Spring term 4

WB: 11.03.24

This week our focus has been centred on the season of spring, from observing seasonal changes to learning about our word of the week- metamorphosis.
We explored changes that animals go through, particularly in relation to caterpillars and butterflies and also frogspawn to frogs, learning that all of these changes are part of the animal’s life cycle.

We also looked at the lifecycle of a seed, using the wonderful text- The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle.

We were also very lucky to have a visit from the author Ruth Quayle.

WB: 04.03.24

What an incredibly busy week!

The children have all been so busy preparing and organising our special Mother's Day assembly and afternoon tea. Thank you to everyone who came to our special afternoon and for all of the amazing comments that were recorded in our special memory book.

This has all been followed by a marvellous World Book Day on Thursday 07.03.24.

WB: 26.02.24

What a busy week again in Robin Class.

Our topic of 'here and now' has moved onto exploring where we live. The children have been learning about their village, country and planet that we live on. We have looked at how land and the oceans & seas are represented on maps and identifying the 4 nations that make up the United Kingdom.

We have used our handprints to create artwork to match the flowers of the 4 nations- England, Wales Scotland and Northern Ireland. 

WB: 19.02.24
This week saw the start of our next theme- ‘here & now.’

We started this by sharing the story- Mr. wolf’s Pancakes, looking at how to write a list for him, why Christians have the tradition of Pancake Day (Shrove Tuesday) and we also made our own pancakes, using Maths skills to help us with measuring our the ingredients.

Other tasks included- sequencing the story of Mr. Wolf’s Pancakes, practising our name writing, singing pancake songs and writing our own pancake themed stories.

We also shared the texts- The Runaway Pancake and Pancakes, Pancakes to support the work we did this week. We had some runaway pancakes hidden in our classroom, which we had to find.

We held our own pancake races and even the Robin Class team had a turn!

Spring 3

WB: 04.02.24

Wow! What another busy week in Robin Class.

We have focused our learning again on the city of London, looking at the Prime Minister and King Charles III.

We learnt about what our Prime Minister does and where he works and how King Charles III is a part of parliament.

We loved reading the book- The King’s Pants and we designed our own pants for the King. We jumped aboard our red London bus, made crowns, explored how we could make numbers in different ways and played the game queen, queen, king.

We look forward to sharing our learning again, when we return after the half term break.

WB: 29.01.24

Our topic of where are they? has moved onto exploring the wider country that we live in, with our learning being centred on the capital city of London.

We began our week by sharing the story- Miles in London, learning about key landmarks and features of the city. We talked about the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, the London Underground, Tower Bridge and Big Ben.

The children have created their own representations of Big Ben using a range of construction materials and their own mini London books.

Our big red London bus in the classroom has been a big hit, inspired by the story 'The Naughty Bus.'

WB: 22.01.24

Another fabulously busy week in Robin class, learning about animals which are native to us in England and exploring animals who hibernate, migrate and adapt during the winter months.

We took part in the Big Schools’ Birdwatch on Thursday as part of our Forest School session. We took the binoculars and bird identification cards to help us to identify our feathered visitors. Feral pigeons, crows, wrens and our resident Robin all came to see us. We submitted our results to the RSPB.

WB: 15.01.24

Well Jack Frost has not disappointed us this week! We have had so much fabulous talking this week about the seasonal changes that we have observed outdoors, from the crunchy, slippery grass to the pretty ice patterns on the leaves, trees and branches.

We have learnt about how animals need habitats to be able to survive and have identified some names of different habitats where animals can be found. These include- nest, den, burrow, drey, warren, sett and cave.

The children have learnt about the keywords- nocturnal and diurnal, meaning animals who are awake during the night and those that are awake during the daytime.

We have explored habitat building, making bird feeders for our feathered visitors and creating a fabulous display in our classroom showing our understanding of nocturnal and diurnal animals.
Let’s hope Jack Frost is with us a bit more for our learning next week!

WB: 08.01.24
Welcome back after the festive break. We all hope that you had a wonderful time making memories with your families.

This term our topic is entitled ‘where are they?”

we have begun learning about the seasons and have identified that we are now in the season of winter.

We have looked at what happens with the weather in winter, what we would need to wear and what might happen to water once winter is here.

We have read the story Snowflake Bentley, learning about the shapes of snowflakes and how every one in different. We created snowflake art using glue, salt and watercolours. We also designed snowflakes on the iPads, revealed snowy words and Have drawn evergreen and deciduous trees around us during our Forest School session.

Autumn 2

WB: 18.12.23

What a busy last week of 2023!

We have performed our Christmas play- A little bird told me in front of all of our parents and carers. Reception Robins went to the theatre to see the Gruffalo.

On Wednesday, we had our school Christmas Day, where we had our Christmas lunch, shared Christmas stories, had a visit from Father Christmas and also played some fun party games.

We all looked amazing in our Christmas jumpers.

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas!

WB: 11.12.23

We have continued learning about celebrations this week, with our focus being on the Jewish festival of lights- Hanukkah.

We shared the story of Hanukkah and create some of our own Menorahs (the special Jewish candle during Hanukkah) from Duplo.

We have enjoyed learning about this special time and we are also looking forward to the Christian celebration of Christmas.

WB: 04.12.23

This week, we have moved onto exploring different celebrations, with most of our work and learning being based on birthdays. 

As part of our literacy work, we designed and made birthday cards. For understanding the world, we looked at how children around the world celebrate their birthdays and we also created a pictogram of when we have our birthdays in Robin Class.

April currently has no birthdays at all!

As part of our extended learning opportunities, we iced and decorated pretend cakes. We loved this!

At the end of the week, we each decorated a wooden decoration for the beautiful Christmas tree on the front playground. We also made our own white clay Christmas decorations which will be coming home within the next week.

WB: 27.11.23

What a busy week for us all in Robin Class. We have been looking at our word of the week- occupation with our learning focus being based on the story of the Jolly Postman. We shared the story together and decided to write a letter to Penny the Dog asking her if she could come into class and be the judge for our Priors School stamp competition.

We wrote our letter and then walked to the postbox to post it. On the way, we met Brian the postman who stopped to talk to us about his job.

We waited and waited until finally Penny came in to tell us that she had received her letter. She very kindly came in to judge our competition.

We have loved exploring our post office role play area and lots of letters have been written to the big man in the red suit and a big white beard.

I wonder who that could be?

We also thought about what occupation we would like to have when we are older. We used a green screen to help us to show our occupations. Can you tell what some of us would like to be?

WB: 20.11.23

This week, we have been leaning about jobs that people have in our community, with a particular focus on the emergency services.

We learnt about the roles police officers, firefighters, paramedics and coastguards have. Lots of role play has been observed along with exploring finger prints, our names back to front and reading them using mirrors.

We even made our own fire engine.

In Forest School, we made bird feeders now that the weather is turning much colder.

WB: 13.10.23

This week we have started our new topic entitled 'who are you?'

This week is an important week for Hindu people who celebrate the festival of Diwali, meaning row of lights. Together, we shared the story of Rama and Sita and we then explored learning opportunities around the theme of Diwali.

We each made a diva lamp, we made Diwali toast for our snack on Wednesday and we also learnt a special Diwali song, which we sang when Mrs. Causebrook lit real candles to welcome Diwali into our classroom.

We also had our first Forest School session.

A fabulous week Robins!

Autumn 1

WB: 23.10.23

This week, we have been exploring our word of the week- hibernation.

We made our own hibernation station, which we have loved exploring.

We learnt about animals that hibernate during the winter months and animals who migrate to warmer places during the winter.

We learnt lots of songs about hibernation and what we can do during the winter months to care for animals who need help with finding food.

All of the Robin Class Team have been so impressed with how the children have settled in and how much progress they have made during this first term.

WB: 16.10.23

This week, we have been learning more about the season of autumn but with a particular focus on evergreen and deciduous trees. 

We went on a leaf hunt around the village, collecting lots of beautifully coloured leaves for us to investigate. Preschool created a beautiful rainbow of colours using the things that we found on our walk.

We also created autumnal themed stained glass windows which look stunning in our classroom.

Together, we came up with our own poem to reflect what we have learnt about the season of autumn. We created a text map to show our poem which we called- autumn is...

We did some conker rolling to decorate leaves which we will be using as part of our work next week.

A fabulous week Robins!

WB: 09.10.23

This week, we continued exploring harvest but with a specific focus on scarecrows and their role in helping to protect crops growing in the fields. We shared many scarecrow texts including- The Scarecrow's Hat, The Scarecrow & the Scarecrow's Wedding.

We created scarecrow collages, paintings, puppets and even created our own class scarecrow, who we named Daisy. We sang the songs- Big Red Combine Harvester, Dingle Dangle Scarecrow and Scarecrow Scarecrow.

We completed our week by designing and making scarecrow biscuits. 

WB: 02.10.23

This week, we began to explore the season of autumn, with a particular focus on harvest.

We produced some beautiful repeated patterns, using different fruits and vegetables.

In our Literacy, we learnt about what people celebrate during harvest. Together we shared the story of 'The Little Red Hen.' We absolutely loved this story, where we learnt about how wheat and corn were grown, harvested, turned into flour and then used to make bread. We even made our own bread & we all helped the adults, unlike the animals in the story!

The bread was delicious! Many of us had a second helping!

We also explored lots of process art. The children in Preschool, created printed sweetcorn using potato mashers to create the texture of corn. We then made a harvest wreath using our compositions. The children in Reception, used observational drawing and painting to produce some lovely pumpkin and squash creations, which have been included in Reception's harvest wreath.

We made harvest crowns, using different autumnal colours and things that we had found on our harvest walk.

WB: 25.09.23

We started our week sharing the key text Home by Carson Ellis, which took us on a lovely journey about different types of homes, not just for us as humans but also animals too. This supported us with the rest of our learning this week where we have looked at photos of our homes, ordered house numbers, painted watercolours of our homes from our photographs, made houses from huge cardboard boxes, made homes for the 3 little pigs and we also went on a village walk to find out about the village of Priors Marston.

The children have been able to talk about their homes and also the homes in the village of Priors Marston. Here is some of the new vocabulary that they have learnt this week- detached, semi-detached, cottage, farmhouse, bungalow, dwelling and terraced houses.

The children in Preschool worked with Mrs. Causebrook to create a Wordle showing all of the things that they have learnt this week.

The children in Reception worked with Mrs. Causebrook to create an acrostic poem reflecting all that they had learnt about homes and about our village of Priors Marston.

WB: 18.09.23

This week, we have been finding out all about ourselves, from our ages, to our families, creating self-portraits, exploring the life stages that we go through as humans and going on listening walks using our senses.

We have shared some lovely texts to support us with our learning & our word of the week 'unique'- where we are one of a kind.

Here are some examples of our learning this week.

Here is our Wordle which shows what we have learnt about our word of the week 'unique'.

WB: 11.09.23

This week we began out topic 'All about me' by exploring our school and the school community. We went on a walk around the school to find our where everything was and who works in our school.

Then, we created representations of our school through watercolours, drawings and printing a large scale printed picture.

We moved on to drawing simple maps of our journey to school.

In Reception, we began our Monster Phonics sessions, where we have learnt the key sounds- s, a, t & p.

We are so proud to have seen some of these sounds being explored in the children's independent learning time.

WB: 04.09.23

This week, we have been settling in to Robin Class. We have shared stories to help us with starting school & learning the routines of our class. Here are some of the stories we have shared:

On Thursday, we celebrated teddy bear day. Each of us brought in our favourite cuddly friends. We shared bear songs, games and activities together and even sorted coloured gummy bears into colour groups, without eating them!

We finished off our afternoon by reading Big Smelly Bear.