Week 6

On Monday we were very excited to be visited by a scientist! She taught us all about bubbles, how they form and why they’re always round (even if we blow through a different shaped bubble wand). We took part in lots of exciting experiments - our favourite was making bubble caterpillars!

In maths we learned about odd and even numbers. We found out that numbers always follow the pattern odd, even, odd, even when we count in ones. We made different numbers using multilink and sorted them into which ones were odd and which ones were even. At the end of the week we made the link between even numbers and doubles and were amazed to find that all of our even numbers had a double inside!

We enjoyed doing lots of Easter crafts this week. We painted hard-boiled eggs, made rabbit puppets and finger painted Easter cards for our families.

In RE we listened to the Christian Easter story and thought about why Easter is such a special time for Christians. At the start of the week we thought about eggs and what they remind us of. Most of us said that they make us think of chicks and chocolate!
 

Then we found out about Jesus entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, Jesus dying on the cross on Good Friday and then rising again on Easter Sunday. We learned that the cross on a hot cross bun helps people remember what happened on Good Friday and that eggs are a symbol of new life.

On Thursday we found out that some Christians make Easter gardens at Easter time and we enjoyed making our own garden as a class.

Week 5

We have had another busy week this week.
In maths we continued to think about which numbers go together to make 10. We also looked at doubles. We had fun spotting whether a die pattern was a double or not and used a special sentence to explain what we found: ‘6 is made from 3 and 3. Double 3 is 6!’.

On Friday we used counters to make doubles patterns on butterflies and practised saying our sentence to explain what double we had made.

In PSHE we have been learning about how to stay healthy by making good choices about the food we eat. We reminded ourselves of the different food groups and talked about how important it is to eat a balance of different foods. We then used a mixture of different ingredients to make some delicious snacks - strawberry and banana smoothies and mint & cucumber raita. We loved drinking our smoothies and dipping carrot sticks into the raita… healthy and scrummy!

In Drawing Club we delved into the past and watched an episode of Bananaman! We then did a variety of writing and drawing activities throughout the week. Our favourite was thinking about what Dr Gloom’s new ray gun might turn Bananaman into….

On Wednesday we went on our very first school trip to Queen Elizabeth Country Park. We did lots of forest school activities including playing in a muddy kitchen, bug hunting, foraging, making medals and crowns and making s’mores with marshmallows and biscuits. Back at school we wrote letters to Lottie at QE Park to say thank you for looking after us so well. We loved our trip and can’t wait to go on another one!

Week 4

This week in maths we learned all about number bonds to 10. We found out that number bonds are numbers that go together to make another number. The number bonds to 10 are 5 and 5, 6 and 4, 7 and 3, 8 and 2 & 9 and 1. We investigated these bonds in lots of different ways and ended the week by showing what we’d learned on paper.

In Drawing Club we listened to the story of The Magic Porridge Pot. We spent the week thinking about the mysterious wizard in the story, what he looked like, where he lived and how he would get rid of all the porridge!

We enjoyed writing in discovery time, too. We wrote cave messages to The Gruffalo’s Child using chalk and charcoal, recipes for The Gruffalo to eat in the mud kitchen, signs for traps and labelled pictures on giant paper.

We have been thinking a lot about habitats, animals and their babies and different types of plants this half term. This week we found out about how some plants grow. We looked at seeds and bulbs and realised that some seeds grow plants that we can eat, whilst others grow plants that we can’t eat. 
We collected all of the things we thought we’d need to grow some seeds and set about planting peas, tomato seeds and cabbage seeds.

In PE we continued to work on our ball skills. We controlled balls with our feet and practised stopping a moving ball quickly. We rolled and threw balls at targets and had a go at catching tennis balls with two hands.

Nothing stops us from enjoying the outdoors in Dolphins Class! Some of us really enjoyed playing in the rain this week. We had paint roller races, jumped in puddles, made a huge square trap and tried to build a wall strong enough to stop a river. 

Week 3

In maths this week we have been thinking about the number seven. We practised making this number in lots of different ways - with numicon, cubes, counters and beads. We also investigated how many different ways we could make 7 with two different colours. We found out that it can be made with 6 and 1, 5 and 2 and 4 and 3. We are getting very good at remembering that when we do this we are breaking a number into parts of a whole.

This week, a new piece of furniture appeared in our house. It got us thinking about how we could improve our home area, so we had a bit of a sort out and move around! This inspired some of us to think about what our own houses might look like when we’re older. We showed off our ideal houses by drawing them and making them with Lego, blocks and junk.

In PE this week we continued to work on our ball skills. This time, we tried to control our ball as we moved it around our bodies in different ways. We moved them over our heads, round our waists and through our legs. Then we tried to aim our balls through a set of cones. It was very tricky rolling the ball hard enough to get it to our partner without sending it off track!

As it’s a special day on Sunday, we worked hard to make some beautiful cards. We used tissue paper to make flowers and stuck them onto card, then wrote our own messages on the inside. Happy Mother’s Day to all of the mummies - we hope you like your cards and that you have a great day on Sunday!

Now that the weather is improving, we’re able to make the most of all of our outside areas… we can write in our outdoor message centre without getting the paper soggy, design our woodwork creations without getting wet heads and eat our afternoon snack in the sunshine! Spring is springing!

On World Book Day we all came to school in pyjamas or dressed up as our favourite book characters. Our favourite part of the day was performing our class assembly to our parents in the morning and reading with them in the afternoon just before home time.

Thank you so much to everyone who was able to take part in these activities - we hope you enjoyed it as much as the children did!

Week 2

This week we have continued to learn all about the Gruffalo. We have enjoyed reading The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo’s Child and started to think about which characters in the stories are our favourites. Some of us drew our favourite characters and wrote some descriptive words and phrases about them.

We had lots of fun making some of our favourite characters using junk modelling materials, too. We used toilet roll tubes, feathers, googly eyes and special stickers to make owls and snakes. The best part was playing with them afterwards!

This half term we are also going to be learning about the work of Axel Scheffler. So far, we know that he is an illustrator who has drawn lots of pictures in books written by Julia Donaldson. We had a look through some of his books and spoke to each other about which illustrations we like the most. 

We learned a new word this week: habitat. We found out that a habitat is a place where an animal lives. There are lots of habitats all over the world and different animals live in different types of habitat. We worked together to create some habitats; desert, woodland, marine and a polar region. Then we sorted animals into the place they would most like to live. We talked about the differences between the places and noticed that there were a lot! We noticed that some animals match the colour of the habitat they live in, too.

In maths this week we thought about which numberblocks can hide behind each other. We were very good at seeing that the taller characters couldn’t hide behind the shorter ones. We soon realised that this could help us decide whether a number is bigger or smaller than another. We practised spotting how many toppings were on a pizza and rearranged our numberblocks toys into the correct order when they were jumbled up, too.

Week 1

In PE this half term we’re going to be focussing on ball skills. This week we thought about how we can make a ball roll along the ground in different ways. We used our feet and our hands to push the balls around the playground… it was very hard work! 

We have really enjoyed writing this week. We learned about how important it is to describe characters and had a go at writing some descriptive words and phrases about the characters from The Gruffalo. We also read some riddles in discovery time and wrote down who we thought had written them.

Some of the children in Dolphins Class signed up for Craft Club this half term. This week we used clay to make tiles and sculptures. Everyone tried really hard to roll out their clay and decorate it - next week we can paint them!

This week we also started to learn about which animals live in woodland areas. We talked about robins, woodpeckers, hedgehogs, foxes and many more. We discussed what kinds of colours they all have in common and thought about why they might need to blend in with their environment. Then we picked the animal we liked best and had a go at painting it.