these concepts independently.

Update - Friday 6th January 2024

What a lovely welcome-back week we have had after Christmas! I hope you all had an amazing Christmas break and wish you all health and happiness for 2024. 

This week, we started our topic with the author, Sue Hendra. Our first book to start this topic is Supertato, which we have been focusing our learning around this week. The children have enjoyed creating their Supertatos using potatoes, sequencing the story and creating speech bubbles for the characters in the story. 

We have been looking at digraphs (2 letters that make one sound) in phonics. We have learnt: ai, ee, igh and oa. Words we can make with these digraphs are, for example, rain, sheep, light, and boat. 

We have used stickers to construct sentences describing Supertato, e.g. Supertato has a red cape. The stickers showed pictures (for Supertato, colours and clothes) or words (has, a). We had to think very carefully about the order of our words and do lots of re-reading to ensure the sentences made sense.

In maths, we have been practising our subitising skills, explored the composition of 5 and showed different amounts using a five frame.

Update - Friday 15th December 2023

We have had a very busy week this week. After practising, we performed our nativity for our families and friends. The teachers are very proud of every child and how much effort they put into our show.

This week, we have been exploring the traditional story of ‘Nativity’. The children have learnt why Mary and Joseph had to travel to Bethlehem and what happened when they arrived.

We have created our stable scenes, cutting out important characters, sticking them down and writing labels and simple sentences/captions, e.g. The King had a gift, I am a king.

We have been looking at different ways to make 5 using Numicon with a Christmas theme and having lots of festive fun.

We will not send books home over Christmas. However, books at your child’s reading level will be available on the ECollins website.

Thank you for supporting your child throughout our first term together, have a very happy and healthy Christmas and we will see you all in the new year.

Update - Friday 8th December 2023

This week the children have been looking at another amazing story by Julia Donaldson ‘What the ladybird heard at Christmas’. This book is lovely to follow on from stickman, as we get closer to Christmas! Class 3 have enjoyed sequencing the story, writing labels and making Christmas scenes for the ladybird. 

The children are getting so excited for Christmas which is lovely to see. We have been practising the nativity lots this week and the children have been out of routine, but they have dealt with this really well and I am so proud of them all. The nativity is looking so good and I can’t wait for you all to see it! 

In phonics this week the children have been reviewing this half terms learning. The phonics lessons focused on words ending in ‘s’ and on reading sentences and writing words, for example: cups, dogs, bags. The tricky words we have learnt this week are: we, be and me. 

In maths the children have been looking at ‘shapes with 4 sides’, squares and rectangles. The children have learnt that a rectangle has 4 sides like a square, but has 2 sides which are longer. We have been looking for squares and rectangles in the environment, have a look at home with your child too. 

Update - Friday 1st December 2023

This week, the children have been looking at another fantastic story by Julia Donaldson, ‘Stick Man.’ This book is lovely to introduce Christmas! The children have enjoyed sequencing the story, creating their speech bubbles, and making stickman models using outside resources. 

In phonics this week, we have learned 4 new digraphs (2 letters that make the same sound): sh, th, nk, ng. We also learned 4 new tricky words: she, he, push, of. Please keep practising these at home as the children progress.

In maths, the children have been looking at 4 and 5 again. We have been subsitizing these numbers, looking at their composition and representing them. We have also been noticing triangles and circles in the environment to recap learning from last week whilst counting forwards and backwards to 10. 

Update - 20th November 2023

This week, the children have been looking at another fantastic story by Julia Donaldson, ‘Monkey Puzzle’! The children have enjoyed sequencing the story and creating speech bubbles and monkey puzzles.

In phonics this week, we have learned 4 new sounds: z, qu, ch, and s at the end of words. We also learnt 4 new tricky words: go, no, to, and into. Please keep practising these at home as the children progress.

In maths, the children have been looking at 4 and 5. We have been subsitizing these numbers, looking at their composition and representing them. We have also been noticing triangles and circles in the environment to recap learning from last week whilst counting forwards and backwards to 10.

Update - Friday 13th November 2023

This week we are exploring the book ‘A Squash and a Squeeze.’  We have been retelling the story using props, sequencing the story, and creating characters from the story.

We have been down to the dough disco and working on our hand strength using the dough disco moves.

In maths, we have been looking at representing 5 using multi-links. The children had to create different shapes using five cubes each time. We have also been exploring circles and triangles, playing identification games and finding them in the environment.

We also discussed Remembrance Day and what we did to celebrate. We created a class Poppy using tissue paper.

Update - Friday 10th November 2023

We have been focusing on The Gruffalo to continue our Julia Donaldson topic. The children know this story well, which gives us a great starting point to delve deeper into some comprehension.

This week, we have been building sentences using pictures and words that the children can read. Our sentences have described the physical features of the Gruffalo. Once we had built sentences, we read them back to make sure they made sense. We sequenced the story, focusing on the beginning, middle and end and reminded ourselves about the common features of a book, e.g. blurb, front cover, and title.

We used a tearing paper technique to create and paint our own guffalos. We have made Gruffalo story maps and enjoyed retelling the story with the props and puppets we made.

We have been exploring finding one more and one less than a number in maths. We used cubes to help us identify this and to check our answers. We have also played some listening games during daily maths, listening for sounds and showing how many we heard each time using our fingers.

Outside, we have been reliving our fireworks experiences using various media to make fireworks.

Update- Friday 3rd November 2023

This week, we have been exploring the book ‘Room on the Broom’. We labelled pictures using our phonic knowledge and drew and talked about our favourite characters.

We have been doing more colour mixing, mixing blue and red to make purple to paint the witches' skirt and making orange to paint our pumpkins.

We have been making potions using objects such as peg, pen, pig, hat, cup and then writing a list of the things we used.

Our role play became a cafe where the children used 1p coins to buy food and drink. They have been playing the roles of customer and shopkeeper, looking at the menus and writing down orders.

In maths, we have been exploring the numbers 1,2 and 3. We have been finding different ways to represent these numbers and playing subitising games. On the cutting table and in the tuff tray, we have been recapping previous learning by ordering objects by size.

Update - Friday 20th October 2023

This week, we have continued to celebrate ‘Black History Month’. We have been reading the book ‘We Are Going to find the Monster’ by Malorie Blackman and have used it to inform our learning. We have looked at the author Malorie Blackman and illustrator Dapo Adeola. We have also been looking at some influential black men and women, such as Serena Williams, Barack Obama and Oprah, and discussed what they are famous for.

We have been writing labels, going on more grapheme hunts, and identifying our tricky words ‘is’ and ‘I’. 

In maths, we have been looking at length, height and weight. We have been comparing lengths using language such as longer than, longest, shorter than shortest and the same. We have also been using specific mathematical language when talking about heavy and light objects and objects that are taller than and shorter than.

Update - Friday 13th October 2023

This week, we have started to celebrate ‘Black History Month’, we have been exploring the book ‘I am brown’ by Ashok Banker. 

We have been exploring patterns in maths. The children have been creating their repeating patterns and learning to talk about the unit of repeat.  They have been using many different resources to create repeating patterns and have enjoyed using coloured feathers and lollipop sticks to do this in the creative area.

We have started our Little Wandle reading groups, and your children have been allocated reading books on the Collins website.  You will find your child’s login details inside their reading diaries. All children have been allocated books that match their phonic knowledge.

The children have been exploring more colouring mixing techniques, made clay, and conker snails, and learned how to use sellotape to attach items.

Update - Friday 6th October 2023

This week, we have been reading the book 'We Are All Different.’ It is a brilliant book that promotes the beauty of diversity and celebrates differences. It also introduces children to the concept of being equal.  The book has helped children talk about themselves and others positively and respectfully. It looked at how people are different, such as hair types, families, likes and dislikes, and showed the children that these differences are to be celebrated. 

Along with celebrating our individuality, we have embraced celebrations and have turned our role-play area into a home hosting a party. The children have made birthday hunting, party hats and other decorations. They have also practised letter formation and emerging writing skills to write invitations and birthday cards for their friends and family.  

In maths, we have been looking at the concepts of ‘more’, ‘less’ and ‘same’ when faced with two groups of objects. We have learnt a new maths game called ‘funky fingers’. Please ask your child to show you how it is played. We have also used Numicon to play a game with our friends, where we compared which piece was showing more, less/fewest or if they were the same.

Please continue to share your pictures with us on Tapestry, the children always enjoy sharing these with their friends.

Update - Friday 29th September 2023

This week, we have used the book ‘Have you filled a bucket today’ to inform our learning.

We have been thinking carefully about how we can be bucket fillers and not bucket dippers, explaining that when we fill someone else’s bucket, our bucket is filled, too. 

The children have been drawing inside bucket outlines of how they can fill someone’s bucket, how people fill their buckets and sequencing the ‘Have you filled a bucket today’ story. They have also been colour-mixing red and yellow to make the colour orange by painting the colours onto bucket outlines. 

We have been introducing new phonemes throughout the week that have been reinforced through activities in the classroom. We have also been focusing on name writing, which the children have put lots of hard work into, showing their progress already!

The children will have a new reading-for-pleasure book to read over the weekend that can be changed next week. Reading all the comments about the books you have been reading with family and friends has been lovely. 

Update - Monday 25th September 2023

This week, we have been using the book ‘The Colour Monster’ to inform our learning.

The children have been making their own colour monster puzzles, collaging colour monsters depending on their feelings, drawing, and talking about things that make them happy. The children have been practising their fine motor skills at the cutting table and in the tuff tray, where they used tweezers to sort coloured pom poms.

We have been using our feelings display a lot, have discussed how we are feeling and why, and have thought about how we can help someone feeling sad or scared.

We have started phonics this week and have been reinforcing the letters and sounds we have learned with activities in the classroom.

Each child should have taken home a ‘reading for pleasure’ book for shared reading experiences with you. These books can be swapped for new ones anytime to keep the reading journey exciting.

Update - Friday 15th September 2023

We are so proud of all the children; they have settled in brilliantly, and it’s as if they have always been here.

This week, we have enjoyed learning all about each other. The children have enthusiastically shared their ‘Marvellous Me’ boards and have been making lots of new friends.

We have been learning how to use the different areas in the classroom. We have been focusing on ensuring we look after our classroom by putting things away in the right places, putting lids on pens and glue and tucking our chairs under the table when we get up.

The children have been practising fine motor skills with lots of cutting, drawing and writing activities. We have also learnt how to use the class feelings display, and the teachers have used it during the day to show how they feel.

We have also been learning about the Rainbow Rules, which are classroom rules used throughout the school. They are - kind hands, good listening, good sitting, using inside voices, looking after the class environment, challenging yourself and being kind.

Outside, the children have learnt how to use the outside equipment safely, been on a sound walk, and played listening and oral blending games.

Welcome to Year R!

2022-23

In Year R, our teachers are Mrs Baker (Class 1), Mrs Poet (Class 2), Miss King (Class 3) and Mrs Searle oversees all three classes as Assistant Headteacher and Early Years Manager. We are also supported by our dedicated Learning Support Assistant (LSA): Miss Drury, Miss Wombwell, Miss Speller, Mrs Bright, Miss Croft, Mrs Eldridge and Mrs Howlett. 

If you have any questions, please speak with your child's class teacher. You can speak to your child’s class teacher by phoning the school and requesting an appointment if they are not around at pick-up.

Keep referring back to this page for regular updates about the children's learning. 

Update  - Thursday 13th July 2023

We have created story maps and explored the story using the small world. We have also been looking carefully at pollution, recycling and how we can help the oceans. For our guided writing, we wrote about sea creatures caught up in pollution, using speech bubbles to imagine what they might say.

We have created our own sea pictures and written about what we can see, e.g. I can see a shell, I can see a shark. Read captions and matched them to pictures, revised our phonics knowledge and continued working hard to identify tricky words.

In maths, we have revised subitising and subtraction, as well as looking at identifying images that are the ‘odd one out' and ‘the same as’.

Outside, the children have been making their own ‘Stanley’ kites and exploring some real sea creatures.

Update - Friday 7th July 2023

This week we have been busy exploring jungle animals and reading our story of the week: Monkey Puzzle. We have been reading facts about the book and using pegs to place them on yes or no, for example, "Did he meet a buzzing bee?" "Did mum see dad?" In literacy, we have been writing about who the monkey met along his journey and using our phonics knowledge to write, "I can see a tighger (tiger), I can see a parrot, I can see green trees, I can see a frog." We have also been writing "That's not my mum" and then choosing different animals not from the story to write our own sentences.

In maths, we have been revising subtraction from the spring term and using a leopard to take away his spots and encouraging the children to use the correct mathematical language to explain what we've done "I started with 10 spots, I took away 3, now I have 7 left." We have also measured snakes and used patterned blocks to make animal pictures.

On the art table, we mixed paint to make tiger pictures, and later in the week, we looked at Henri Rousseau and turned our tigers into jungle art. We've been enjoying our new jungle small world and adding lots of characters into this area to act out our story.
 

Update  - Friday 23rd June 2023

This week we have been looking at the story of Handa’s surprise. We have been tasting some of Handa's fruit - pineapple, passion fruit, orange and mango- and discussing whether we liked them. We have been doing some data handling, asking our friends for their favourite fruit, and have used Excel to display which fruit is the most popular.

We wrote our own stories based on Handa’s Surprise. We drew a picture of something we would give a friend and then had to write, ‘One day I went to see……I gave her/him a …………. We have also written the untold story of which animal took which fruit.

In maths, we have been revising our number bonds in various ways. We have also looked at money, focusing on identifying and sorting the coins according to their value. We also set up a shop, and the children had to use their knowledge of number bonds to buy two different fruit using their ten pennies.

We have been playing in our role-play fruit shop, have drawn still life fruit bowls, used tissue paper to create texture on collaged fruit and made a class fruit basket, drawn fruit in Handa’s empty basket and have identified which fruit comes from this country, and which fruit comes from somewhere in the rest of the world.
 

Update - Monday 19th June 2023

This week we have been looking at zoos and zoo animals, we have been using the book Dear Zoo to inform some of our child-initiated and adult led activities.

In maths we have been practising our subitising skills, this is the skill of knowing how many of something there is without having to count. We have been looking at subitising up to 5 objects/pictures of objects in an irregular pattern. We have also been playing subitising pairs with our partners, maybe you could make your own cards at home and play together.

We have been writing sentences using a sentence starter, ‘The zoo sent me….’, choosing an animal and then writing why it wasn’t right for us. We have also been reading clues and matching them to the correct animal.

We have been writing our own Dear Zoo stories, changing the animals we had delivered. We also played a game of I spy with a zoo picture, we had to think of clues to describe an animal for our partner to guess.

We have matched animals to their boxes on the cutting table, created a zoo puzzle and matched animals to where they spend most of their time, land, sea or sky.

On the art table we have been creating lion masks, created our own zoo picture, painted zoo/wild animals and made something special for our dads or our special person.

Update - Monday 12th June 2023

This week our topic has been ‘The Farm’. We have been sharing the book and song ‘Old McDonald Had a Farm’ and have been looking at information that we can get from the title and blurb of a book.

We have written about the animals that Old McDonald had on his farm, making sure that we used some adjectives to describe his animals. We also worked with a partner, we read each other clues and had to find the animal pictures to match.

In maths, we have been practising addition using a number line, have played 3D shape bingo, used animals and dice to practise adding and continue to practise our subitising skills.

On the art table, we created our own animals using our handprints and made animal masks. We thought carefully about what we might see on a farm and created our own farm pictures. We then looked at some famous artists (Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet) farm paintings. We talked about things that were the same or different to what we have seen and what we liked or disliked about them.

We have also been matching baby animals to their parents, matched animals to their habitats and made a collage farm scene

Update - Friday 19th May 2023

This week we have been using the story of The Enormous Turnip to inform our learning.

We continued to explore odd and even numbers using turnips, number cards and Numicon. We have been recapping what we have previously learnt about subitising and practising recognising a small quantity (up to 5) just by sight.

We have been thinking about our favourite fruits and vegetables. This led on to us talking about healthy and unhealthy foods. We sorted fruit and veg and learnt the difference between these food items.

We have written our own version of The Enormous Turnip and used our amazing experience with the storyteller to inform our writing. We have also used the small world area to retell the story with our friends.

On the art table, we have been exploring colour mixing, have drawn scenes from the story and creating story maps. Our role-play area also turned into a farm kitchen.

Update - Tuesday 16th May 2023

This week we have been carrying on our traditional tales with Jack and the Beanstalk. We started our week by writing a list of all the things Jack stole from the castle, “a big hen”, “golden eggs”, and “Jack took a gold harp.”

In maths, we have been sharing diamonds into two or three piles to continue our learning from last week, measuring beanstalks using unifix, and recording how tall they are. In addition, we have been exploring odd and even numbers and the composition of 5.

On the art table, we have been making our own beanstalk scenes. On the cutting table, we have been sequencing the story and learning more about the characters; in the tuff tray, we have matched the words and pictures together.

Update - Friday 5th May 2023

This week we have been celebrating the coronation of King Charles lll. We have been learning lots of new information about our King and using this to write fact files.

We have continued to focus on sharing in maths and used crowns and gems to help us. We have been making predictions and trying hard to use the specific mathematical language required. We have also used red, white and blue peg boards to create repeating patterns.

On the art table, we made our own bunting and crowns. We learnt that there is a tree frog that is named after King Charles. We have been decorating our own tree frog pictures, which we have displayed on our door. We have learnt a new skill when making split-pin soldiers.

Outside, the children have been enjoying all the coronation activities, including dressing up as guards, taking part in the hobby horse obstacle course, having a coronation picnic, making flags and crowns, building a palace and using musical instruments to re-enact their own parade. We’ve had lots of fun this week!

Update - Wednesday 3rd May 2023

This week we have continued to use the story of the Gingerbread Man and have written about the animals that chased him. The children included words describing each animal, such as - The fast brown horse chased the Gingerbread Man.

In maths, we have been starting to explore sharing. We did this using gingerbread men and baking trays. The children chose number cards and shared each amount. We talked about making sure we were sharing fairly and how we know when we have shared fairly.

On the art table, the children enjoyed treading string through the holes on their gingerbread man and decorating him. We have been tearing, ripping and scrunching paper to make our gingerbread man for the classroom and making zoo animal masks.

Outside, the children have been exploring capital letters and matching them to the lowercase letter on the gingerbread man worksheet. We have been painting using Numicon, seeing what happens when we build a tower with colourful bricks, practising our tricky words by drawing them in the sand and drawing around ourselves to turn us into gingerbread men and ladies.

In Forest School, we made toast over the fire. The children behaved brilliantly. They remembered the fire circle rules, waited patiently for their turn and toasted their bread safely.

Update - Friday 21st April 2023

This week we have focused on our new topic, traditional tales. We have done this by exploring the story of the Gingerbread Man. We focused on the repetition of the story and using speech from the story when acting it out in the small world area. We focused on writing speech bubbles for the characters through literacy, remembering to write in full sentences and using finger spaces between words. 

In math, we explored the concept of doubling. We doubled our gingerbread man's buttons, making sure both sides had the same number of buttons. We focussed on using the model language: double … is … and talked about even numbers.

We all enjoyed eating our gingerbread men together and then writing adjectives to describe how it tasted. Some words we thought of were: delicious, disgusting, spicy, hot, gingery, and crunchy.

Outside, the children have enjoyed making patterns with the gingerbread man's buttons, decorating their own gingerbread man using natural resources, finding different ways to race around the track, trying to build a bridge for the gingerbread man in the water and enjoying the sandpit, going on a tricky word hunt and playing tricky word musical chairs as well as finding ways to break the gingerbread men in water using pipettes.

Update - Friday 24th March 2023

This week we have been exploring the weather with our new topic: puddles and rainbows.

In literacy, the children had to write about the different weather pictures and the clothes we needed. We focused on using the word 'because' for example, "it is cold because it is snowy," They continued this on the cutting table by making their own weather book. Our book of the week is Brown Bear. The children have been acting this out, and we've also been learning our nursery rhyme, Down in the Jungle.

In maths, we have been looking at subtraction and used chocolate eggs to take away from 10 and 5. We continued this in class during the week, taking away marbles and recording our calculations.

On the art table, we've enjoyed making our own rain clouds, exploring the seasons by scrunching, tearing and sticking paper to the trees and making rainbow collages.

Outside, we have been going on a treasure hunt using a rainbow spotter sheet to find the different colours on the playground. We have been exploring capacity in and out of the classroom using water and pasta and experimenting with what floats and sinks. We have also been practising our numbers on the blackboards and hopscotch, making homes for worms, painting plant pots and leaves and creating obstacle courses over the lava!
We celebrated World Book Day on Friday and enjoyed being different characters from our favourite stories. So it's been an enjoyable and busy week!

Update - Friday 17th March 2023

This week we have looked at non-fiction books about dinosaurs talking about the features of a non-fiction book like the contents page, subtitles, labels and an index page.

We talked about our favourite dinosaurs and drew them, writing our sentences to say why we liked them using the tricky word ‘because’. For example, “I like diplodocus because he has a long neck.”

In maths, we used a whole part model to find out the number bonds to 10. We looked at the composition of different numbers between 5 and 10, talking about how 6 add 2 equals 8 etc.

We enjoyed turning ourselves into dinosaurs on the craft table and making our own versions of our favourite dinosaurs.

Update - Thursday 9th March 2023

In literacy this week, we have made our own storybooks for That's Not My Dinosaur. We had to use the pictures to form the sentences and then have a go at writing, e.g., its tail is too long, its teeth are too sharp, red, big, and bumpee (bumpy).

In maths, we explored number bonds to 10 again by using pasta as spikes for the dinosaurs, focusing on the practical side of things and the children being able to explain what they had done using the correct mathematical language.

We have been making dinosaurs using salt dough to make fossils and bones and dinosaur headbands on the art table.

On the fine motor table, we have been using pegs to match the correct number of dinosaurs, and in the maths areas, we have been using numicon to make dino pictures and explore patterns.

Our role play is a museum to which a special box of bones was delivered! The children have enjoyed having their own dinosaurs to dig up and trying to match the bones to a  picture of a dinosaur skeleton.

Outside, the children have been freeing dinosaurs from ice, washing muddy dinosaurs and practising our throwing skills by using the hoops to aim at the dinosaurs. We have also been acting out different ways to move around the castle and going on a tricky word hunt.

Update - Thursday 2nd March 2023

In Year R this week, we continue our dinosaur topic by reading Dear Dinosaur. In the story, a boy receives letters from a T-Rex and writes back. In literacy, the children have been writing sentences to describe him, writing their own letters and making dinosaur fact files. We are focusing a lot on our middle sounds in words and writing captions like - long tail, he is big, and he has short arms. He has long clors (claws). He has sharp teeth.

The children have been revisiting number bonds to 10 by using numicon to find different ways of making 10 and applying this to the maths area in class by putting spikes on the dinosaurs and using coloured rods to count and make their own picture.

We have been making our own dinosaur land on the art table using playdoh, and the children have been drawing their creations. We have also been using pasta to make our own skeletons and using cardboard to make a dinosaur picture.

Outside, the children have been playing musical chairs with tricky words, finding natural items to make a nest, trying to free the dinosaurs from the frozen eggs and finding the hidden dinosaurs on the playground.

Update - Friday 24th February 2023

We started this week with a surprise. We found an egg in our classroom and had to use our imagination to think about what could be inside. We enjoyed writing our predictions and discovering that a dinosaur hatched and left gigantic footprints in our classrooms.

In literacy, we read a book by Julia Donaldson called Cave Baby. The children enjoyed painting cave paintings of their own. Our rhyme of the week has been The Animal Fair, and we enjoyed exploring different birds and beasts from the rhyme.

In maths, we explored number bonds to 10, thinking about what two numbers equal ten. We have also worked on using mathematical language, ‘two add eight equals 10,’ to explain our work.

Update - Friday 9th February 2023

This week in literacy, we have explored nurses and read the Little People Big Dreams book on Florence Nightingale. The children have then explored old and new hospitals talking about the different equipment they used. We wrote some sentences about Florence and the soldiers she saved by cleaning up the hospitals.

In maths, this week we have explored 2D shapes: circles, triangles, rectangles, squares and hexagons. We talked about the properties of the shapes thinking about how many corners and sides each one had. As part of this, we talked about the differences between a square and a rectangle picking up on the fact they both have 4 sides, the square's are all equal in length whereas in a rectangle's are not.

In Jigsaw, we talked about being proud of ourselves and thinking about our achievements this half term.

We enjoyed our trip to the post box to post our letters, we hope the postal workers deliver them to our houses soon!

Update - Thursday 2nd February 2023

This week we have looked at real-life superheroes, and talked about police officers, fire fighters, lollipop people, nurses, doctors, dentist, and builders. We have read some non-fiction books and discussed the format of them, how they have a content page, index, titles, and subtitles on each page and how they tell us to not a story.

Our rhyme of the week has been Wiggly Woo, we have been exploring the concept of time and talked about how we know if it is day or night. We have been thinking about some of our routine and the things we do during the day like go to school and eat lunch and something we do at night like sleep.

In maths, we have looked at spending numbers to 10 and ordering them even if they are not following an order. For example: 3, 5,7,9.

We have enjoyed writing our own letters and we look forward to receiving them in the post during the half term. We have also wrote fact-files about different people who help us.

In Jigsaw, we have been thinking about our futures and setting goals for us do have achieved by the end of year R.

Update - Thursday 26th January 2023

This week, we have explored Chinese New Year by looking at how people celebrate the new year. We have also shared the story of 'the Great Race'. The children enjoyed retelling the story using our small world, characters racing through the river to get to the other end.

Our rhyme of the week has been Little Boy Blue. We talked about the meaning of words, like meadow, haystack and horn and practiced the rhyme together.

In literacy, the children have been focusing on retelling the story of the Great Race and writing our own wishes to help celebrate the Chinese New Year.

In maths, we have continued to explore number bond to 5, as well as looking at ordinal numbers. We looked at the order in which the animals from the Chinese Zodiac finished the race and practicing sequencing them using the language of first, second, third, last.

In Jigsaw, we have looked at being more independent and trying to do things ourselves first. We talked about how we should all be able to write our own names now, get dress for PE, and do up the zippers on our coats.

Update - Thursday 19th January 2023

This week, our book of the week has been Supertato: Veggies in the Valley of Doom. The children enjoyed retelling the story using our small world. They have also had a go at creating their own treasure maps and treasure chest and thinking about some of the things they might want to find in it.

Our rhyme of the week has been Three Blind Mice and we have talked about what it would be like not being able to see and tried to guide our blindfolded friends around the classroom using our voices to warn them of any obstacles.

In literacy, the children have been writing speech bubbles to accompany our trapped veggies. We have also written our own character descriptions of Supertato thinking about his costume.

In maths, we have continued to explore number bonds to 5. We have looked at taking away, writing 5, and knowing that 5 -1= 4. We have also measured the weight of different veggies using scales thinking of which is heavier and lighter.

In Jigsaw, we have continued to look at challenges and thinking about ways of overcoming thing which we find tricky, making sure we always try our best and never give up like superman.

Update - Thursday 12th January 2023

In literacy this week, we have been writing captions alongside pictures from our book of the week: Supertato Veggie's Assemble. We have also been talking about speech bubbles and the children have made their own superveggies to accompany their speech bubbles.

In maths, we are continuing to learn number bonds to 5. This week, we are exploring different ways of making 5 with numicon and using the correct mathematical language to explain what we've done eg: 4 add 1 equals 5. We have also been looking at part whole models, adding two parts to make one whole.

On the art table, the children have enjoyed making their own superhero capes, shield and designing their own super veggies.

On the fine motor table, we have been practising to write our names. This is something you could continue at home to support your children in class, if your child is already very confident with writing their first name have a go at introducing their surnames.

Outside, the children have been learning to share and ride the bikes and scooters along our bike path. We have been making Supertato puppets and having a go in our fitness area at throwing beanbags in hoops, jumping over tyres or making our own superhero obstacle course.

Update - Friday 6th January 2023

This week we introduced our new topic for this half term: Superheroes. Our book of the week has been Supertato and Ride a cock-horse was our rhyme of the week.

In literacy, the children have been writing lists of items we might find in a supermarket, eg: tin, can, box, jam, pen. We have also been challenging the children to write captions with tricky words: the big box, a red jam, the fat ham, a pink soap.

In maths, the children have been using counters to explore number bond to 5. We have started to introduce the language of addition and saying the calculation e.g. 4 add 1 equals 5.

In the tuff tray, we have been making our own supertato using real potatoes and adding capes, masks and hand to him. On the cutting table, we have been sequencing the story of Supertato.