Week1

What a busy first week of term.

We started our English sessions.

We learnt to recite the poem "Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear."

We studied the book "We're Going on a Bear Hunt." We stepped the story and created story maps to help us recall the story in the correct order.

In Maths we explored comparison of quantity. We used the stem sentences "____ has more than ____" or "____ has fewer than ____" to explain our findings.

We started our Forest school sessions, delayed by a day because of storm Ciaran. We learnt the Forest School rules and had fun finding the bears hiding in the trees and bushes.

We also had our first lessons with the Gymnastic coaches.

Week 2

This week we celebrated Diwali.

We learnt the story of Rama and Sita and looked at different traditions linked with the celebrations. We made our own Diva pots, tasted different Indian foods and learnt a simple Indian style dance.

In Forest School we worked together to create a mandala made of natural objects to bring us good luck.

In Maths we looked again at the quantity of 5 and how to recognise it quickly using the Hungarian Dice Pattern. We also found out that 5 and 5 more makes 10 altogether. We also looked repeating patterns and tried to make our own 2 step or 3 step patterns.

Week 3

This week in English we studied the book "The Gruffalo" by Julia Donaldson. The children used great descriptive language to describe the Gruffalo.

We enjoyed cooking and eating our own Gruffalo Crumble. The recipe is in the Virtual Cookbook if you would like to try it at home.

We looked at the habitats that fox, owl and snake live in and understood that animals need to feel safe and warm just like us. In Forest School made the different homes for the animals of the story.

In Maths we looked at measuring vegetables using cubes to find the longest and shortest.

We also compared quantities again looking and more than, fewer than and equal to.

Week 4

This week we read The Gruffalo's Child and from this we explored shadows and trails.

In Forest School we made trails for our friends to follow.

In maths we began to explore how things are made of parts, including ourselves by using the stem sentence

"My ______ is part of me but the whole of me is _______ ."

This leads to understanding that numbers can be broken into smaller amounts.

Week 5

This week we studied the book "The Jolly Postman" by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. We followed the postman on his rounds and learnt how he uses the address on the envelop to know where to deliver each letter. We also read "The Jolly Christmas Postman" and then wrote our own letters to Santa.

To enable us to be able to post our Santa letters we used Google Maps to find our way to the closest post box. After realising we needed to cross a road we discussed road safety using the South Gloustershire Council initiative "Holding Hands".

In Maths we continued looking at how amounts can be broken into parts,

Week 6

This week we studied the book "Stick Man" by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.

We used our phonics to list some of the things Stick Man was used as, such as pen and mast, and then drew pictures to show what we would use a stick for and labelled them.

In forest School we collected sticks. We had to make sure they were within the length of a ruler Mrs Sheppard had. We then used these to make our own musical instruments, "Jingle Sticks", by threading different size bells onto pipe-cleaners and wrapping them around the stick.

In Maths we sang "10 Little Elves" and practiced our subitising using Christmas themed objects. We then had to be elves to help Santa and count out the correct amount of presents to equal a given numeral, between 1 and 10.

Week 7

This week we joined Years 1 and 2 to perform "Little Angel Gets Her Wings". We did three performances and each one was better than the previous. 

In English we studied the traditional tale "The Gingerbread Man" and even made our own gingerbread biscuits.

In Maths we used the sticks we collected the previous week to compare and order objects by length, using the phrases:

"This one is longer than that one."

"This one is shorter than that one."

"This one is the longest."

"This one is the shortest."

We finished the week with a party. We played sleeping lions, pass the parcel and musical spots.

Now to rest and look forward to Term 3.