The Very Hungry Caterpillar
This week, we have been reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Using story props and sequencing cards, we have been able to retell the story.![The Very Hungry Caterpillar [Board Book]: Eric Carle : Carle, Eric, Carle, Eric: Amazon.co.uk: Books](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81seu48cujS.jpg)
In our writing, we have been composing sentences to retell main events of the story.
Maths
This week, we have continued to develop our subitising skills (see the quantity without counting) in complex arrangements.
We have explored creating arrangements of 6.
Phonics
This week, we have continued to learn phase 4 words such as frog, shift, chimp and drum.
We’ve also learnt more phase 4 tricky words; some, come, love and do
Help at home- Please continue to work through the weekly learn at home phonics sheets, throughout the Summer term. We’ll continue to send these home each Friday.
Poetry Picnic
Each week we will be learning a new poem. We will recite this poem each day. By saying the poem out loud, we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers. This week’s poem is called Under a Stone.
Other learning areas
The children have loved creating their own bug houses in the model area as well as building a bug hotel outside for real minibeasts.
The children have been amazed at the rapid growth of the caterpillars. Each day, we have observed how they have changed and recorded what we noticed.
They have got bigger!
One has a white stripe now.
They look spiky.
Reminders and Dates
Friday 5 May – Non-uniform day with everyone invited to dress in red, white and blue to mark the coronation of King Charles.
Friday 19 May – Mini Bug Ball
Please don’t go to the expense of buying anything new – creative adaptations of something you’ve already got will be fantastic. Outfits need to be suitable for school, safe and warm enough to be worn all day.
SWIMMING DATES- Summer 1
Rainbow Class- 19 Apr, 3 May, 17 May
Sunshine Class- 26 Apr, 10 May, 24 May
We know that Rainbow class missed a swimming session in Spring 2 due to the pool closure. This should be made up in Summer 2, which is a 7 week term.
Living and Learning – I know the importance of sleep
Last week in Living and Learning, Ks1 discussed how we can stay safe in the sun. 2C had a brilliant group discussion where many of the children came up with ways that they could stay safe in the sun including –
- wearing sun cream
- wearing a hat
- staying in the shade
- drinking lots of water
- wearing lose clothing
- wearing sunglasses
We then went onto the playground where we spent some time in the sun. The children identified the best shaded areas on our playground. We also acted out how we would get ready for school and what we would need to bring if it was a hot day.
Help at home by encouraging children to apply sun cream regularly, drink lots of liquids and come appropriately dressed for school.
Maths-shape
Over the last two weeks we have been looking at 2D and 3D shapes.
We have been identifying their features (including edges, faces and verticies), naming the shapes and sorting them.
The children were also able to sort the shapes in a variety of ways.
They also enjoyed creating patterns using both 2D and 3D shapes.
Help at home by looking for shapes in the local environment.
Science – planting seeds and watching them grow
We have been busy planting on our science topic. We have bulbs that we are observing in different conditions and this week, we planted some seeds. We looked carefully at the packet to interpret when to plant and when to expect flowers. We also talked about how to be safe around plants, seeds and berries. We must never eat any without checking with a grown up as some can be toxic.
Help at home by planting some seeds or bulbs and watching how they grow. Talk about how some plants are food, measure their growth or try growing in different conditions.
Living and learning
Our living and learning statement this week has been about recognising the importance of sleep. The children talked about what sleep does for our bodies and emotions and how it impacts on our lives. They were able to recognise that sleep helps our memory, helps us to concentrate, keeps our immune systems healthy, it repairs our bodies and it keeps our mental health positive. They could identify how a lack of sleep could impact them at school and how it would make them feel. They generated lots of ideas of how to get a good nights sleep: having a bath, listening to some music, reading and even a bit of drawing.
Help at home: Is your child getting enough sleep? The recommended amount of sleep for primary school children is between 9 and 12 hours. How could you improve your child’s sleep? Encourage your child to read before bed rather than depending on screen time.
Living and Learning – Health and Prevention
This fortnight across Years 3 and 4 we have been learning about ways we look after our physical health including personal hygiene and hand-washing, protecting ourselves from the sun and getting good sleep.
This week in particular, we are thinking about why good sleep is important and what healthy habits we can develop to set us up well for resting such as having a tidy space, having some calm time before bed without devices and avoiding too much sugar.
Please help at home by asking us about our learning.
Living and Learning
This week’s Living and Learning statement is ‘I recognise the importance of sleep’.
In our session, we talked about what sorts of things we can do in order to help us get to sleep on an evening. We also talked about how we might be able to get back to sleep, if we wake up in the night.
The children listened to a story of a girl who found it difficult to sleep on a night. They identified several reasons the girl was not able to sleep and linked this to their own lives. Many of the children said that they had realised some of the reasons they might wake up or have bad dreams are caused by the things they do before going to bed. We came up with a few ideas of how we could relax before bedtime and adjust our routines to get the perfect night’s sleep.
We made some posters to remind us of what to avoid before bedtime and what we can do to help us fall asleep. Here are some of the posters the children came up with.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Children returned to Nursery brilliantly this week and settled in happily. We heard all about your Easter holiday trips and visits from the Easter Bunny.
This week, we read the very popular story by Eric Carle, called ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ and started to learn about the life cycle of a butterfly. We’re hoping to have some tiny, wriggling guests in Nursery very soon. Watch this space!
In the Sunshine room, you may have noticed that we have a new cafe role play area. It was a hive of activity last week, with children busy taking orders and serving food to the hungry customers.
Children showed an interest in looking for creepy crawlies outside. We found lots of creatures hiding under logs including wood lice, slugs and some very long worms. We’ll continue this interest in worms next week and learn all about wriggly worms!
Summer 1- The fun has begun!
The sun is shining and so are we! We’re excited to be back together for a happy and healthy Summer term.
This half term is called Life on Earth. We’ll be exploring minibeasts, wild animals, farm animals and the human body.
The Bad-Tempered Ladybird
This week, we’ve been reading The Bad-Tempered Ladybird by Eric Carle.
There was lots to explore in this story; feelings and appropriate behaviours, clocks/time and the comparative sizes of animals.
Frustrated is our ‘word of the week’. In our writing, we’ve been wondering what went wrong in the ladybird’s week, to make it behave so badly!
Art; clay modelling
We’ve been using clay to make minibeasts. We looked at pictures and photos of minibeasts, before making our models. We had spiky caterpillars, wiggly worms and crawly spiders to name just a few. Clay is great for our fine motor skills. We have to work hard to mold, pull, press and shape. We’ve also been making ladybirds out of dough.
Maths
In Maths, we’ve been counting beyond ten, to twenty. We’ve been suggesting ways to make counting easier, when we are faced with a lot of objects to count.
You can put them in another pile after you’ve counted them- Grace
You can line them up so it’s easier to count- Alfie
We’ve also been counting things that cannot be moved, or things that cannot be seen (such as sounds/actions)
In provision, we re-visited the doubling ladybirds and recorded our doubles.
Help at home- Challenge your child to count more than ten objects. Can they count the pegs on the washing line? Can they count toys in their toy box? Can they count books on a book shelf? Don’t forget to send in photos of counting at home!
Phonics
Summer 1 week 1 has been an introduction to reading phase 4 words. We’ve also learnt our first phase 4 tricky words; said, so, have, like
Help at home- Please continue to work through the weekly learn at home phonics sheets, throughout the Summer term. We’ll continue to send these home each Friday.
Poetry Picnic
Each week we will be learning a new poem. We will recite this poem each day. By saying the poem out loud, we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers. This week’s poem is called Pitter Patter
We talk about how a poem sometimes has rhyming words and sometimes doesn’t. Can your child tell you the rhyming words in this week’s poem? We also talk about how a poem can have a fast rhythm or a slow rhythm.
click below to watch us recite this week’s poem!
More pictures of our learning this week…
Reminders and Dates
SWIMMING DATES- Summer 1
Rainbow Class- 19 Apr, 3 May, 17 May
Sunshine Class- 26 Apr, 10 May, 24 May
We know that Rainbow class missed a swimming session in Spring 2 due to the pool closure. This should be made up in Summer 2, which is a 7 week term.
Spring has sprung – let’s get outside!
1,2B enjoyed playtimes and PE outside yesterday on the field. It was lovely to have the sun on our faces and space to run, throw and kick the balls as far as we could!
