Spring 2 -The magical kingdom

Expressive arts and design -Easter Bonnets 

We loved seeing everyone's Easter bonnets! What a colourful and creative display. We had such a wonderful time at our parade—thank you to everyone who made it so special!

Understanding the world -The Easter Story

We were delighted to hear an Easter talk from Heather, who is from St. Peter's Church. The children had a wonderful time learning about the Easter story in a hands-on, engaging way.

Understanding the world -The egg has cracked!

The egg cracked open, revealing a trail of both large and small dragon footprints leading out the door. Nearby, the remains of an apple showed bite marks. 

Mathematics -exploring length

Using straws, we explored the language of length, making comparisons to better understand size and measurement.

Understanding the world -forest learning 

We received a letter from a dragon requesting our help after losing its eggs. We embarked on a mission to track them down.

Expressive arts and design -dragon traps!

We designed and built traps to try and capture the dragon.

Look at our super writing!

Following on from the video of the dragon on our school field, we created posters to let the other teachers and children in on the magical surprise! 

Mathematics -Composition 

We explored the composition of numbers within 10, focussing on the 'special case' of when 2 equal parts combine to make a whole.

Literacy -World book day

This year for World Book Day, we had a cozy and fun-filled day to celebrate reading! We invited all the children to come into school wearing their comfiest pyjamas. They brought along a blanket, cushion, or pillow so that we could all snuggle down and read together with the year 5 children. It was the perfect way to enjoy some lovely stories and spend time with friends! In addition to our reading afternoon, we had an exciting 'Story in a Jar' competition. The children created choose their own story, carefully packed it inside a jar, and brought it in to share with the class. The jars were filled with all sorts of magical adventures.

Expressive arts and design -castles

We designed our castles. We used junk model materials and selected tools and techniques to shape, assemble and join. 

Literacy -story sequencing

Someone cut up our story map! We worked together to re-sequence the story map before using it to retell the story of 'The Rainbow Princess.'

Understanding the world -Pancake Day

For Pancake Day, we had a delicious and fun-filled day in Reception! We discussed the different ingredients we would need to make pancakes and how they all come together to create something yummy. Then, the fun really began! Miss Pemberton had so much fun making and flipping the pancakes. We all enjoyed eating the tasty treats together. It was a wonderful way to learn about cooking and enjoy some yummy pancakes! We ended the day by reading the story Mr. Wolf's Pancakes, where we followed Mr. Wolf on his adventure to make the perfect pancakes. 

Literacy -The rainbow princess sensory trail

We explored the sensory aspects of our story. We walked through the tall grass, splish splashed in the water and walked on the sharp stones. We discussed how it felt. 

Expressive arts and design -imaginative play

We've enjoyed playing with the knights, castles and dragons. We've been creating castle-themed stories and scenarios. 

R.E. What places are special and why? 

We looked back at our favourite places in school and shared some of the photographs. We explained to our teacher and our friends where our favourite place was and why it was our favourite place. Some of us said we felt calm and happy in our special place. We spoke about how we enjoyed playing in our special places.

Understanding the world -minibeast hunt

We went on a minibeast hunt in the outside area. Our teacher drew our attention to where to look to find some minibeasts. We used magnifying glasses, bug pots to look more closely at the minibeast we found. We used an iPad to take photographs of our findings.

Mathematics -counting, ordinality and cardinality 

We continued to engage with activities that drew our attention to the purpose of counting – to find out ‘how many’ objects there are. We also revisited the concept of cardinality – the idea that the last number in the count tells us how many things there are altogether. 

Spring 1 -Space

Expressive arts and design -Kandinksy 

We began by looking at Kandinksy's art work. We discussed the colours and shapes we could see. We used a variety of media to create circles in different ways.

Children's mental health week 

The theme this year was 'know yourself, grow yourself.' We were invited to a 'non-uniform' day. We wore outfits that enabled us to express ourselves. We wore our favourite outfit, a splash of colour or a traditional attire that celebrates our culture. Throughout the week we played different pieces of music and using paint we expressed ourselves using lines and marks. 

Library centre 

We created a cosy listening corner in our classroom and enjoyed listening to audio stories. 

Clay aliens

We manipulated clay to make the body and then used a range of different resources to create an alien. 

Understanding the world -Chinese New Year

We talked about how different families prepare and celebrate Chinese New Year. We had the opportunity to taste some traditional Chinese snacks. We described how the food looks, tastes and smelt. 
Our key questions:
Chinese New Year is a colourful celebration. Do you know what colour means good luck?
Family and friends give each other red envelopes for Chinese New Year, do you know what they put inside them?
People celebrate Chinese New Year with lots of decorations, do you know what this decoration is called (share photograph of a lantern)?
A Chinese New Year parade is very exciting, do you know what two animals you will see at the parade?
In the Chinese calendar, 2024 was the Year of the dragon. Do you know what animal represents this year?

Expressive arts and design -moon buggies!

We constructed with a purpose using a variety of resources. We worked together to build a moon buggy. 

Understanding the world -magnetic forces

We explored forces and used the magnets to attract an object.

Mathematics -composition 

We used the double dice frames and pictures of Numberblock aliens for the children to re-enact their own alien stories. We explored 6 and 7 as numbers that are composed of '5 and a bit.' We could see that 5 and 1 make 6 and 5 and 2 make 7.

Expressive arts and design -choosing colours for a purpose

We choose colours for a purpose and painted planets.

Expressive arts and design -marble painting 

We used marbles to create swirly paint effects and mesmerizing patterns. We used a variety of colours to experiment and mix. We had some fantastic representations of planets.

Understanding the world -What planet do we live on?

We invited the children to tear, scrunch or layer the tissue paper to create different effects to show land and sea. We also sorted the animals into land and sea. 

Literacy -Look at our wonderful writing!

In provision, we have been segmenting the sounds in simple words. We also spelt words by identifying the sound and writing the sound with a letter.

Physical development -Bike ability balance

We developed our confidence, competence and understanding during bikeability balance. We used the balance bikes to develop our co-ordination, control and movement. 

Literacy -Whatever next 

Our talk for write text is 'Whatever next.' We enjoyed acting out the story using a range of story props. 

Mathematics -counting, ordinality and cardinality 

We built towers using cubes to match the numeral cards. Our key questions: Can you put them in order? Which tower comes first? What do you notice? Where can you see the '1 more' pattern?

Expressive arts and design -imaginative play

We've enjoyed playing with the spaceships, planets, rockets and astronauts. We've been creating space-themed stories and scenarios. 

Mathematics -problem solving 

We worked together to complete the space themed jigsaw puzzle. We had to observe and match puzzle pieces and decide which fit together correctly. When we had finished building the jigsaw puzzle we enjoyed talking about the different planets we could see. 

Expressive arts and design -painting on different surfaces

We painted onto tinfoil. We used paint and cotton buds and invited the children to create a wintery scene. 

Understanding the world -melting ice

The animals are frozen in the ice! We explored and observed the ice melting. We worked together to free the frozen animals. 

Understanding the world -Winter 

We talked about the changing season and discussed what happens during Winter. We went on a winter walk and looked for things that appear in winter outside. We looked all around, up in the sky and down on the ground. We took photographs of signs of winter and collected objects. We gathered together and discussed our findings.