Class Blog

Week Ending 9th July 2021

In maths this week we have been learning to count in 2s, 5s and 10s. We have counted shoes, socks, fingers and ten sticks. We have also used coins to help us practise. The children have all taken this on board really well and are getting lovely and confident. We have looked at patterns in the numbers we say for example every ten number ends in a zero and fives end in either a 5 or a zero. The children were able to use this to spot numbers that didn’t belong in a sequence. There was also lots of lovely calculating going on around the provision.

English

In English this week we started the week by reading a very lovely story called The Wide, Wide Sea. It gave us lots to think about as it raises the question of plastic pollution in the seas and oceans. We are hoping to have a zoom call with the author, Anna Wilson, before the end of term! We then read another lovely story about a fisherman and a whale called The Unexpected Visitor which considers what happens when we overfish the ocean. We finished the week by reading non-fiction texts about the creatures that live in the seas and oceans. We learned lots of new and interesting things and wrote lists of sea creatures we might find under the sea. Can your child tell you anything they have learned?

Worship and P.E.

We have been busy this week, practising our songs and learning our lines for our worship which we will be filming next week. It should be available to view on the website at the end of the week – fingers crossed. If you could please help your child learn their lines this weekend, it would be much appreciated.

This week we carried on with our athletics by completing different types of team races and had an inter team competition! The children had a great time! There has also been some impromptu music lessons outside!

English

In English this week we have been reading some fabulous stories. We have read Shark in the Dark and Shark in the Park as well as Tiddler the Story Telling Fish! The children LOVED these stories and they inspired lots of children making and writing their own story books and making telescopes. They even recorded what they could see through their new toys! We have made jellyfish to hang in the classroom. Imagine our surprise when Nick Sharratt, author of Shark in the Park liked and commented on our tweet about our work and play!

Week Ending 25th June2021

In maths this week we have been doing lots of problem solving. We have returned to doubling and halving and helping Doubling Dog and Halving Hippo solve their problems. This is a great way for children to deepen their understanding of how to apply what they know and they have been amazing problem solvers all week! We even set problems for each other to solve!

English

In English this week we have been reading poems about the Seaside. We read poems from Out and About by Shirley Hughes and Commotion in the Ocean. We have read poems about sharks, jellyfish and whales! We them looked at some shape poems based on different sea creatures and had a go at writing some ourselves.

R.E. and PSHE

In RE we have been continuing our learning about how people knew Jesus was special and learned the story of The Feeding of the Five Thousand. The children were amazed that the loaves and fish did not run out and we learned the word ‘miracle.’ In PSHE we continued our new theme of Changing Me with thinking about all the different stages humans go through form being a baby to a child to a teenager and beyond. We sequenced these stages and talked about where we are now and what we are looking forward to about getting bigger.

P.E.

P.E. was great fun this week. We played some relay races where we had to negotiate obstacle courses and balance equipment while travelling. Everyone had a good time and there was not too much sneaky holding of beanbags in place!

Week Ending 18th June

In maths this week we have been doing lots of investigating. We started the week by finding out about odd and even numbers and how you can work out if a number is odd or even. We then moved onto sharing amounts equally between different groups. We learned to give the items out one at a time to each person to make sure they all had the same and the groups were equal. Some of us even discovered that you can write a repeating addition equation for our sharing!

English

In English this week we have started our new theme of The Seaside. Lots of us have been to the beach over half term and we have had lots of stories about what the children like to do at the beach. We have read lots of fiction books around the seaside, one or two of which had characters we have met already in other stories.

R.E. and PSHE

In RE we have been thinking about how people knew Jesus was special and learned how he calmed a storm when he was out in the boat with his Disciples. In PSHE we continued our new theme of Changing Me with thinking about all the different ways we can keep our bodies and minds healthy: healthy foods, exercise, playing with our friends, learning new things and enjoying what we do.

P.E.

P.E. was great fun this week. We got out the parachute and learned to play some team games with it. The children had a great time and practised their fielding skills as well.

In maths this week we have been investigating halving numbers. We have learned that halves are two parts that are equal and are the opposite of doubling. We have played lots of games making halves. We have halved shapes, amounts and found ways to halve things in the classroom. The children have all done lots of their own investigations inside and outside of the classroom!

English

In English this week we have returned to a fiction focus for the final week of our pets theme. This week we have met one of my favourite characters Mog the Forgetful Cat, Hairy Maclary and discussed whether or not a dragon would be a good pet to have. Opinions on this were very divided!

R.E. and PSHE

In RE we have learned about our Christian Value for this term of Wisdom. We decided that it meant being very clever and sensible when you decide to do things. We learned the story of The Wise Man and The Foolish Man who decided to build their houses in different places with very different outcomes when the weather changed! We learned a song about them and then thought about how we can become wise. In PSHE we started our new theme of Changing Me with a revision of all our body parts. We played Simon Says and sang Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes!

Week Ending 21st May 2021

In maths this week we have been investigating doubling numbers. We have learned that a double is a part, part, whole where both the parts are equal. We have played lots of games making doubles and looked at dominoes and dice. The children have all done lots of their own investigations inside and outside of the classroom! We have been very impressed with the doubles facts our children have come out with… 1000 and 1000 equals 2000!

English

In English this week we have had a non-fiction focus – finding out about different animals we keep as pets and how we can look after them. We have learned about dogs, cats, rabbits, guinea pigs and hamsters. We have learned some very interesting facts about the animals and were able to talk about how we look after these pets at home if we have one.

R.E. and PSHE

In RE we started a new theme of Special People and looked at all the different people who help us from the emergency services and in other ways. We came up with a very long list of all the people in our lives who help us and drew some pictures and wrote labels to go with them. In PSHE we met two best friends who had a very silly falling out. They were saying nasty things to each other and each time something unkind was said we had to squirt shaving foam onto a plate. We learned that just like the shaving foam, unkind words cannot be put back away so we have to try and remember to only say kind things.

We have made some fabulous pets models and investigated levers when we made our spectacular fish tanks.

Week Ending Friday 14th May 2021

In maths this week we have been revisiting subtraction – using ten sticks and ones to work out problems with teen numbers. The children have been using manipulatives such as cubes and numicon and I was really pleased to see how confident they have been with the whole, part, part problems! We have had lots of independent investigations in the classroom – with children making up their own problems using the numicon on the maths table. There has been lots of practising writing our numbers up to 20 as well!

English

In English this week we have read some lovely stories with pets in them as we have started a new theme this week to celebrate Mrs Duffy getting her new puppy. We have had to listen carefully so that we could answer questions about the stories and particularly enjoyed reading Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell and The Great Pet Sale by Mick Inkpen. We have made some lift the flap books based on Dear Zoo, written lists of pets we could have and read some pet sentences that we had to match to the pictures. We also made some cone pets!

R.E.  and PSHE

In RE and PSHE this week we learned about how sometimes we can fall out with our friends and how we can make things up with them and that if we are a good friend to others we also are a good friend to Jesus. We also had some good demonstrations of friendship with children writing letters to each other to say thank you for their help as well as sharing favourite books from home together. 

P.E.

In P.E. this week we took our batting and fielding skills a little further by playing team games of cone cricket.

Week Ending Friday 7th May 2021

In maths this week we have been revisiting addition – using ten sticks and ones and butterflies for our part, part, whole problems. The children have all worked really hard and we had lots of lovely addition going on in the classroom and outside! We remembered how to count our ten sticks and ones and learned to count on from the number in the first part of the problems. We also had some investigating into 10's going on with Robyn and Violet seeing how many tens they could make from our numicon and then counting up in 10's!

English

In English this week we have read some lovely stories from one of my favourite authors Eric Carle. We read a story about a spider who was very busy building her web and a very quiet cricket! We listened carefully to the stories and answered some questions about them. We read sentences and had to sort out some sentences that had got all muddled up on the board. The children were very good at looking for the word with the capital letter to find the first word and spotting the last word by finding the full stop! We have made lists of all the mini beasts we have learned about and returned to some non-fiction work when we learned about the life cycle of a butterfly. We learned lots of new words: transform, pupa, chrysalis and learned about a new bug called a spittle bug!

R.E.

In RE this week we learned about the twelve special friends that Jesus had and how they decided to follow him and help him teach people about how God wanted us to live and be towards each other. We talked about whether we would have left our families and friends to go and follow him and thought about why the Disciples decided that they needed to go with Jesus. We added to our recipe for a good friend in PSHE.

We have had fun making some mini beasts of our own at the making table and learned to play Tiddly Winks!

Week Ending Friday 30th April

In maths this week we have been learning about 1 more and 1 fewer than using numbers up to 20. We have used ten sticks and ones and ten frames and ones to help us and looked at how you can jump up or down a number line to help. The children have used two numbers to make more than or fewer sentences and they played some lovely games on the interactive whiteboard. There was some excellent number investigation with counting in 5's and 4's and some outside equations!

English

In English this week we have continued to read non-fiction texts with a mini beast theme. We learned more about habitats and lots more about spiders, bees, centipedes and butterflies. See if your child can tell you any of the amazing facts we found out about these creatures! We chose a mini beast to draw and wrote sentences about where we can find them (where their habitats are) and did some fabulous sentence reading and matching about different mini beasts. it was lovely to see that some of the children have been out and about at home finding mini beasts!

We have been out and about doing some digging in our flower beds and planting some new seeds and are collecting materials to rebuild our bug hotel.

PSHE and R.E.

In PSHE and RE this week we have been looking at friendship and what makes a good friend. We have thought about how to include anyone who may be feeling lonely or who is just very shy. We are starting to think about our ‘Good Friend’ recipe and will continue this next week.

P.E.

In P.E. this week we went onto the field and learned to play some ’kick cricket’. We had to remember to start to try to get some runs when we had kicked the ball and the fielders had to remember not to all rush to the same place to retrieve it!

Mathematics

In maths this week we have been learning about numbers 16- 20. We have ordered them, counted up and back from different numbers within these, We have continued to explore how they can be represented and continued to learn about tens and ones (place value). The children have all worked really hard and enjoyed making the numbers and understanding why we use two numerals to represent them. We carried on using ten frames and cubes (ten sticks and ones) to help.

English

In English this week we have read non-fiction texts with a mini beast theme. We learned a new word habitats to describe where things live. We have learned some great facts: insects have compound eyes, six legs and antenna. We found out lots of things we did not know about ladybirds and worms and will be finding out about some more mini beasts next week. We drew pictures of our favourite mini beast and wrote some great sentences about them and facts about insects.

Understanding the World

We went out on a mini beast hunt. We thought about what we had learned about habitats and looked under rocks, plant pots and in sheds and boxes. We went down onto the field to the wild area to see what we could find and took some photos. Some children have been making their own mini beasts at the making and writing tables.

PHSE and R.E.

In PSHE we have talked about people who are special to us by thinking about our families. We realised that we have different types of families and that we belong to more than one. We have our families that live with us, our families who live in different houses and our class and school families. We thought about all the different jobs we have in our different families. In RE we thought about friendship and how we can be good friends and who are good friends to us.

P.E.

We continued to learn about striking and fielding in our P.E. lessons this week and we went onto the field for the very first time. We loved having the space to practise our skills.

Week Ending Friday 16th April 2021

Welcome back everyone! I hope you all had a lovely Easter with lots of eggs. It is lovely to hear all about the holidays from the children and the fun they have had.

In maths this week we have been learning about numbers 11- 15. We have ordered them, counted up and back from different numbers within these, We have explored how they can be represented and started to learn about tens and ones (place value). The children have all worked really hard and enjoyed making the numbers and understanding why we use two numerals to represent them. We have used ten frames and cubes (ten sticks and ones) to help.

English

In English this week we have read stories with a mini beast theme. We have learned some new words such as cautious and read about bad tempered ladybirds, helpful ladybirds and GIANT vegetables, caterpillars and slugs! We have written short stories and speech bubbles for characters. The children have really enjoyed the stories and next week we will be investigating and learning all about the different mini beasts around us (and seeing if we can find them!).

RE

We have talked about Trust, our Christian Value for this half term and thought about all the different people we can trust. We also thought about how we can be show we can be trusted.

P.E.

We have started to learn about striking and fielding in our P.E. lessons this week and we used lots of equipment to try out some new skills. We took it in turns to have the bats and to field and we learned how to hold the bats correctly.

Week Ending 26th March 2021

We have all been back at home for our learning this week and have still managed to learn lots of new things! I am so very proud of all the children.

In maths we have been investigating time. We have ordered events in a day, ordered days of the week and learned to tell the o’clock and half past times! I am so impressed with how well everyone got to grips with reading the clocks. We used lots of lovely language when we were talking about time: second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year, first, next, then, o’clock, half past, big hand, little hand, hour and minute hands. Some children even managed to squeeze in some games of What’s the Time Mr Wolf!

English

In English this week we have been reading some lovely Easter themed stories and learning about and listening to the actual Easter Story. We have learned the different events of Holy Week and why we have Easter. The children have been busy writing sentences, ordering events and drawing pictures of our favourite parts of the fictional stories we have read. One of my favourites was Here Comes the Easter Cat!

R.E. and PSHE

We have talked about love and how this relates to the Easter Story and how we can show love to those around us. In PSHE we continued our learning around being healthy by looking at different types of foods and why they are all important. We also learned that some foods are better if we only have a little amount of them.

This week the children were asked to get creative and make crosses out of whatever materials they could find in the house or outside. The children have certainly rose to the challenge and made some beautiful pieces of art work! Well done Reception.

English

This week Reception has been continuing to learn about Spring. We have read some more non-fiction texts and went on a Spring Hunt around the outside of school. We took i-pads with us and took photos of everything we saw. When we got back into school, we looked at what we had seen and wrote our very own Spring Lists and thought of our own definitions for Spring words to go into a glossary. This also linked to our R.E. for this week where we will be thinking about Easter and new life.

R.E. and PSHE

We also celebrated St. Patrick’s Day by learning about the life of the saint and the country of Ireland. Green team came in in their green clothes!

We finished off the week by learning about why we have Red Nose day.

P.E.

In P.E. we had great fun using our skills with balloons and comparing how the balloons behave very differently to tennis or footballs. We had to work very co-operatively in group games and we had a LOT of fun. Keepy-up challenges were very tricky as we soon learned that if you hit the balloon too hard it just floated off away from us!

Week Ending 12th March 2021

A very big WELCOME BACK to everyone! It has been so lovely to have a full classroom once again and see everyone. We have missed them also much! We have had a very busy week!

In maths we have been investigating measuring. We have been comparing items for length, height and weight in activities and all around the classroom! We learned how to measure items with rulers and made up our own ‘Ruler Rules’ to help us. Ask your child what they are! We compared items using the balance scales to see which was the heaviest and which was the lightest.  We used vocabulary such as heavy, light, the same as, longer than or shorter than to describe what we had found out and learned a little bit about centimetres.

English

This week Reception has been learning about Spring. We have read some non-fiction texts and some stories about Spring signs. We have learned lots of words such as bud, blossom, shoot and talked about the Spring weather! This has not disappointed us this week – we have had sun, rain, gales and it has been warm and cold! The children commented on this as we had learned about it in one of our books! We did lots of reading of sentences and wrote our own Spring facts. 

R.E.

In R.E. we have started to think about Easter and looked at lots of pictures of different things people do at Easter before starting to learn about the Easter story. We talked about what the children do in their lives at Easter and how they celebrate it.

We also learned about a very special day on Sunday and made some special things!

P.E.

In P.E. we had great fun putting all our learned skills into practice by designing our own games and obstacle courses using equipment they chose themselves. The children were very imaginative and there were so many different games going on!

Week Ending 5th March 2021

In maths we have been very busy revising our 3D shapes. We revised recognising and naming all the 3D shapes: spheres, cubes, cuboids, cones, pyramids and triangular prisms. We sorted them into the right groups and talked about their properties. We used vocabulary such as straight, curved, points, edges and faces. We helped the 3D shape aliens find their shapes on Earth. We explored what they could do and went hunting for real life examples at home and in school.