Welcome to our Summer term

29th April 2022Charlotte Burn

We are very lucky to have a beautiful blossom tree outside our reception area. We have been looking for signs of Spring and the children collected the fallen blossom leaves and created their own Spring tree.

Also looking at different photos of Spring flowers and drawing our own pictures.

 

In the outside area we made a large marble run on the playground using guttering and stands for the children to roll balls down and catch them inside the tyres. They experimented with different angles to see how quickly or slowly the ball would roll down.

In Maths we have been looking at repeating patterns and subtraction.

The children have been learning the rules of bowling and have had fun playing outside in the sunshine. One child even got a strike! This links to our number bonds to 10 as well as the children understanding how to write subtraction sums. E.g. We have 10 skittles, 3 fall down how many do we have left standing ?

10-3= 7

The children have been using different media and objects to create repeating patterns of their own choice.

In English we had a special visitor on our playground. A tiger came to join us for a tea party and even brought us some biscuits to eat. The tiger ended up being really friendly but he ate all our biscuits, drank all the water from the tap and all our milk and fruit from snack time. Before the tiger left he read us a story called ‘ ‘The Tiger who came to tea by Judith Kerr’ .

Our topic is Animals this term and we have started by looking at the different pets that we have at home. Mr Johnston brought in his dog called Maggie for us to meet.
The children asked questions then drew some pictures of Maggie.
We are looking forward to meeting some more pets in the next few weeks.

Enjoy your bank holiday weekend and we look forward to seeing you on Tuesday 3rd May.

 

A giant visitor

24th March 2022Charlotte Burn

Foundation have had a visit from a very tall, stomping giant this week who was looking for a boy called Jack…. He wasn’t able to find him but instead left the children some beans to plant and a story for the children to read called Jack and the Beanstalk.

We have planted our beans and have made diaries to record what happens to them over time and hopefully we might have some beanstalks for our outside area.

Then in Science we looked at parts of a plant, labelled and drew them as well as doing some still life drawing of Pansies and Daffodils.

 

We also planted cress seeds and have watched them grow over the past week. We are going to harvest the crop and put in a sandwich for the children to taste.

 

 

In Maths we have done the number bond rap to 10  Let’s all do the 10 dance (number bonds to 10 song) – YouTube
I Know My Number Bonds 10 | Number Bonds to 10 | Addition Song for Kids | Jack Hartmann – YouTube
and using the part, part whole model and a tens frame to help us work out the number bonds to 10. E.g 8+2=10, 7+3=10.

 

Earlier this week we wore odd socks to celebrate awareness of Downs Syndrome day. The children decorated some brilliant odd socks too.

The children have enjoyed riding their bikes and scooters around the Key Stage one playground this week for our Big walk and wheel event. This will continue into next week.

 

Coming up in the next few weeks we will be looking at different Easter activities, Mother’s Day cards and looking for signs of Spring in our local woodland environment.

 

We hope you all have a wonderful Easter break and the sun continues to shine. Thank you for all your support over the past term with your child/children’s learning.

 

 

 

Busy little bees this term!

3rd March 2022Charlotte Burn

This term has been so busy and exciting for the children with Pancake Cake and World Book Day all in the same week! Read on to see what else we have been up to.

 

We have been looking at how we change over time. The children have loved guessing who the baby pictures belong to. We have had some great discussions about what we are able to do now that we couldn’t do as a baby or a toddler.

In Math the children have been investigating measuring. We have had lots of fun measuring different things around the classroom and also each other! We have looked at key vocabulary such as longer, shorter, taller, wider, rulers and measurements.

This week has been full of extra WOW days including Pancake Day and World Book Day.

The children enjoyed tasting pancakes and learning about why some people celebrate Pancake day/ Shrove Tuesday. They designed their own pancakes and we discussed what type of toppings they love to have on top of them. The children were lucky enough to taste some traditional pancakes in the classroom with some lemon juice and sugar. The overall outcomes was that the children thought they were delicious!

For World Book Day the children and staff came dressed in some fabulous costumes. The Foundation Stage staff came dressed as characters from The Little Miss and Little Mr Men book series. I wonder if you can name us all ?

We also had a brilliant time inviting our parents and carers in to share The Very Hungry Caterpillar story with us and to be involved in some activities alongside their children. The children went to a great effort to dress up and also brought in their favourite books to share with the classes.

The Winners of our best dressed costumes were

two very hungry caterpillars, a gingerbread lady and the bad tempered ladybird!

Foundation 11/2/22

8th February 2022Charlotte Burn

Reception have had a really busy term. We have welcomed back Miss Burn from Maternity leave who is now in Pine Class as their class teacher along with Mrs Lim. 

We have been on a lovely but chilly winter woodland walk looking for signs of spring around our school environment. The children spotted some flowers starting to bloom, a lot of trees still bare and we even saw a red kite flying over our playing fields.

The children had the opportunity to celebrate Chinese New year and tasted prawn crackers. They made some Chinese lanterns, decorated tigers and learnt to write their names using the Chinese alphabet.

 

We have finished our story ‘The Sleepy Bumblebee’ and have rewritten it ourselves changing the characters, the children had some fabulous ideas to really enhance the story. 

Taking part in internet safety day this week has been a great experience to find out about families we facetime that we can’t always see and how incredible the internet is allowing us to share and see families across the world. It has also shown us how important it is to stay safe online and to be aware of what your children are accessing on phones and tablets. 

 

After half term we have a new exciting topic of ‘Growing’ and we can’t wait to share all our wonderful work with you.

Have a fun filled February half term ! We can’t wait to hear all about your adventures!

Foundation Blog 14th January 2022

21st January 2022Margaret Lim

Welcome back to school! The children have settled back happily after the holiday.

Our focus in English this term is the story of the Sleepy Bumblebee, thinking about the noises that kept the bumblebee awake. The children will become familiar with the story, joining in with the repeated language and eventually will create their own story by changing certain aspects of the story, such as the noises which keep the sleepy bumblebee awake.

We are continuing our daily phonics learning and handwriting.

You will have received a letter about home reading. Please can we encourage you to read with your child daily  and write a comment in their book.

In Maths we have begun to learn simple addition such as 3+2=5, 4+1=5, etc.

Our Topic this half term is Journeys. The children will be exploring their route from home to school and attempting to draw a simple map. We are also looking at different forms of transport and places we might visit.

In Music we have introduced the children to percussion instruments and they had great fun playing glockenspiels with the song ‘If you’re happy and you know it!’

We are looking forward to continuing with our excellent learning as we read other stories alongside ‘The Sleepy Bumblebee.’ These will include ‘Owl Babies’, ‘The Gruffalo’  and ‘ Whatever Next!’ Our Maths focus will be counting objects to 10 with related practical activities.

Foundation Stage Autumn 2

10th December 2021Margaret Lim

The children have been very busy preparing for their Nativity performance and did very well when they were recorded. Thank you to parents for providing costumes- they looked amazing!

 

We have been looking at the story  ‘Journey’ by Aaron Becker and imagining opening a door which takes us into a different place. The children have written sentences about this and the places they would like to go to.

With Christmas coming up everyone has been busy making decorations and having fun!

 

In Maths the children have been learning about positional language, e.g. next to, in front of, on top, etc. They have also been practising finding one more and one less than a given number up to five.

Next term we look forward to exploring the story ‘The Sleepy Bumblebee” in English. For Maths we will be looking at how a number can be made up in different ways, e.g. 2+3+5. 4+1=5, etc.

Our topic will be ‘Journeys’ and we will be finding out about different kinds of transport and interesting places to travel to, such as Arctic regions and jungles.

Exciting learning in Foundation!

15th October 2021Margaret Lim

 

The children have been settling in well and have started their learning journey.

Over the past few weeks we have been looking at traditional stories including Goldilocks and the Three Bears and, more recently, The Gingerbread Man.

The children have enjoyed cutting and sticking their own gingerbread men and next week they will get to decorate gingerbread men biscuits!

In the past week we have been looking for signs of Autumn and the changes of the seasons.

Every day we have a Phonics lesson and the children have been learning to recognise and write single sounds m,a,s,d,t,n,o,g,p,i,u,b,c,k.

Next half term we will be starting the topic ‘People Who Help Us’ and various celebrations, such as understanding of numbers to ten and learning about shape.