Week beginning 22.4.2024

This week we will be learning all about caterpillars. We will learn how to look after caterpillars, the life cycle of a butterfly, create our own caterpillar crafts, symmetrical butterfly wing patterns, healthy/ unhealthy foods and butterfly dances. We will listen to the well known story of 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' by Eric Carl before drawing our own caterpillars and thinking about what foods the caterpillar could eat next if he found his way into our houses!

We will also be learning all about St. George on Tuesday and Father Graham will be joining us on Tuesday morning for a special whole school Mass to celebrate the day.

In phonics, we continue to look at phase 4 CVCC words and the tricky words: -put, pull, full, push, my, by, like, some, come, love and do.

In maths, we look at:
1. Verbal counting patterns
2. Adding more
3. How many did I add?
4. Taking away
5. How many did I take away

PE will now be on a Thursday. Please send children to school in their PE kit.

Week beginning 15.4.2024

Welcome back! We hope you have all enjoyed the Easter Break and look forward to the busy Summer Term ahead!

We begin the term with a focus on the traditional tale of 'Jack and the Beanstalk'. The children will be thinking about the character of the Giant and his castle. We will be building castles, measuring beanstalks, making beanstalks, learning about the life cycle of beans and planting our own 'magic' beans!

In phonics, we focus on phase 4 CVCC words with short vowels and the tricky words: the, I, go, no, of, you, said, so, have and like.

In maths, we begin our unit of work 'To 20 and beyond' by looking at the following objectives:
Step 1 Build numbers beyond 10 (10 -13)
Step 2 Continue patterns beyond 10 (10-13)
Step 3 Build numbers beyond 10 (14-20)
Step 4 Continue patterns beyond 10 (14-20)
Step 5 Verbal counting beyond 20

In R.E. we will be talking about 'Good News' and will make a 'Good News' board with any news the children would like to share with their friends. The children will draw a picture of their Easter Holiday Good News on Monday for the display. If your child would like to bring in any photographs, certificates, letters, cards, cuttings etc to show any Good News for our display, please send these in with your child next week.

Week beginning 25.3.2024

This final week of the Spring 1 half term has a Supertato and Easter focus.
We begin the week with Supertato and Drawing Club.  We will be drawing, making and labelling our own Supertato character and then devising our own way to catch the Evil Pea.  We will be creating 'wanted' posters and our own superhero masks.
We will be making delicious hot cross buns, going on Easter tricky word hunts, making more Easter crafts and enjoying Easter themed sensory play.
In phonics, we focus on longer words, words ending in -s and -es.  We also revisit our previously taught tricky words.
In maths, we continue our number bonds to 10 recognition, copy and continue patterns and look for patterns in the environment.
In R.E. we will complete our 'Big Question' for our Lenten topic 'Growing' and will be taking part in the Stations of the Cross, presented at the end of each day by years 3 and 4.

Week beginning 11.3.2014

This week we think about fire engines and how fire fighters help us. Tomorrow, ( providing there are no local emergencies) we will be visited by a group of local fire fighters and their fire engine. They will be give the children an opportunity to explore the engine, equipment and do a hose demonstration! They will also be talking to the children about fire safety. Throughout the week, we will be learning about what a fire fighter does, what they wear, different parts of the fire engine, fire safety and how fire engines have changed over the years.
In Drawing Club, we will be using the traditional tale of The Three Billy Goats Gruff to inspire our drawings and writing.
In phonics, we will focus on words with two or more digraphs and revisit the tricky words: no, of, to, into, she,
he and we.
In maths, our objectives are:
1) Bonds to 10 (3 parts)
2) Doubles to 10 (find a double)
3) Doubles to 10 (make a double)
4) Explore even and odd
In R.E., we will be continuing our Lent topic of 'Growing'.
This week, also marks the start of our Science fortnight as a whole school. We will be getting together with our Year 6 buddies for a science activity, take part in a Science Assembly and complete 'Time' related science activities in class.
The children will also be taking part in another golf workshop on Thursday morning.

Week beginning 4.3.2024

This week, we begin to think about vehicles used by the emergency services. We will learn about what a paramedic does and discover what we might find inside an ambulance. The children will be creating cut and stick ambulance pictures, explore hospital role play items and make cards for people who have helped them. On Thursday, we also celebrate World Book day with activities in school (no dressing up this year).
In Drawing Club, the children will be watching a programme from the 'Wacky Races' animation. We will be drawing Dick Dastardly and his side kick Muttley before moving on to create a design for our own 'Wacky' vehicles. There will be opportunities to build their own wacky vehicles using a variety of contruction materials and to design their own wacky obstacle race.
In phonics, we will focus on 'er' and 'air', double letters and longer words. We will revisit the tricky words full, push, and, go, no and of.
In maths, we continue our unit ' Building 9 and 10' with the objectives:
1) 1 more
2) 1 less
3) Composition to 10
4) Bonds to 10
5) Make arrangements of 10
In R.E., we continue our topic 'Growing'.

A reminder that the PTA have organised a Mother's Day sale in school on Friday.

We look forward to meeting with many of you this week for our parent consultations and hope you can join us for our open evening tomorrow.

Week beginning 26.02.2024

Welcome back to the second half of the Spring term!  This half term we look forward to exploring all sorts of trains, planes, cars and emergency services as part of our 'Transport' topic.  We begin the week with trains and the story ' The Train Ride'.  The children will explore a train station role play area and cafe with the opportunity to build their own trains, act out a journey and engage in train track related small world play.  There will be train track building finger gym and bridge building STEM activities.  We will explore shapes when building our own train pictures and create our own large scale journey maps.  The children will draw characters, trains and write about what they might see on their own journey.

In phonics, our focus phonemes are: ai, ee, igh, oa, ar, oo, or, ur, ow, oi and ear.
Our focus tricky words are: the, I, put, pull and full.
We will also be writing words containing these phonemes in addition to reading and writing full sentences.

In maths, our objectives are:
- order and sequence time
- find 9 and 10
- compare 9 and 10
- represent 9 and 10
- conceptual subtising to 10

in R.E., we reflect on our learning during our topic of ' Gathering' and will draw/ write about our learning as part of our Big Question 'Why do people gather together?'

Week Beginning 12.2.2024

Our Drawing Club book this week is ' The Storm Whale in Winter' by Benji Davies.  The children will be drawing whales and creating their own adventures for Noi and the Storm Whale.  There will be whale related small world play opportunities, water play and learning about whales.  Our week also has a pancake and Valentines theme with pancake cutting and sticking activities, pancake obstacle courses, a pancake cafe roleplay, heart themed pegging activities and crafts.
We will be learning about the significance of Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday in class.  The children will have the opportunity to role play drawing ashes on dolls, their own self portraits and we will prepare them in class ready for the Ash Wednesday service in school during the afternoon where the children will have the sign of the cross drawn in ashes on their forehead.
In phonics, we will be assessing all the children in their understanding of all sounds, oral blending, decodable word reading and tricky word reading taught so far.  We will also review many of the recently taught trigraphs and digraphs during whole class learning.
In maths, we begin a unit of work ' Length, Height and Time'.  We will be:
1. Exploring length
2. Comparing length
3. Exploring height
4. Comparing height
5. Talking about time
In R.E., we continue or topic of 'Gathering' and will be learning about the joy of gathering to listen to God's Word.

Week beginning 22.1.2024

This week we will be sharing the story 'Lost and Found' by Oliver Jeffers with the children.  The children will be drawing the boy and his boat.  We will investigate floating and sinking, think about what it means to be a good friend, how we can help others when they are feeling lonely and use our best listening skills in 'the squeaky penguin game'.  We will learn about some arctic explorers and all about penguins.  We will create penguin artwork and make a list of things we would need to take with us on an expedition to the South Pole.

In phonics, we focus on ur, ow, oi and ear.  We learn the new tricky words my, by and all. We will be writing our digraphs, trigraphs and tricky words in our hand writing sessions and continuous provision.  We also continue to look at capital letter formations.

In maths, we begin a new unit of work exploring mass and capacity in which we will:
1. Compare mass
2. Find a balance
3. Explore capacity
4. Compare capacity

In RE. we will be visited by Shawn from St. George's Church.  We will have the opportunity to ask Shawn lots of questions about the Church.

Week beginning 15th January 2024

This week we will be listening to the traditional fairytale of 'The Snow Queen'. We will be drawing her and her ice palace. We will be making salt dough snowflakes, using loose parts to create snowflake patterns, spelling tricky words in sparkly snow dough, building igloos and snow palaces out of construction materials and junk modelling materials.

In phonics, we will learn the digraphs oo (book), oo (moon), ar (dark) and or (horn). We will revise and assess all previous tricky words and also learn the new tricky words was, you and they.

In maths, we continue our unit of 'Alive in 5' by looking at:
1 more
1 less
composition
conceptual subitising to 5

In RE, we continue our topic of 'Celebrating' by looking at celebrations in the church/ parish and the presentation story. We will also be taking part in a CAFOD workshop on Tuesday morning.

Please make sure your children are wrapped up warm this week as we continue to access our outdoor learning area throughout the day in addition to morning break and lunchtime. Please make sure your children are wrapped up warm this week as we continue to access our outdoor learning area throughout the day in addition to morning break and lunchtime. All hats, gloves and scarves should be clearly named.
Children are only outside for activities for around 15 minutes at a time during class learning time but are welcome to come in if they feel too cold.

Week beginning 8th January 2024

Tomorrow, we begin our topic of ' WInter Wonderland' for the first half of the Spring term. Our first story is 'Elmer in the Snow.' This week we will think about what fun we can have in the snow, the four seasons of the year, different weather, what we wear in cold weather and create our own Elmer artwork.
In Drawing Club, we will enjoy watching an old episode of 'The Magic Roundabout'. We will draw/ write about the character Zebedee and where Mr Rusty lives.
In phonics, we will learn the digraphs ai, ee, igh and oa. We will revisit the tricky words is, as, the, I, put,
pull and full. We also look at matching upper case letters with lower case letters and begin to learn the formations for the upper case letters.
In maths, as part of our unit of work ' Alive in 5' we look at:
1. Introduce zero
2. Find 0 to 5
3. Subitise 0 to 5
4. Represent 0 to 5
Key maths skill: rote counting to 20
In R.E., our new topic is 'Celebrating' and we will be thinking about the different ways in which people celebrate.

Week beginning 11th December 2023

This week we share the story of 'The Jolly Christmas Postman'.  We will be drawing Father Christmas and his workshop, writing our names on envelopes to read and deliver,  decorating pine cone trees, reading CVC word baubles, making Christmas crafts, developing our gift wrapping skills and printing repeating Christmas picture patterns.

In phonics, we will assess the children's learning during the second half of the Autumn term and revisit previously taught digraphs and tricky words during our whole class sessions.

In maths, we continue to practice our number formations, explore 4 sided shapes and think about activities we do during the day and at night.

We look forward to performing our ' Wriggly Nativity' to you on Wednesday morning.  We will also perform a dress rehearsal to the school on Tuesday afternoon.

Week beginning 4th December 2023

We're Going on a Bear Hunt........
This week, we will enjoy sharing Michael Rosen's classic adventure story. We will be acting out the story, drawing the bear and his cave (complete with our choice of furniture), going on our own group bear hunts and enjoying small world play. In class, our Christmas post office role play will open and the children will decorate the class tree. We will begin Christmas related arts and crafts and continue our Nativity rehearsals.
In phonics, we explore words ending in 's' and review all previously taught GPCs and tricky words.
In maths, we will be writing numbers to 5, reviewing 1 more/ 1 less and will identify, name and combine shapes with 4 sides.
In RE, we continue our topic of 'Birthdays' and learning about the Christmas story.
Thank you for sending in black tops and bottoms ready for the Nativity. We will be taking our photograph to send to the Echo Newspaper this week for their 'Nativity Special'.

Week beginning 27.11.2023 Little Red Riding Hood

This week, we continue with our Gruffalo themed activities in addition to looking at the traditional tale ' Little Red Riding Hood'. We will be drawing the Wolf and Grandma's house in the woods. We will also be completing story maps, creating mazes to reach Grandma's house, our own mud cake recipes to tempt the wolf, putting on puppet shows and learning about how to be safe around people who we don't know.

In phonics, we will focus on sh, th, ng and nk. Our new tricky words are she, he and of. In addition to this, we will review all previously taught tricky words.

In maths, we will be writing the numbers 1-5 and will look at:
1 more
1 less
composition of 4 &5
composition of 1-5

In R.E. we continue our topic of 'Birthdays' and understanding Advent.

If your children are beginning to write Christmas cards, please write the name of the child and their class on the front of the envelope. This helps the sorting elves when the class post office gets busy during the Christmas period!

Also, a reminder that we require a black top and bottoms in a named carrier bag by the end of this week.

Week beginning 20.11.2023 The Gruffalo

This week, we listen to the familar story of 'The Gruffalo' by Julia Donaldson. We will be drawing our own Gruffalo pictures and where we think the Gruffalo will hide from the big bad mouse. We will also be sequencing the story and looking at rhyming patterns. We will be using clay to create Gruffalo faces.

In maths, we continue to explore circles and triangles, use positional language and learn how to find, subitise and represent the numbers 4 and 5.

In phonics, we will be learning z, qu and ch, in addition to words ending in 's'. We revisit all previously taught tricky words and look at the words 'go', 'no', 'to' and 'into'.

In R.E., we continue our topic of 'Birthdays' by learning about the advent wreath and creating a display for our classroom.

Week beginning 13.11.2023 Leaf Man

This week, we listen to the story of 'Leaf Man' by Lois Ehlert. In Drawing Club we will be thinking about the character of Leaf Man, where he might go on his travels and who might steal Leaf Man? We will create our own Leaf Man pictures to take on a journey.
In phonics, we focus of v, w, y and y. We will look at the tricky words: his, her, has, the, put, pull, full, and.
In maths, we will be looking at circles and triangles: identifying and namning, comparing and exploring shapes in the environment.
In R.E., we begin our new topic 'Birthdays'.
Throughout the week we will be learning how to be kind to others and who we can call upon to help us as part of 'Anti-Bullying' week.

Week beginning 6.11.2023 The Little Red Hen

This week we begin with our Firework Day. All activities will be firework themed. We will be doing firework dancing in the morning and a Bonfire Night whole class roleplay in the afternoon.
Following this, we move on to the story of 'The Little Red Hen'. We will be retelling the story and learning how bread is made. We will be making some delicious bread rolls just like the Little Red Hen.
On Thursday, we will be watching the year 6 class present their Remembrance Day Assembly. Towards the end of the week we will also take part in some Remembrance Day activities.
In phonics, we focus on ff, ll, ss and j. We also learn the new tricky words: put, pull, full and as.
In maths, we focus on:
Representing 1, 2, 3
1 more
1 less
Composition of 1, 2, 3
In R.E., we begin our new topic 'Birthdays'. We will also start learning our Nativity songs!

Week beginning 30.10.2023 Room on the Broom

Welcome back! We hope you all enjoyed the half term break?

This week we begin a new Autumn Term 2 topic of ' Into the Woods'. We will be sharing the story of 'Room on the Broom' with the children and thinking about interesting vocabulary, the character of the dragon and the setting of the swamp as part of our ' Drawing Club' lessons. We will also have a firework focus this week, making sparkly firework artwork, using our senses to describe bonfire night, singing bonfire night songs and learning about firework safety.

In maths, we begin a unit of learning 'It's me 1, 2, 3.' We will learn to write these numbers in addition to how to represent, sort and match these numbers.

In phonics, we revisit previously taught graphemes,tricky words and CVC word reading. We will assess the children's understanding of what they have been taught so far.

In R.E., we reflect on our 'Welcome' learning last half term and will make drawings/ share our thoughts with an adult as a part of our 'Big Question.'

On Monday 6th November we invite the children to dress up for a day of firework themed fun. Some dress up ideas:
Brightly coloured clothes like a firework
A sparkly top
A firework hat
A rocket
A spectator wearing a hat and gloves
A policeman or fireman keeping people safe at a firework display

Week beginning 16.10.2023

This week our focus is on babies and growing up.  We start the week by sharing the text 'Once there were Giants' and thinking about the different stages of growing up (baby, toddler, child, teenager, adult).  We think about the things we can do now that we could not do when we were babies.  We will also think ahead to what we are looking forward to being able to do as we get older. What do we want to be when we grow up?   We will explore the different jobs that grown ups do.
In phonics, we will be focusing on the new sounds h, b, f and l, in addition to revisiting all previously taught sounds and tricky words 'I' and 'is'.  We will learn the new tricky word 'the'.  We start the first of our spelling sessions by segmenting and blending the words: dog, ten, red, mum and kid for spelling.
In maths, we revisit and assess our unit of 'Talk about Measure and Pattern' with comparing mass/ weight/ size activties, matching games and continuing/ creating repeated patterns with objects.
In R.E., we continue our topic 'Welcome' with further Baptism activities.

Week beginning 9.10.2023

This week we focus on the story of 'Handa's Surprise'.  We continue to learn about our bodies, this week specifically our senses and healthy eating.  At the beginning of the week we will be using our senses to describe different fruits and will go on and Autumn walk in addition to exploring Autumn natural objects in our tuff tray.  We will think about what our favourite fruits are and see if our friend has the same favourite fruit. Towards the end of the week we think more about healthy eating and how we can make sure we eat a balanced diet.  We will be making repeated fruit patterns using paint to print and drawing and labelling fruits during our writing sessions.
In phonics, we will learn how to pronounce, read and write ck, u, e and r.  We continue to blend the sounds we have learned so far to read words.  We will learn the new tricky word 'I' and revisit the tricky word 'is'.
In maths, we will explore patterns, copy and continue simple patterns and create our own simple patterns.
In R.E., we continue our 'Welcome' topic by exploring how babies/ children are welcomed to the church through Baptism.  If your child has been baptised, and you wish for them to share a photograph with their class mates, please upload a picture to your child's tapestry account.

Week beginning 2.10.2023

This week our theme is 'Our Bodies', specifically our teeth and bones.  We will start the week by sharing the story 'Funnybones' and later an information book 'Inside your Body'.  We will explore what our bones look like inside our bodies and make skeleton pictures.  We will also learn about the importance of bushing our teeth and practice our teeth brushing techniques!
In phonics, we recap all previously taught phonemes and also look at some new phonemes: g, o, c and k.  In our daily lessons we will do oral blending and also teacher led blending of 3 letter words containing the phonemes taught so far.  In addition to this we will learn our first tricky word, 'is'.
In maths, we will be comparing different size, mass and compacity through a mixture of teacher led whole class learning, group activities and independent play opportunities.
In R.E., we begin a new topic 'Welcome'.  The children will explore the ways in which we welcome people (hugs, waves, handshakes etc) and also learn how people say welcome in some other languages.

Week beginning 25.9.2023

This week we will be sharing the story 'The Colour Monster'.  Together, we will talk about our feelings, facial expressions and how we can help others when they are feeling sad/ scared/ angry.  We will talk about ways to keep our minds happy and healthy.  We will think about how colours match to feelings and listen to music before expressing how different music makes us feel.  We will be drawing pictures of things that make us happy and create our own colour monster art work.
In phonics, we will revisit the sounds s, a, t and p from last week and learn the new sounds i, n, m and d.  We will be learning the formation phrases and writing these letters in our handwriting books. We will play games such as : can you do the actions? What's that noise? What is making the noise? Point to the... and blend from the box.  We also continue learning how to recognise and write our names.
In maths, we continue our unit of ' match, sort and compare' by sorting objects to a type, exploring sorting techniques, creating sorting rules and comparing amounts.
In R.E., we continue our topic of 'Myself' by thinking about why we are all special and what we bring to our class.