Blog

WB: 27th March 2023

Our Spring Learning Wall is looking fabulous with all our lovely observational drawings and paintings of spring flowers. We had such fun with Supertato and the Evil Pea this term! We are still finding Evil Pea hiding all around our classrooms! 

WB: 20th March 2023

We are so excited to be learning about robots! We listened to another Sue Hendra story, this time about NoBot, the Robot with no bottom! We have some really exciting areas set up to inspire us to make our own robots, and we are going to be making some control panels which will turn us into robots. Our friends will then give us instructions to try to control us to move forward and turn around the classroom! We have also got our programmable toys to give instructions to - Code-a-pillars and Beebots.

WB: 27 Feb 2023

We have been transforming classroom areas to inspire children to use observational skills, develop oracy skills and encourage new vocabulary. Do you like our Under the Sea theme? We read "Barry the Fish with Fingers" by Sue Hendra which was very funny!

WB: 30th January 2023

We love sharing some of our work on our Learning Seasons Wall in the EYFS corridor. Our Winter board is filling up nicely. 

WB: 16th January 2023

It was so exciting when it started snowing this week! We tried to capture some snowflakes in our hands and on our tongues! 

WB: 9th January 2023

We've enjoyed listening to Stick Man by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. We went on an adventure using our story maps to help Stick Man find his way back to the Family Tree. What great writing everyone!

WB: 5.12.22

Just look at how Christmassy our class rooms are! The children have absolutely loved writing letters, painting Christmas trees and snowmen, Colouring, making cards, Role playing being a postman in our Chrostmas post office and finally, decorating our Christmas trees! We have also enjoyed the frost outside and discussing how it feels to touch and how ice is made.

What an amazing week!

WB 28.11.22

In Maths this week, we have revisited what it means to have "more", "fewer" and "the same". We started with subitising practice and thought carefully about representing the numbers with our fingers.

We have played a game of "who has more" and without looking, needed to guess how many cubes were in the pots. After this, we compared the amounts by looking and then used counting to check. When counting, we placed the cubes in a line and thought carefully about "the stopping number" to reinforce how many were there altogether. We then repeated the game again, with "who has fewer" as our question. You could play this game at home too!

We joined our teddies for a tea party and worked together to make sure the objects were matched correctly to the teddies and the teddies had an equal amount. We kept checking they had an equal amount with questions such as "how many do we need?, "how many have we got?", "have we got the same number? and "is it equal?" We noticed that at times there were too many objects or not enough objects to share equally. We worked together to make sure the teddies all had the right amount of objects by finding more in our classroom if we didn't have enough or putting some back if we had too many.

In phonics, we have introduced words with 's' at the end. We also worked as a team to segment and blend some new words. Our words were cats, naps and hits. We then had a go at independently sound talking and blending the words run and tell.

We reviewed all the tricky words we have been introduced so far. We were then introduced to a new tricky word "to".

After this, we then had a go at reading the phrase "Run and tell mum" together and spelling the word "run".

Well done, superstars! ☺️🌟

WB: 21.11.22

This week, we have learnt the counting rhyme "5 little peas" and thought about which numbers were in the rhyme/which were not.

"5 little peas in a peapod pressed
1 grew, 2 grew, then so did all the rest
They grew and grew, and they did not stop
Until 1 day the pod went pop!"

We used counters instead of our peas to help us with counting to 5. Our class puppet showed us how to count the peas on our hand template from yesterday's session but we spotted some counting mistakes! First they didn't stop at 5 and then they tried to count the same counter twice! We helped the puppet to count to 5 without making any mistakes.

After this, we used the die frame to see a different way to arrange the peas. We used the sentence "there are 5 spots on my die pattern" to help us.

We were then set a challenge during our provision time to create our own 5 die pattern using loose parts or drawing.

Well done, super mathematicians! 😊

WB: 14.11.22

This week we have been discussing 'Children in Need' and why we raise money for this cause and some of the different fund raising ideas we might see.

The children all looked fantastic in their non-uniform clothes and thank you so much for your kind donations! We will find out shortly how much the school has raised.

We have had a Pudsey theme in class making Pudsey masks, puppets and pictures. Don't they look fab!

WB: 7.11.22

We have been learning this week about how we mark important days like Remembrance Day. In an age appropriate way, we have learnt a bit about how on Remembrance Day we think about all of the soldiers who have fought in wars to help to keep us safe.

We watched the Poppies animation on CBeebies.

On Friday we observed a 1 minute silence at 11am.

We have been inspired to create our own poppies with different materials, paint and a huge class collage.

In Maths this week, we have been comparing amounts using "more than" and "fewer than" to help us describe what we can see. We used the stem sentences "X has more than X" and "X has fewer than X" to help us. You could practise this at home too, e.g. "Teddy has more blueberries than dolly".

We started with a game called "show me..." and thought of some different ways to represent 4 using our fingers. 4+0, 0+4, 3+1, 1+2, 2+2. We practised swapping our hands around e.g. 3+1 or 1+3 to check that it still made 4.

WB: 31.10.22

We have been learning this week about how we mark important days like Bonfire Night. We have learnt a bit about Guy Fawkes and how he plotted to blow up the House of Lords. We learnt how we mark this occasion every year on Bonfire night by having fireworks and bonfires - "Remember, Remember the 5th November, gunpowder, treason and plot". We talked about how we can help keep ourselves safe if we go to a firework display.

We have been inspired to create our own firework pictures with chalks and paint using dark coloured paper to represent the night sky.

In Maths, we are exploring pattern using our voices, movements such as clapping and tapping, drawing, craft and with loose parts. We enjoyed creating our own AB patterns. First we listened to the rhythm of a simple AB pattern, e.g. red, blue, red, blue. Next we worked together to create AB patterns using movements including...
clap, tap (legs), clap, tap, clap, tap
head, shoulder, head, shoulders, head, shoulders
We then moved on to firework patterns e.g. fizzle, pop, fizzle, pop. We used our voices to explore loud and soft, e.g. saying fizzle with a soft voice and saying pop with a loud voice. We worked in pairs to create our own AB patterns and some of us enjoyed demonstrating our pattern to the rest of the class!
After this, we explored how to create AB patterns using loose parts and worked in pairs to create our own patterns, using a range of resources from around the classroom, e.g. pens, gems, Numicon, small world characters.

We wrote our own firework word! Pop!

We used our phonics hand to sound out the word and segment it into individual sounds. We heard that "pop" was made up of three sounds, the initial sound p, middle sound o and end sound p. We then thought about how we write each of these graphemes, using the Little Wandle rhymes to help us.

WB: 17.10.22

This week, we have had our reading record books and also we've been sent home our first books to share with our grown-ups at home. The children are doing amazing at learning all of their phonic sounds so far. In our Phonics sessions, we also practise our oral blending, segmenting and blending together.

WB: 10.10.22

We are continuing all of our Autumn theme in our writing, crafts and Maths. We made beautiful Hedgehogs on our craft table.

In Maths, We met Owly, our class counting puppet. He lives in a magic box with some of his favourite toys. He asked for our help in working out how many toys he had altogether. We counted each toy slowly (1:1 correspondence) and saw that the last one we counted told us how many were in the group altogether. We counted the toys in a different order and saw that it was still the same number altogether! We use a circle motion with our hands to point out that we have counted all the objects to see how many there are altogether in the whole group. Owly (children chose his name!) will be with us again in Maths for more help.

WB: 3.10.22

This week we have started our Maths lessons. The children are amazing at sitting on the carpet and engaging in the lessons - they love to learn!

In our Maths sessions we practised subitising (recognising a number without counting) using our fingers. We played a game in pairs called "grow me, throw me, show me" and had to grow, throw or show different numbers from 1-3.

We introduced the Numberblocks 1, 2 and 3. We looked out for 1, 2 and 3 lots of something (e.g. we discovered that Numberblock 3 had 3 buttons, 3 blocks and 3 points on her crown. We also spotted 3 blind mice, 3 little pigs, Goldilocks and the 3 bears and 3 in a row!)

We then practised subitising 1, 2 and 3 using dots. We noticed that 3 could be made with 3 horizontal dots, 3 vertical, 3 diagonal and 3 in the shape of a triangle.

Well done, super mathematicians! ☺️🌟 Foundation Challenge: At home can you spot 1, 2 or 3 of something? 3 apples in the fruit bowl? 1 toothbrushes? 2 book on your shelf?

WB 26.09.22

This week, we have collected Autumn wonders from outside to make our Autumn tuff trays in the classroom. We have been painting, making with playdoh and also lots of cooking in the kitchens. We have also been discussing the seasons - leaves fall of the tree in Autumn and it is starting to get colder.

Our phonics started this week and the children have soaked up all of this new knowledge! They are loving learning a new sound each day, so far, we have learnt the phonemes 's, a, t, p'.

Well done foundation children - this is the start of your reading journey!

WB: 19.09.21

The children have had an amazing second week in Foundation!

They are still getting to know everyone in the class and we have had circle times to help get to know each other. This has been a lovely time for the children to share and we have heard lots of lovely things from the children too.

We have been discussing kindness in the classes - If anyone is on their own, to see if they'd like you to play with them, also smiling at each other and saying kind words of encouragement.

We have also discussed respecting our classroom to make sure we treat everything in the classroom with respect.

We have been so impressed how well the children have been coming in in the morning and also sitting on the carpet so nicely.

They are really starting to get to know the routines of the day and feeling more settled this week - Well done foundation!

WB: 12.09.21

Welcome to Foundation.

We have had a fantastic first week in Foundation!

The children have explored their new classrooms, made new friends and got to know the teachers and teaching assistants.

They have enjoyed using their imaginations with the variety of different toys we have available. The children have been gathering around the book corners in masses, when the grown ups have been reading to them. They have also been so good at using the outdoor areas with the water trays, little houses and other activities we have out there.

What an amazing first full week we've had!

We look forward to another amazing week in Foundation!