Spring 2 – 2024
This half term we have enjoyed reading a range of fiction and non-fiction texts linked to our ‘Adventure and Journeys’ topic. We also hosted our Reading Café and enjoyed sharing our love of reading with our parent community. To celebrate World Book World Book Day, Tigers and Elephants dressed up as our favourite book characters and had lots of fun sharing our favourite stories and characters with the rest of the class.
As writers, we have continued to apply our phonic skills when writing for different purposes. We have created reports linked to a rocket crash incident in the classroom, pirate descriptions for our wanted posters and dinosaur fact files! We have also been writing daily sentences using words containing digraphs. The children are beginning to use capital letters, fingers spaces and full stops more confidently in their writing! Amazing!
As part of our maths mastery curriculum, we have explored the composition of teen numbers using objects, tens frames and partitioning. We have also explored the relationship between 1 more and 1 less and investigated odd and even numbers. Whilst learning about the properties of 3d shapes the children loved becoming shape detectives and searching for shapes in their classrooms and outdoors!
As artists, we have used a range of different techniques and experimented with different tools and materials in our work. We have practised our observational drawing skills when creating Spring daffodil pictures, created representations of planet earth using collage materials and created 3d rockets and dinosaurs in our making area. We also enjoyed designing our Mother’s Day cards and used a marbling technique to create Easter cards for our families.
The children have had lots of opportunities to develop their imagination through role-play this term. There have been exciting scenarios acted out in our airport and many adventures had on our class aeroplane! Everybody also had a brilliant time on our Tiny Town Adventures trip, where the children got to develop their creativity and express themselves. They had the chance to dress up and become firefighters, hairdressers, vets, builders and really brought the town alive!
As scientists we have been experimenting! We have investigated the properties of objects and materials through floating and sinking and have created our own rocket to launch in the playground using a plastic bottle, vinegar, and bicarbonate of soda. We have also enjoyed learning all about the planets in our solar system, created treasure maps and made our very own dinosaur fossils using salt dough.
In P.E. we have been exploring dance linked to our dinosaur theme. First, we thought of different words to describe how dinosaurs might look, move and sound. We then created movements for our chosen words and linked these movements together to create our dances.
As part of our Jigsaw lessons, we have learnt all about different ways to keep healthy. We have sorted healthy and unhealthy foods and talked about the importance of sleep, exercise and keeping clean.
Spring 1 -2024
As readers, we have enjoyed a variety of fiction and non fiction books about the heroes and helpers in our community. We have had visits from a local police officer as well as a team of fire fighters who showed us around their fire engine and taught us all about fire safety in the home.
As writers, we have continued to gain confidence when creating stories, lists and descriptions. We applied our phonic knowledge in many ways including labelling our own super heroes and writing reports about a police incident in the classroom involving Humpty Dumpty. We have also begun to expand our sentences by writing silly phrases before register time. We use the grapheme of the day in our words and some of us have even started to use conjunctions in our work. Wow!!
We have enjoyed our maths mastery work this term and have continued to improve our number sense with numbers to 10. We are getting better at counting forwards and back, partitioning, ordering and adding and subtracting. We have enjoyed all the opportunities to experiment with maths in our learning environment including working with pattern, shape and measures.
As artists, we have experimented with a variety of different skills including watercolours, collage, chalk and pastel drawings. We used the bottom of a coke bottle to print beautiful blossom trees linked to our Chinese New Year learning as well as creating a collaborative Chinese dragon, where each child contributed by designing part of a paper plate.
As explorers, we have learnt about different people who help us in our community. We have taken our learning outside to discover the signs of winter and have enjoyed cracking and exploring ice and snow. We discovered new flavours when we tasted food from China and have watched how our Amaryllis and hyacinth plants have changed over time.
We have been fully involved in our PE sessions this term and have enjoyed learning all about how we can work together in a team. Our balance, control and coordination skills have improved and we have loved playing games such as ‘stuck in the mud’, ‘sharks’ and ‘pirates ahoy!’
In our jigsaw lessons we have focussed on our dreams and goals and are beginning to recognise the feelings we have when we find things difficult.
Autumn 2 – 2023
As writers, we have been applying our phonics skills into our writing. We applied our knowledge to creating lists for our Gruffalo picnic and our lovely letters to Santa too!
We also worked hard to develop our love of writing in different areas throughout the reception unit. We created our own cards, labels and captions in every area!
As readers, we have enjoyed our shared reads: ‘The Gruffalo, The Three Little Pigs and we have enjoyed The Nativity Story.
We have continued to develop our reading skills by doing guided reading everyday, working on tracking, sounding, blending and sight reading tricky words. We’re also thinking about some comprehension skills to help understand the story more effectively.
As part of our personal, social and emotional learning, we have continued working with Jigsaw Jenie and Paws. We’ve thought about how we are the same or different and how important it is to be ourselves. We’ve explored how all of our differences make us special and unique!
As artists, we explored different materials, made collages and developed our planning and making skills too. We had so much fun making our Christmas cards using shaving foam—we hope you loved the spongy snowmen too!
In our making area, we have developed our skills in different ways—thinking more about our final product, how we can change and adapt it to make it even better! We have particularly loved exploring the new materials we got to use too!
As explorers, we learnt about different animals and we even met Miss Haynes pet snake! We also enjoyed making predictions, having discussions and asking questions about what was in our curiosity cube and we explored different materials using different senses.
We earnt all of our class stripes and spots too so we got to have a Christmas Party and Movie fun!
We have enjoyed our visits to the ICT suite where we have been embedding our skills of logging on and we have explored different platforms including; phonicsbloom.com, topmarks.co.uk and phonicsplay.co.uk
Give them a try at home!
Autumn 1 – 2023
As writers, we have been developing our segmenting skills. We applied our knowledge when we wrote labels and short, simple sentences about the characters in Monkey Puzzle and where the skeletons were hiding too!
We also worked on our grapheme: phoneme correspondence when writing captions and labels for our independent box modelling.
As readers, we have enjoyed our shared reads: ‘Monkey Puzzle, Funny Bones and In Every House on Every Street.
We have developed our reading skills by doing guided reading everyday, working on tracking, sounding, blending and sight reading tricky words.
As part of our transition into school we have spent a lot of time working on our listening, attention and other social skills. We have met Jigsaw Jenie and Paws who have helped us to discuss and learn about being a member of Elephant and Tiger family and the
Importance of working together, helping each other and being kind.
