This Week’s Awards- Summer 1 Week 1

The children have come back to school full of life and ready to learn even more. Our writer of the week in particular has come back ready to write. We’ve not been able to stop her! She has chosen to draw pictures and write independently as well as write in her new Writing Journal (see upcoming post for more details). She is rightly very happy with herself and we’re all really happy to see the excellent effort she is putting in. 🙂

The Mathematician of the Week was spotted in the Water Tray this week. In fact, I bet if you asked him and his friends they wouldn’t have even known they were doing Maths. There was a lot of chat about how much water was in the containers and if that made it heavy or not.  Our Mathematician was using the correct vocabulary well and learning some new words with the help of his friends (half full). Great job, keep up the hard work 🙂

Super Space

We had a great time last week when we decided we wanted to learn about Space. It followed on from all our discussions and learning and night and dark the week before. There were lots of different activities in our classroom. One of our favourites was the special space writing! We had special UV pens which only lit up when you used the torch. We worked together because it could be a bit tricky to write and press the switch. Can you remember what you wrote or drew? 

When we talked about space lots of us mentioned rockets so we decided to build one! This one was so big we could fit inside it. We had to decorate it so that it looked like a rocket and then design the inside so it had buttons and other functions to make it ready to fly. We made sure it had a stop and start button and also one to go faster. There was even a music player added so we could listen on our way to space. Can you see our wonderful labels for the go and stop button and for the fast button? (This is a great way to get us writing for a purpose so we don’t even know we’re doing it!)

After we’d built a rocket for our role play area we got busy building another one in Maths. We had been talking about 3-D shapes all week so it seemed the perfect opportunity to find out what we’d learnt. There were lots of amazing ideas about what we would need for our rocket- the music player showed up again! We also talked about the shapes that we could see and practised using some of the special words that we had learnt such as face, edge and vertices. Can you remember what they mean? 

We decided if we wanted to go to Space would have to know what to pack to take with us. Miss Parker got a collection of things together and we thought about what we’d need. Some of us tried to write a list by listening to the sounds we could could hear. This is how we learn to write in Reception. We don’t need to be able to write every letter that we need to spell it perfectly yet (That will come later!) Can you try and write a list of some of the things that you might need to take a special trip? 

Finally, there were lots more space related activities in our classroom which we could explore to find out more. The small world area was very popular and we all loved using the rocket to tell stories about Space.

What have we been learning? 

• to write and mark make using our special pens. 
• to work together completing different activities. 
• to think how to build a rocket and what it needs to work. 
• to talk about 2D and 3D shapes and think which shapes are best for which purpose. 
• to write a list by sounding out and writing the sounds we hear. 

How can you continue the learning at home? 

• Try writing the shopping list by sounding out.  Can you write the initial (first) sound in each word? Can you hear and write any of the other sounds? 
• Look around your house for 3d shapes (cubes, cuboids, spheres, pyramids) How do you know which one is which? Can you describe it? 
• Find books about Space. What can you find out? 

Settling In

The Summer is over and we’ve all now started in Onyx class and have been doing a fantastic job of settling in. Miss Parker, Miss Morris and all the other teachers have been so proud of us and how grown up we’ve been. We’ve been having loads of fun exploring our new classroom and the outdoor area. For some of us there haven’t been that many differences from Nursery at Prince Edward but some of us have had to get used to everything being different.

Look at the fun we’ve been having…

 

We’ve also been learning to use the self serve snack area where we can choose between water and milk each day and have a piece of fruit. We have to remember to wash our hands and put all our rubbish in the bins ourselves.

 

We also had chance to explore the new outdoor ‘park’ on one of our first days. We’ve been talking about how to make sure we stay safe when we are playing on it and what to do when we can’t reach the next bit. There were lots of determined faces as they children really challenged themselves to be successful. We also talked about how the equipment is only for use in school time when school adults are supervising. Please remember not to allow your child to play on the equipment at the beginning and end of the school day. 

At the end of last week we went to the Dinner Hall for our dinners. It was very exciting to be like the big kids and eat our dinner in the Hall. Jayden even said, “School dinners are the best” and Mateo said he was going to have a dinner at school everyday! All the teachers, including Mr Sieczkarek and Mrs Ainsley, were impressed at how well the children coped with all the new routines. We loved seeing some of our older brothers, sisters and friends in the hall and we’re all super excited to go and play outside after our dinner with them next week.

 

Well done Onyx Class on a fabulous start to the school year! You’re the best! 🙂

Keep checking back to see what we’ve been doing in school.

 

FS2 Graduation 2016

We had a wonderful time at our Graduation back in July. We showed this video to show everything we’d done during our year in Onyx Class.

Please click on this link to see the video https://youtu.be/LzQ8OvwYuYo

We hope you enjoy it and it brings back happy memories.

I’m Stick Man, I’m Stick Man…

At our Christmas party, Father Christmas brought us a copy of Stick Man as one of our presents. He must have known it was going to be on the television during our Christmas Holidays. Even Millie Ethel watched it when she went to Miss Parker’s house for Christmas.

When we got back to school everyone was talking about it……

“He went in the fire. He laying in the snow cos he wanted a rest from looking for his family tree.”  Harvey S

“I watched it.” Lacey

Yeah, but I only seen a bit of it. I seen it when these kids builded a snowman. They stuck Stick Man in the snowman” Harvey M

“I didn’t watch all of it because I didn’t like it when Stick Man went to the bottom and die” Corey

That made us wonder, would Stick Man float or sink? 

We predicted and 5 children thought Stick Man would sink and 18 children thought he would float.

“Put them in the water tray,” said Michael. So that is what we did. We tested some other objects as well. 

“I went in the water tray and the sticks were floating and the conkers were floating. But the rocks were sinking” Ruby

When we asked the children again 0 children though Stick Man would sink and 24 children thought he would float .

All the talking about the Stick Family made us think about our families. We talked about what a family was.

Lucas said, “its a home when your family is together like adults and kids, mum, dad, brothers, sisters.”  “And babies and pets”, added Pheobe.

We had a go at making a Stick Family of our own. We had to think of who was in our family and find a stick which was just perfect to be them. The children thought really carefully to find the right sticks for their family.

” Mummy, Daddy, 2 big brothers, me” Ya Qing

“Grandad and Nannan and my Auntie and my mum and my uncle” Alfie

There was all sorts of amazing conversations which were prompted by this activity but you’ll have to ask to look in our books to see them.

Stick Man became lots of different things throughout the story. We thought what we might want to turn a stick into after we’d read another book called ‘Not a Stick’ by Antoinette Portis. We turned our ideas into our own class book. Some children produced the pictures and others wrote the captions. It was a real team effort.

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Look in the book corner to see if you can see it and read it all. What would you turn a stick into if you could?

Here are some example of other activities we had out in our classroom to enhance our independent learning.

 

What have we been learning? 

• about floating and sinking in the water tray. 
• about our families and how they compare to others. 
• to be creative about what we could do with a stick. 
• to represent our ideas in pictures and writing. 
• about a story we are interested in- Stick Man by Julia Donaldson

 

How can you continue the learning at home? 

• Try out some different objects in the bath. What can you find which floats? What can you find which sinks? Can you predict what something will do before you test it in the water? 
• Talk about your family and your extended family. Does your child know who everyone is? Can they draw the people in their family? Can they write the names of some of the different people in their family? 
• Look for some more Julia Donaldson books. There are lots and lot to choose from. Which is your favourite Julia Donaldson book? What do you like about it? Julia Donaldson has a website where you can find out more information or you could look in the library for more books. Click here to go to the website. 

 

Pumpkin Pandemonium

We arrived at school to find lots of pumpkins one day! Everyone started talking about them straight away and loved picking them all up, especially the big one.

We talked about how the pumpkin was heavy but everyone was impressed when they could lift it. Some of us even lifted the pumpkins above our heads!

This started a discussion about the pumpkins and what we could learn about them. Here is the page from our Floor book to show what we talked about and some of the questions we asked. Can you see where some children made the link to Cinderella and the pumpkin in the story?

We opened some of the pumpkins up and had a feel inside. Some children were a little reluctant to feel and said it “looks dirty”. Some of us loved feeling the “slimy, gooey” middles of the pumpkin. We found lots of seeds so talked about what happens to them. We read a book all about the pumpkin life cycle to find out.

We found another book in our book corner called Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper so we read this. It inspired us to make our own pumpkin soup in the water tray. There was lots of discussion about what would need to go in the soup and who could help to make the best soup.

Lots of us had never tried real pumpkin soup so we got some to try. Look at our faces, do you think we liked it?

We also asked if the pumpkin would float or sink and had to go outside to find out. There was too much water needed to do it in the classroom.

We found out the pumpkin would float, even the really big one! That surprised lots of us.

What have we been learning?

• About heavy and light objects and which ones we can carry.
• To describe the size of the pumpkins and order them by size.
• About which foods we like the taste of and which we don’t. 
• To describe how the pumpkin feels inside and out. 
• To role play making our own soups and potions. 
• About the life cycle of the pumpkin and what happens to the pumpkin seeds. 
• About floating and sinking. 

How can you continue the learning at home? 

• Look for other objects which float and sink in your house. Try them out when you’re in the bath. 
• Try different and new foods which might be unusual to your child. They might surprise you with what they like!
• To talk about where different foods come from and look for if they have seeds in them. 
• Look for other heavy and light things around your house. Can you lift it? Which is the heaviest? Which is the lightest? 

Loving our New School!

We have loved our first couple of days in our new classroom and school. It has been lots of fun exploring all the areas in our classroom and also going around the whole school building. All the children have been superstars and have settled in really well.

Look at some of the fun things we’ve been doing….

The children have been talking lots about our new school and saying what they think of it. Everyone agrees its great.

 

Thanks to all parents and carers too for all your help and support in our first couple of days making sure drop off and pick up went smoothly. 

Celebrating Chinese New Year

We had a fantastic time celebrating the Chinese New Year the other week. The actual celebration was in our half term holiday so we celebrated first week back at school.  Look at all the fun things we did…..

We learnt the story of the Chinese New Year when all the animals had a race.

 

We had some races of our own to see who the winners were. We talked lots about who came first, second and third to practise these words.

 

We also had races with the animals in the water tray. We used the iPads and computer to find out more about the celebrations.

 

When we watched the video we saw a special dragon dance. We made our own life size dragon so we could have a turn. You might see it lurking in our classroom still.

We made some much smaller dragons using beads and pipe cleaners to help strengthen our fingers.

 

Once we’d strengthened our fingers we were ready to do some mark making. It was hard to try and copy the Chinese numbers. They’re very different to our English ones.

 

Finally we also had a Chinese sensory rice tray in the classroom for us to explore. The children used this in lots of different ways from filling the red envelopes to using it as a Chinese takeaway!

We had a very busy week and learnt lots about Chinese New Year.

 

Valentine’s Day

We spent the last week of half term celebrating Valentine’s Day. It’s a chance to read a couple of Miss Parker’s favourite books. If you’ve not read them before see if you can find them in the Library.

After we all had such a good time making potions earlier in the year the children asked if we could do it again but this time we chose to make Love Potions.

Everyone made a Valentine’s Day card for the person or people of their choice. After completing the art it was a great chance to do some writing for a purpose.

There was lots of Valentine’s Day Maths opportunities around the classroom. The children used the hearts cards from a pack of cards, small hearts for counting and the Numicon to count and make their own calculations.

They were also able to explore other Maths opportunities around the classroom in the Sensory Tray, at the Light Table and at the Finger Gym.

We did lots of great learning linked to Valentine’s  Day. There was also a hunt outside for hearts which we had to order by size.

Snowy Days

We love snowy days at school! It’s great to be able to get all wrapped up and head outside to play in the snow 🙂 We’ve been really lucky this year and its snowed a few times.

Look at all the fun we’ve had over the last couple of weeks.

 

We even brought the snow and ice inside!

As well as having lots of fun we also learnt lots.