Monks Risborough CE Primary School
Summer 1 - Do we have the responsibility to look after all animals?
We hope you've all had a fantastic break!
In our learning this term we will be making links with the value of responsibility.
Through both fiction and non-fiction texts, we're looking forward to discovering more about the animals we share the world with, developing our vocabulary and learning about different environments. Our trip to Odd's Farm later in the term will really bring our learning to life!
Key Texts
Week 1 - Sheep in a Jeep
What a fantastic start to the Summer term! The children have returned to school refreshed and eager to learn. This week our key text was 'Sheep in a Jeep', a story full of short rhyming phrases. The children enjoyed exploring rhymes in the provision as well as letting their imaginations run wild when creating their own variations on the story.
The children have blown me away with their curiosity, problem-solving skills, teamwork, and perseverance in the creative area this week. They've found inspiration from books, researching where certain animals live and what they eat, and then found ways to create both the animal they've researched as well as a place for it to live out of junk modelling resources. It's been fantastic to support them leading their own learning in this way.
In maths this week we explored different strategies that help to ensure accurate counting of a quantity that is too large to subitise. The children were extremely keen to share their own methods and we enjoyed trying them out when counting quantities up to 20.
In RE this term we will be learning about how different families may celebrate different occasions, and that they may also celebrate in different ways. We began this week by noticing how the families we live with at home are all different. We then discussed how we celebrate birthdays and it was wonderful to hear about all the different traditions!
Week 2 - Dear Zoo
The children have worked extremely hard this week on creating their own page of a book in the style of 'Dear Zoo.' They practised writing sentences, thinking about how many words they needed to write and beginning to remember a finger space between each one. We've remembered that we can segment to write some words (using 'Fred talk') but that for others words this isn't possible. We refer to these as 'red words' and have been practising finding them on our word mats when writing.
As well as becoming authors, we also made sure we included a picture of an animal for the zoo. We even made lift-the-flap style doors for their enclosures at the zoo. The children are incredibly proud of their work - rightly so - and thoroughly enjoy looking back at it. Well done, Robins!
In Maths we have revisited subitising (identifying a quantity without needing to count) but have focused on numbers 6 and 7, thinking about how they can be represented as '5 and a bit' and how this pattern helps us to recognise the quantity quickly.
Week 3 - Tadpole's Promise
The children have absolutely adored this week's text! We didn't reveal the ending until the final day of the week, allowing children the opportunity to predict what might happen. We discussed this at length, with children displaying a wealth of understanding regarding the life cycles of frogs and butterflies which they were able to apply with imagination and creativity to create their own endings. We couldn't believe what actually happened once we eventually heard the shocking end to the story! The children were able to express their feelings and displayed an impressive level of comprehension during our class discussion around this.
Outside in the garden there has been a collective buzz around the developing stage area. Taking the children's lead, we moved the mud kitchen on to our grassy area and were then able to make a 'backstage' area which joins the stage. Children displayed fantastic teamwork, communication, and critical thinking skills in cleaning up and developing this area which now includes dressing up, musical instruments, snacks available for purchase, tickets, home made microphones, audience seating and even a designated toilet area. We cannot wait to find out 'what's on' next week!
In maths this week we've continued to work on our subitising skills and understanding of how numbers are made up. We progressed to looking carefully at numbers 8 and 9, noticing again the pattern of '5 and a bit' and recognising how these representations can help us to identify a quantity quickly.
In RE we have been thinking about weddings and how they can be celebrated differently across and within families, cultures, and communities. The children displayed a great level of understanding and we're looking forward to exploring other types of celebrations next week.