Summer Term 1

Well, we may not have had a lot of sun for the beginning of our summer term but we certainly had lots of fun! We dived into a new topic exploring the Victorian Era and an author that the children were very excited about (something to do with a bunny in a little blue coat..?) and continued to grow and learn together. We also had some extremely special visitors when we gained some duck eggs that we watched hatch and grow into gorgeous little baby ducklings! It was so exciting to have all of our Rabbit friends back together in one room again. Let's see what we got up to!

Maths 

Year R - Year R have continued to wow us and deepen their knowledge of numbers this half term. They have been working in groups to create and copy models and complete shape hunts! They have also challenged themselves to go a little higher with their numbers even branching beyond 20! We use various resources to support our learning and the children have loved matching some of these resources, such as numicon, to the outdoor minibeat number cards! We even started creating some simple addition and subtraction sentences, well done year R :)

Year 1 - In Year 1 we have also continued to challenge ourselves by diving into multiplication and division! The children have cemented their knowledge of the 2s, 5s and 10s times tables and used them to aid in their learning in many ways including creating rows, columns and arrays. We have been so impressed with the continual effort they put in. We ended this half term by introducing the children to fractions, something that we thought would be a huge challenge but that they yet again blew us out of the water with! Rabbits really are maths superstars! And now they can tell you all about halves and quarters :)

English and Phonics

A lot of our learning in English this half term has been in sync which has been really lovely. We kicked off with the launch of our new topic and a dedicated Beatrix Potter day! It was so exciting and fun-filled, full of character hunts, investigations, quizzes and lots of art including our very own drawings of Peter Rabbit and exploring painting Potter style with the water colours. We were so impressed with the beautiful work the children created.

We continued our exploration into Beatrix Potter by creating our very own Characters! The Years 1's dived deep into this giving us lots of detail and then planning and creating their very own adventure stories based around the framework of 'The tale of Peter Rabbit'. The Year R's also created their own Characters and a storyboard structure for their animals adventure based off the same Peter Rabbit adventure.

We couldn't resist the urge to incorporate our gorgeous ducklings into our work this half term! So the Year R children sequenced some pictures and were able to add some amazing descriptive words to go with them. We have been so impressed with how their writing has come along and all of the phonics evidence we can see when reading it! The year 1s have now finished all of their 5 stages and absolutely SMASHED their assessments! Well done!

Foundation

The children have loved the topic this half term, this has been evident in their curiosity and want to explore every aspect of the Victorian era in more detail! We started off the term by looking at some school pictures from all different eras and putting them in order of what we thought were the oldest to newest. We were thoroughly impressed by the childrens ability to find evidence and justify their opinions. We continued our exploration from here focusing mainly on Victorian schools and what things were different and how they might have changed. It's safe to say the children felt very lucky to have a modern teacher  

This half term we have absolutely LOVED taking advantage of all of the exciting P.E and gym equipment we have here at South Wonston. We have been daring ourselves to be brave by climbing the climbing walls and ropes and finding lots of different ways to travel along, under, across and over the various courses set up. We even ended the term by trying to sync some of our movements to music! It has been great fun!

We ended the half term with a bang celebrating all of our uniqueness and differences with a 'Dare to be different' day. Rabbits class got really stuck into this and their creativity shone through with the amazing variety of interpretations we saw with this challenge including crazy wigs, pyjamas, fancy dress, vibrant nails and even  a rainbow unicorn! It has been another incredible half term with the children and we can't wait for the next one and hopefully some glorious sun to enjoy it in!

Miss Forsythe, Mrs Brown and Mrs Rennie xxx

Spring Term

Well, Spring Term was definitely a different one for all of us here at South Wonston! We started out the new year in a new lockdown with a lot of our lovely Rabbits learning from home and we missed them SO very much! I want to take this opportunity to thank the parents/carers for supporting the children with their learning at home and sending in so much incredible work! We loved seeing what the children had been getting up to at home, sharing it with the key worker children in class and seeing the INCREDIBLE work all of our Rabbits continued to do in such a tricky and new situation. We are SO proud of you! We also enjoyed being able to zoom with the class twice a day but, as much as we enjoyed seeing them on a screen, we are SO glad to finally have them all back with us! 

So without further ado, let's see what we got up to this term once we were all back together! 

Maths

Year R - In Maths the children have moved on to counting up to and combining numbers all the way to 10! We have been so impressed with their knowledge on number bonds and constant enthusiasm for their Maths work. Rabbits are absolute Maths superstars and one look at their amazing work reflects that.

The children have also loved joining  in the exploration of measuring and capacity, playing in the water to make their containers 'Full' 'Nearly full' 'Half full' 'Nearly Empty' and 'Empty'! They have also enjoyed building water marble runs on different layers with our guttering and transporting the water down to create different volumes of water!

Year 1 - In Year one, the children continued to explore addition and subtraction and working with numbers all the way up to 50! The children furthered their 'greater than' 'less than' and 'equal to' knowledge by using number and various representations of numbers up to 50 and beyond! We ended the term by exploring weight and measuring, capacity and volume. We were SO impressed with how the children dived straight into this new part of mathematical learning and the knowledge they already had on it. They really loved getting involved in the experimental side of this journey and explaining how measurement can be used in so many different ways! 

English and Phonics

Year R - This term the children have continued to develop their skills of segmenting and blending and using their sound knowledge to create word and sentences! We have been so impressed with the effort the children have been putting in and the work they have been creating. I think this has in no small way been helped by our very exciting 'tricky word songs' that we like to sing VERY LOUDLY in class 

The children explored lots of imaginative ways to practice their writing, these included writing a postcard from a destination of their choice and writing a piece all about who they love to hug! 

Year 1 - In year one we have continued to work on our golden rules of writing, focusing strongly on capital letters, full stops and finger spaces as our non-negotiables! The children have been working very hard on this. We have also continued to look at prefixes, suffixes and alternative forms of punctuation such as question and exclamation marks. The children have had lots of fun and engaging ways to practice these skills including creating their own stories and poetry!! We were sooo super impressed by the childrens exploration of poetry and loved reading the creative animal poems that the children came up with.

Foundation

In foundation, we have been looking at our surrounding area of South Wonston and discussing parks - who uses them and whether or not we should get a new one! The children were very excited about this topic and got very involved in every aspect of it which was lovely to see and not at all suprising! Whilst studying this topic we thought a lot about who might use the park and what they might use it for. The children wrote down their ideas and also used the information to fill out tallys and plot graphs!

This also helped us to continue our exploration into the world around us and really look at all of the changes that spring brings us! In science, we looked in detail at different animals and which animal group they might belong to! We worked as a class to sort the animals in to the five different groups.. and we may have also taken a silly selfie!

The children also produced some gorgeous art work this term! Art is something we really love exploring in Rabbits class and we get very excited at any opportunity that we have to do so. One of our favourite activites this term was drawing pictures of our favourite things that make us happy and turning them into nature mobiles! The children also enjoyed looking at a beautiful, blooming spring daffodil and creating their very own versions of it using paint and watercolours which we have proudly put on display.

Overall, it has been another gorgeous and fun term here in Rabbits class! We have continued to learn lots, show bright, kind and positive attitudes and proven how incredibly strong and motivated we all are! Me, Mrs Browne and Mrs Rennie are so incredibly proud of all of you.

Miss Forsythe, Mrs Brown and Mrs Rennie xxx

Autumn Two

This half term has been another one full of fun and adventure in Rabbits class!! We have been so impressed by how the children have grown and adapted to all of the changes this term. They have been RabbitTASTIC!

This term our topic has been focused on space exploration and, in particular, a focus on the moon! We have explored the first moon landing and the amazing astronauts that made the mission happen! We have been so impressed by how the children have dived into the topic head first and even continued their exploration of the topic at home!

Maths

Year R - In maths this half term, the children have been really focused on the formation of their numbers from 1 - 10, being able to recognise them and use them in simple maths sums! The children have wowed us with their determination and even joined in some of the Year 1 maths challenges which is OUT OF THIS WORLD amazing! There have been lots of different maths activites for them to explore throughout the day including counting, number recognition, measuring,shapes and days of the week! The children even did some maths art inspired by Kandinsky where they cut out shapes to make a beautiful art piece!

Year 1 - Year 1 have been working so hard in their maths again this term! I have to say, we have some absolute Maths GENIUSES in Rabbits class! They have been working hard on their place value with numbers between 0 and 20 and working on shapes also! We have been so impressed by their hard work and independance and their use of resources to independantly aid their learning. It is evident when looking in their books how truly hard they have been working.

English and Phonics

In English and Phonics this half term, Year R have been focusing really hard on recognising their sounds and being able to use them in their learning. We have been so, so impressed with the progress they have been making in their phonics and it is reflected in their english work and ability to recognise initial sounds and even push a little further into writing recognisable words! This was reflected greatly in their wish lists for Santa this term!

The Year 1's have been focusing on their sentence structure and remembering to use full stops and capital letters, this is something we really struggle with so any extra practise sure does help! We have been using our space topic to explore various different space stories and write about what we have discovered! We even wrote a moon fact book for our friend Buzz!

Foundation

Our space topic has weaved so nicely across the curriculum - In science we held experiments to explore different materials and their properties and discover which were strongest! In art the children have created so many beautiful masterpieces inclusing rockets, moons and a giant space collage! We have been absolutely blown away and loved our time exploring arts and crafts!

We can't wait to carry on learning and having fun together next term in 2021! Let's hope it's a better year for everyone. Merry Christmas everybody!!

Miss Forsythe and Mrs Browne.

xxx

Autumn One 

This half term we have had lots of fun in Rabbits class! We have explored lots of different themes in all of our subjects and topics and have had a fabulous time getting to know each other and making new friends!

We started out our term exploring 'All About me'.
The children brought in bags full of their favourite things that told us a story about them, this ranged from toys to family photos to amazing drawings and even their favourite yummy treats! We proudly displayed our Rabbits treasures at the entrance to our classroom so we could see it every day! It was a real treat to see all of the children standing confidently in front of the class to tell them about their special items and see the children really engaged with getting to know their peers.

Maths
The children have really wowed us with their Maths skills this half term! In year R we have looked at how far we can count, recognising and naming different shapes, height, weighing, capacity and lots of other Maths learning through play! We have been so impressed with the children's knowledge and approach to learning with some children even challenging themselves to try to year 1 work! Absolute superstars!

In Year 1 the children have been exploring the addition symbol and part-whole models. They have been working really hard to use their place value and number knowledge to solve tricky sums, create and find the missing parts in models and challenging themselves with extra tricky tasks! The independance we have seen from the year 1's this half term has been wonderful, easing themselves in and becoming more confident with the work every day. The children find different ways to use their maths knowledge throughout the day and apply it to their play. The children have even begun writing independant number sentences in their books. What superstars!

English
In English this half term we have explored many different stories! We have looked at 'The Elves and the shoemaker', 'The three little pigs' and 'Town mouse Country mouse'. We have had great fun using these stories to explore our English skills! In year R we have used the stories to help us sequence and make patterns! We have practised our mark making, fine motor control, story telling skills, introducing a storyline into play and writing our names which we did as a fun Rocket art project!

In Year 1, the children have been focusing really hard on their sentence writing skills, using full stops, capital letters and finger spaces. They have been using their imaginative skills to rewrite stories, put themselves in the position of a character and predict what might happen in a story. They have used their phonics knowledge to help them sound out and form words to create exciting sentences and stories/letters and instructions!

Topic

In Topic this term we have been looking at where we live, South Wonston! We have been exploring the various landmarks and things you might see here and using maps to explore and pictograms and tallys to record data! The children have really enjoyed using maps this term to go on hunts around the classroom and apply their new skills to their learning!

Science

In science we have had lots of fun exploring the seasons! We have been taking a weekly picture in the same spot so that we can explore and record the changes happening around us. We have put on our coats and wellies and had fun adventuring out and exploring our Autumn environment, playing in the leaves and comparing to the other seasons. We now feel super confident relating various objects and images to a certain season!



We have had such an amazing time getting to know each other, expanding and solidifying our skills and knowledge in Rabbits class this half term. We can't WAIT for the next one! 
We ended our Autumn Term 1 with a well deserved class treat - a halloween party! The children all made their own Halloween hats and we took our special picture by the tree so that we can always remember what we can achieve with hard work and working together and how much fun we have in Rabbits class! 

Rabbits Class (Miss Forsythe and Mrs Browne) x