Monday 1st July 2019

Wow! We had a great day at The Hillier Gardens today. We took part in lots of different activities including pond dipping, a treasure hunt, a jungle adventure, making colourful teddy bears and a minibeast hunt. We loved taking our teddy bears along and having a teddy bears picnic at lunchtime.Wow! We had a great day at The Hillier Gardens today. We took part in lots of different activities including pond dipping, a treasure hunt, a jungle adventure, making colourful teddy bears and a minibeast hunt. We loved taking our teddy bears along and having a teddy bears picnic at lunchtime.

Wednesday 12th June 2019

Today we had our final visitor as part of our 'Hats' topic and what a visit it was! Lance Corporal Pooley came in to talk to the children about his job in the Scots Guard and show them his different uniforms and hats. The children loved it!

Wednesday 22nd May 2019

This week the hat in the box belonged to a firefighter and today, not only did we have some real firefighters come to visit us, but they also brought their fire engine with them! The children had a wonderful time as they found out about being a firefighter, looked at the clothes (and of course the hats) they wear, exploring the fire engine and, perhaps the best bit, having a go at using the hose! We were all very proud of how sensible the children were and how well they listened.

Wednesday 8th May 2019

This week a hat belonging to police officer arrived in the box.

We had a great week playing in our police station role play area, writing our wanted posters and taking finger prints, but the best bit was meeting a real life police officer!

Friday 3rd May

Earlier this week a large red box appeared in our room with a poem attached to it:

In this box there is a hat

A hat for this

A hat for that

It might be big

It might be small

It might be short

It might be tall

All I know

Is what it’s for

It’s for someone that helps us

One and all

So take a guess

We were very excited to open it and find a chef’s hat! Our learning for the rest of the week focused on chefs and how they help us. It was lovely to have a visit from Lorraine, our school cook. She talked to us about her job and about the hat she wears. Later in the week we had to follow instructions to make cheese biscuits. They were delicious! We also enjoyed playing in our class café.

Each week throughout our ‘Hats’ topic we will discover a new hat in the box and learn all about that job. What might it be next…?

Wednesday 1st May

Look at our new mud kitchen! We can't wait to explore (in our waterproofs and wellies of course!)

Friday 26th April 2019

Today we were busy planting up our new vegetable bed and herb planter. We are looking forward to watching our beans, radishes, salad leaves and fennel grow.

Friday 19th April 2019

This week we have been learning to add 2 numbers together by counting on using Numicon or other objects. First we had to identify the biggest number and hold it in our heads. We then had to count on the next number, for example 4+6 is 6...7,8,9,10.

Monday 18th March 2019

Ladybirds and Bumblebees had a fantastic day today making potions! We counted and measured as we scooped, poured and mixed flour, water, food colouring, glitter, shampoo, oil (and lots more!) into our potion bottles. We carefully observed the changes that occurred each time we added something new. The next day we wrote recipes for our potions. Come in and see some of these on display in our classroom.

Thursday 7th March

WORLD BOOK DAY!

Thursday 28th February 2019

As one child said "this has been the best afternoon at school, like forever!" That seemed to sum up the thoughts of most of the children as they explored and investigated during the launch of our new topic. At the beginning of the afternoon the children were challenged to work out what our new topic is. Through exploring slime, cornflower, colour mixing with paint and bubble blowing, they worked out that our new topic is 'Changes'. Look at all the fun we had!

Friday 15th February 2019

We have enjoyed playing games in maths to help us practise the skills of counting, matching and ordering.

Friday 8th February 2019

This week we have enjoyed celebrating Chinese New Year. We found out it is the year of the pig and have all made our own little pigs by drawing around and cutting out circles and triangles.

As well as listening and moving to Chinese music, using water colours to paint some of the animals from the Chinese zodiac and having a go at writing our names in Chinese, we also loved exploring what happens to noodles when we add water to them. 

Friday 1st February 2019

Look at all the fun we had in the snow! We explored shape and size, thought about animals that live in cold places and worked cooperatively to build some super snowmen.

Monday 28th January 2019

Year R loved taking part in Buddy's Big Workout today. We completed laps of the indoor obstacle course, did a Golden Mile around the playground and also enjoyed the outdoor playtrail challenge.

Wednesday 23rd January 2019

BOX BUILDING TEAM CHALLENGE

Today we had to work in our house groups to build a model using boxes. Some of us made a rocket, some of us made a castle, some of us made a boat and some of us made a train. We had to work as a team and were only allowed to collect one box each at a time. We were allowed to decorate our models in any way we wanted to.

Afterwards we asked the children what they thought about the challenge. Here are some of their responses:

I like being a team. It’s fun.

Ellie decided we needed a big box. We all got one thing at a time.

We worked as a team and we did it all together.

I liked working with my friends.

We did good making.

I put the top bit on my box and chopped it off.

Friday 18th January 2019

Look at the amazing junk models we made!

We had to think carefully about how to join the boxes together and learnt how to use sellotape and not loose the end.

Friday 11th January 2019

After going outside to do a Golden Mile around the playground yesterday, we were all prepared to come back into class and sit on the floor and not do very much at all. Imagine our surprise when we came in and found a mountain of boxes on our carpet area! This was a real surprise and a happy coincidence as we have been reading storybooks about boxes all week! After a quick chat about the boxes, we decided we should make boxes our topic for this half term. We then had lots of fun exploring the boxes and came up with lots of ideas for future learning. 

Wednesday 9th January 2019

Today we went on a winter welly walk. Before venturing out, we looked back at photos from our Autumn walk and thought about some of the changes we might see. We had a lovely time tramping through the woods and looking at the frosty grass and crisp leaves.

December 2018 - the end of term

Somehow we have already reached the end of the children's first term at school! This week was spent enjoying lots of Christmas fun. The highlight of our week was our Christmas party. We danced at the disco, played games, decorated Christmas biscuits AND made a Christmas decoration. The best bit of the day however, was a surprise visit from Father Christmas!

Friday 30th November 2018

It has been a busy 2 weeks in Year R. We have learnt all about road safety and the importance of being safe on bikes, in cars and when out and about in the dark.

We enjoyed using our purses to pay for different things in ‘Tesco’, our class role play area. We practised counting out the correct number of 1p coins and then moved on to adding two items together and counting the coins to find the total.

As well as all of this we have also been making patterns, role playing schools, practising our writing and developing our gross motor skills in our outdoor area.

Ladybirds and Bumblebees have spent this week learning about the festival of Diwali. As well as creating beautiful Rangoli patterns, we also made our own divas out of clay and made house coloured peppermint creams for sweet treats – red, green, blue and yellow! 

On Friday we celebrated Diwali. We use chalks to create Rangoli patterns outside the door to welcome us in, lit our divas and ate our treats. It has been a wonderful week and we have loved learning about another culture.

We also took part in Odd Socks Day this week and enjoyed celebrating our uniqueness as well as learning about the importance of respect.

Friday 9^th November

This week we continued our ‘Celebrations and Festivals’ topic. We enjoyed sharing our experiences of fireworks with the class and created our own fireworks paintings. To do this, we had to explore different ways of using a paintbrush, for example twisting, rolling and lots of flicking!

At the end of the week we spent time talking about poppies and Remembrance Sunday. Using tissue paper, glue and glitter, we created beautiful poppies to put up on display.

We have also developed our skills of sharing and turn taking whilst playing games. We started off playing with an adult but after a few goes we were able to play in small groups by ourselves. Teamwork and cooperation are a big part of our learning in Year R and you can see us doing this in all areas of the curriculum.

Friday 2nd November 2018

What a busy week we have had in Ladybirds and Bumblebees! As well as starting to learn our sounds in phonics, practising writing our numbers in maths and working on our balancing in PE, we have also taken part in a visit from the Life bus AND celebrated Winston and Tip Top Ted's 5th birthdays!

We all really enjoyed taking part in our PSHE session on the Life bus on Monday. We met Julia the teacher and Harold the Giraffe and they helped us learn about our bodies and how to keep fit and healthy.

Friday 19th October 2018

On Monday we went for a welly walk around our school grounds to look for signs of Autumn. We enjoyed listening for birds and snapping twigs under our feet and looked at all of the beautiful leaves. We noticed that they are starting to change colour and we talked about the different colours associated with Autumn.

We have also been busy mark making where we have been practising our skills of drawing, creating and writing as well as continuing to enjoy learning in our outside area.

Friday 12th October 2018

Playing shops has been a big part of our week! As the children were showing a keen interest in using money, they helped Mrs Browne to change our role play area into a shop. We printed lots of signs and labels off and stuck those up then filled out shop with lots of different play food. We love using the till and writing out our shopping lists.

The children have also enjoyed skipping with a big rope in our outside area. We have been impressed with how hard they have tried and how they have not given up, even when it was quite tricky.

Friday 5th October 2018

We have had lots of fun taking part in phonics games this week. Playing 'I Spy' is helping us to listen for the initial sounds in words and we have been learning to talk like a robot - breaking words down into their individual sounds then blending them back together again. Try putting a few objects out on the table, then ask you child to point to the c-u-p. Repeat the sounds getting faster and faster until they blend together to make the word. See if your child can talk like a robot to say these words:

         c-a-t                       b-oo-k                           f-i-sh                           b-u-s

Friday 28th September

We have had another busy week in school exploring all of the areas of learning and continuing to make new friends. We enjoyed 2 PE sessions, one with Mr F and one in our classes where we had lots of fun playing the Beans game. We have also been keeping our teachers busy by producing lots of super work to go up on the walls. We hope you enjoy looking at all of our displays when you come into our classroom.

Friday 21st September 2018

This week the children have continued to explore the learning environment both indoors and outdoors. They have had great fun in the digging pit looking for worms and all had a go at painting their faces in our art area.

We all especially enjoyed our first Spirit PE session with Mr F. These will take place every Thursday morning. We went into our Year R garden and practised listening to instructions and moving between markers. 

Friday 14th September 2018

We are really proud at how the Year R children have settled into school. They are all really good at their morning routines and are enjoying making new friends. Look how busy we have been!