Our theme this half-term is ‘Winter’. We will share different winter stories as well as look at non-fiction texts.  We have been thinking about the things we might see, hear and feel whilst outside during winter. We have experienced the full range of winter weather – rain, wind and even snow! We had lots of fun outside exploring the snow. We also thought about which clothes we would wear and compared these to the clothes we would wear during the summer. 

In Phonics, we have moved onto Phase 3. We are learning new diagraphs (two letters that make one sound) and trigraphs (three letters that make one sound). The children have been reading words that have these diagraphs and trigraphs in.

In Maths, we have been looking at representing numbers 0-5, finding two cars, showing four fingers, doing three claps. We have also looked at finding one more and one less than a number.

This half-term, our PE is gymnastics. We have used our bodies to create different shapes – tuck, straight and star.

We have loved painting this half-term and have been very busy mixing cold colours to create our own winter scene. We found out that if we add white it makes the colour lighter and if we add black it makes the colour darker. We really enjoyed seeing how the colours changed. 

We enjoyed taking part in the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch. We made our own binoculars and looked out for different types of birds. We thought about how we could care for the birds in the winter time and made some bird feeders which we hung up in the big garden.

In Maths, we have been finding pairs, odd and even numbers and doubles. We read the story Simon Sock by Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet and then went on to make pairs with socks. We used butterflies to help us find doubles. If we had three pompoms on one wing, we needed the same on the other wing – double 2 is 4.

We have taken part in National Storytelling Week, and we have had a ‘Mystery Reader’ come into our classroom each day. We really enjoyed listening to stories read by different adults that we see in school. We also explored no-story telling sacks, we worked as a group to create our own stories using the objects that were in the sack.

This half-term our theme has been People Who Help Us. We have been learning about how people help us in school, in the community and at home. We have had visits from a postman, the lady who delivers our milk to school, the recycling collectors  with their truck, a nurse and Miss Boekestein who came to talk to us about the Coastguard and how they keep us safe in the water. We also had a trip to the local fire station to meet the firefighters and see all their emergency vehicles.

In Phonics, we have been using all our previously taught phonemes (letter sounds), diagraphs (2 letters that make 1 sound) and trigraphs (3 letters that make 1 sound) to support our blending skills to read words. We have been enjoying exploring different books in our reading sessions.

In Maths, we have been doing lots of practical activities linked to length, height and time and Building 9 and 10. We used paper clips to explore measuring the length of different objects, and we found different ways of making 9 and 10 using our fingers and on 10 frames. We have also been singing lots of rhymes and learning about 1 more and 1 less. We have just begun to look at 3D shapes.

In PE we have been focussing on Dance. We have been learning to develop our expressive movement through the topic ‘Everyday Life’. We have explored travelling movements, balancing and making different shapes; keeping ourselves safe within the space. We introduced counting to help the children keep in time to music. The children enjoyed practising and performing for each other in class.

We have introduced Drawing Club this half-term, where children engage with stories, tales and animation through drawing and writing their own captions, sentences and codes to make the stories come to life. The children have really enjoyed this, and it supports their story-telling and writing skills