Welcome back to school Robins - you are thriving so much!

This half term we will be focusing on our school value of Love. 

To help us to answer the question of Should we love all characters in a story? we will be looking at lots of different traditional tales including some of the ones below. For each traditional tale we will also be looking at an alternative version with different characters or settings but a similar plot. We are going to focus on the structure of a traditional tale and relationships between heroes and villains. 

Keep checking back here for pictures of all our learning!

Week 4 and 5: The Story of the Nativity

Over the last 2 weeks we have been exploring the Nativity story. Whilst the one we are learning to perform to you all is based on the bible story it has been creatively edited for your entertainment and therefore we have been diving into the bible story to truly understand the characters that we are singing about. We have been able to use our knitted characters in class to act out the stories as well as using our crafting skills to make some of the characters that we don’t have such as angels. It was really fun to discuss which of the characters we thought was the most important in the story as everyone had a different opinion!

In phonics, we have been continuing to practise our set 1 sounds including all our special friends, whilst continuing to practise our letter formations through writing short words.

In maths, we have been counting accurately and using well known songs and nursery rhymes such as 1,2,3,4,5 has made it seem more fun and sticks better in our minds. We have also been keeping our brains ticking over by practising our subitising skills. We have also expanded our mathematical vocabulary learning the word ‘equal’ and how this means the same as.

Finally, as December crept upon us Christmas landed in the classroom! We spent some time decorating the classroom Christmas trees and have made lots of decorations to make the room more festive! We are lucky enough to have a school advent calendar where over the advent period every child will receive their own gift. We have been continuing to practise our nativity songs, and we cannot wait for you to see it next week – you really are in for a treat!

Week 3: Little Red Riding Hood

This week we have really started to think about the morality in the stories we've been exploring. After listening to one version of Little Red Riding Hood, we could retell the story in detail and even draw maps of the routes she and the wolf might have taken through the woods. We thought we knew who the heroes and villains were, but were forced to reconsider our opinions when we read an alternative version called Little Red. This story finished rather ambiguously: a picture of Little Red wearing the wolf's fur but without any explanation. We enjoyed thinking about what this image might have been implying!

In phonics, we learnt some new digraphs, ss, ll, and ff, and continued to practise writing short words. We split into two phonics groups now that we have finished learning our set 1 sounds, ensuring that our learning is targeted.

In maths, we started thinking about how a whole number (or item) can be split up into parts. To embed this understanding, we used the example of how our body parts all fit together to make us a whole person. We enjoyed making whole new creatures (/beasts/monsters!) by choosing different parts of animals to put together - we ended up with some hilarious creations!

Snow on Wednesday was very exciting! The children (and adults) were excited to get outside. It was lovely to see the class fully embrace the weather and play so beautifully together. We had some glorious moments of teamwork as the children built snowmen together, and the pure joy on their faces as they threw snowballs and felt the snow crunch beneath their feet was heartwarming! Thank you for your patience as we worked to reunite gloves/hats/boots/snowsuits with the correct children.

We have begun learning the songs for the EYFS & KS1 nativity, and will really get our teeth into them next week. There are some real ear worms coming your way!!

Week 2: Goldilocks and the Three Bears

The children were suspicious as to where a mystery porridge spill might have come from when they got back into the classroom on Monday! Some children were able to retrieve previous knowledge of Goldilocks and the Three Bears to suggest that perhaps Goldilocks had been in the classroom, whilst others wondered if the Wild Things from last term had returned! We loved exploring this story together and retelling it through a class story map before coming up with our own endings. This led to some interesting and passionate discussions around who we think the heroes and villains are in the story (which very much depended on what happened in the end!). 

In phonics, we recapped some previously learnt sounds and continued to practise writing words using our segmenting skills ('Fred Talk'). This helps us to isolate which sounds we will need to write down, and in which order. We refer to sound mats in the classroom to help us with our letter formation.

In maths, we focused our learning around comparison of quantity/number. We fed the three bears and looked at whether any had more, fewer, or an equal number of food items.

We marked Remembrance Day this week by reading Alive With Poppies, an illustrated poem which helps us to understand why this day is important. We also attended a whole school worship and showed our respect by taking part in the two minutes' silence at 11 o'clock. Lots of our artwork and exploration in the classroom centred around poppies. This enabled us to discuss the significance of these flowers during our play.

On Thursday, we marked 'Michael Rosen Day' by enjoying some of his food-based poems. We LOVED Hot Food and Chocolate Cake, which we watched Michael Rosen perform. This really helped us to understand the tone and intentions behind his words, and was an inspirational introduction to poetry. We illustrated a plain copy of Hot Food  to demonstrate what we saw in our own minds when listening to Michael's words - check back here for photos of some of these for you to enjoy!

Week 1: Jack and the Beanstalk

The children have settled back into school seamlessly after half term and we've enjoyed a busy week of learning together.

We began the term by reading Jack and the Beanstalk. We've enjoyed retelling the story and pretending to be the giant using the small world resources. The children loved listening to Jellybeans for Giants as an alternative version and discussing it in relation to Jack and the Beanstalk.

Bonfire Night was a major topic of interest this week and the children engaged in a long discussion about the way people might celebrate it, and why. It really got their creative juices flowing and our classroom is full of wonderful colours and textures illustrating fireworks, bonfires and rockets. We sang a song which included the different noises you might hear on Bonfire Night; some children even used their phonics learning to write some on their pictures! We hope you enjoy them during book look next week.

In phonics, we continued learning our Set 1 sounds: sh, th, ch, qu, and ng. We noticed that these all contain two letters which make just one sound when next to each other. In our Read Write Inc phonics scheme, we refer to these as special friends (otherwise known as digraphs).

In maths, we made the explicit link between the number 5 and how many fingers we have on one hand. We then transferred this understanding to the number five as represented on a die, noticing that the quantity does not change - just the representation. By the end of the week, we explored what happened if we had 5 on a die and then added another die showing 5 - altogether making 10. The children were able to make the connection between this and the two fives we can make using our fingers. Great thinking, Robins!