Great Fairies of the World
This week, we read Great Fairies of the World by Stephanie Moss. This rhyming story introduces fairy characters with jobs that help others, including an architect fairy, a doctor fairy and an engineer fairy, to name just a few!
We really enjoyed retelling the using the story map to our grown ups when they came our Stay and Learn session.
Help at home- Use the story map to tell the story to your grown ups. Don’t forget to do the actions and encourage everyone to join in.
Phonics
Spring 1 week 5 focused on reading longer words, using the ‘chunking method’. When we ‘chunk it up’, we blend longer words one syllable at a time. For example: sunset (s-u-n, sun. Then, read s-e-t, set. Finally, join them together. Sun-set. Sunset.)
Help at home- Ask your child to show you how they ‘chunk-it-up’!
A Visit from the Doctor
Over the past two weeks we have been using the story Great Fairies of the World as our focus book. We have learned to retell the story using a story map and a simplified version of the story.
We have also talked about the different People Who Help Us in the story and on today we welcomed a special visitor to our classroom Doctor Katie (Mrs Kendrew’s sister). She is a Paediatric Doctor and she told us she works with children and babies in a hospital.
She brought in a stethoscope and let us all listen to our own or each others hearts beating and she answered lots of our questions.
“Do you make people better?”
“Do you give injections?”
“Do you work at night time?”
We really enjoyed her visit and continued playing hospitals after she had left. Thank You for visiting us Doctor Katie.
A Visit From Reverend Peat
This half term, we have been doing some RE (Religious Education) learning on Monday afternoons.
Our topic is all about special places. We have been thinking about why a church might be special and who it might be special for.
To help us, Reverend Peat came in to speak to us about what happens inside a church. He started by helping us think about how a church might be different from our homes. We then looked at different features of a church and really enjoyed the photos of the stained glass windows. 
We really enjoyed Reverend Peat’s visit. We asked some questions and told him things we knew about church.
I know that Jesus died on a cross and there are crosses in churches. Layla
Why do you ring the bell? J
I can hear the bell ring from my house. Blossom
Is it nice inside the church? Oria
Help at home: Can your child talk about their special place? They might like to draw or make their special place as we would love to see this!
Packed Lunches
Does your child have a packed lunch at school? If so, please download our Guide to Healthy Packed Lunches.
Did you know that popcorn and whole grapes are a choking hazard for children under 5? Lot’s of people don’t! The Food Standards Agency. has published the following advice on how to prepare food safely for your young child.
Penguin Huddle
In our literacy lessons this week, we enjoyed reading Penguin Huddle by Ross Montgomery. In the story, the penguins huddled together during an icy storm but it was so cold that they got stuck together and couldn’t break free!
Our word of the week has been: huddle.
We located the UK and the Antarctic on a map and found their locations on a globe. We then talked about how they compared to find similarities and differences.
Maths -composition
This week, children consolidated their understanding of the composition of 5 using the familiar rhyme ‘5 Little Speckled Frogs.’ By singing the rhyme and moving the frogs during each verse, children investigated part–part–whole relations, e.g. seeing that 5 can be made of 3 and 2.
Phonics
Spring 1 week 3 has focused on the digraphs ur, ow, oi and the trigraph ear.
We’ve learnt the tricky words; my, by, all. Tricky words are words that should be read by sight. We have also played Tricky Word Bingo this week, which was great fun.
Lost and Found
This week, we’ve continued to enjoy the story Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers.
We explored a world map and located England and Antarctica, before tracing the journey the boy and the penguin would take from where we live in the UK all the way to the South Pole. We revisited what we already know about maps, with some children remembering that blue shows oceans and green shows land. We also talked about the hot line called the Equator and how the countries on or near this line where deserts and orange on the map.
We also compared our weather with the weather in Antarctica and talked about how different it is. Our word of the week is climate and we’ve been using it to describe what the weather is usually like in different places.
Maths; the staircase pattern
In Maths, we’ve been looking at counting and ordinality- specifically, the ‘one more’ relationship that creates ‘the staircase pattern’.
Phonics
This week, our phonics learning focused on the digraphs oo, ar and or.
We also learned the tricky words was, you and they. Tricky words are read by sight, as they cannot be sounded out easily.
Lost and Found
Happy New Year everyone! This half term our theme is Fire and Ice.
Our story this week has been Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers and the weather has certainly helped us learn about cold climates.
In the story, a boy finds a penguin at his door and goes on an adventure to try to find his home, as he thought he was lost. Just like the boy, we explored and learnt about where penguins live and extended our vocabulary by learning a new word: iceberg. We used the globe to find the land and sea and Antarctica and enjoyed finding other interesting places.
“The white bit means it’s very cold, because its covered in ice!”
“Antarctica is right at the bottom of the world, nobody lives there its too cold!”
Phonics
We have begun learning our Phase 3 sounds. This week, we have learnt four new digraphs/trigraphs ai,ee,igh,oa.
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 Let’s Put on Our Mittens.
Let’s put on our mittens,
and button up our coats.
Wrap our scarves snuggly around our throats.
Pull on our shoes and fasten the straps.
And tie on tightly our warm woollen hats.
Open the door, and out we go.
Out, into the soft and feathery snow.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
Maths – super subitising!
This week we have been practising our subitising skills. This means, we have been looking and saying how many objects we can see – without counting one by one.
Fire and ice
A Cosy Afternoon
We have had a lovely Christmassy afternoon watching a virtual pantomime in our pajamas!
The children gave a big “Merry Christmas” as I took their photo! 
Amazing Gymnastics
Throughout this half term, the children have been developing their gymnastic skills. The class have learnt about the importance of spacial awareness. This has helped with balance, coordination, and safety.
Over the last few weeks, the children have been given the opportunity to put their gymnastic skills into practice by using the big apparatus.
It was lovely to see them, taking safe risks, being resilient and thoroughly enjoying themselves.
