Art Week in Squirrels class

The children have thoroughly enjoyed themselves this week and have created some imaginative and colourful works of art. Alongside the art, we have been listening to poetry from an anthology, illustrated by our chosen artist Eric Carle

We used wax crayons and a bronze paint wash to create our golden eagles. We explored how the wax is resistant to the paint and how much water we needed to add to the paint to create the effect.

Next, we used pastels, real feathers and pipe cleaners to create our hens. In English, we have been studying the story of the Little Red Hen, which has included some drama too!

Our final art project is a collaborative peacock. The class have been fascinated by video clips of real peacocks, both coloured and white. Indeed, the images of the white peacock were so beautiful that it brought tears to one child’s eyes. We haven’t quite assembled the final piece yet. But it will be on display for our art exhibition on Wednesday afternoon, next week.

What a busy week!

This week we have been extremely busy with our COP26 day where we learned just how important it is to look after our planet and pledged promises to make a change. We created a class promise and wrote it on a placard which will go on display out at the front of the school in the next week or so.

Also, we spent most of Thursday learning about Remembrance Day and why it is important to remember those who died defending our country or were hurt in the wars. The children used different art techniques to create representations of poppies.

Owl Babies

The children have been listening to and learning the story of Owl Babies by Martin Waddell this week. It is part of our new topic called ‘Enchanted Woods’. We are learning to empathise with the characters, to identify their emotions and use that language to explore the story further. After that we will be using the story as a model for writing our own version. The childen are really enjoying joining in with telling the story, using their story maps to help them.

We have also been discussing the four seasons and finding out whether they are Autumn, Winter, Spring or Summer babies!

Autumn time!

I brought in some pumpkins, leaves and seeds for the children to investigate this week as part of our study on Autumn. They had a lot of fun examining the inside of the pumpkin and exploring the different textures and sensations, as well as finding out if pumpkin seeds float and asking why? Plus they tasted some edible pumpkin seeds, which seemed to be a hit with most of the class.

We listened to the story of Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper and the children were given some props to retell the story in our increasingly popular theatre. They were very industrious in putting out the seating and several children chose to be security guards, making sure that everyone behaved well in the audience.

We've been feeling creative this week

The children have been making the most of their ‘Busy Bees’ time to experiment with different materials and create models, both in our Architects Area and at the art table. From photo frames to birthday cakes and vehicles with turning wheels, they have been very busy! The new handwriting resources have proved very popular also.

Supertato and the Evil Pea!

We have had a very interesting week as we have been studying the book Supertato by Sue Hendra and Paul Linnet. The children are learning to put actions to the story, to help them to retell the story in the correct sequence as well as remember key words which link the story together. They were interested in the villain of the story, the Evil Pea, and found his antics to be very amusing!

Evil Pea gave them a challenge to help his friends by counting them and picking them up using tweezers. This gave the children the opportunity to rehearse counting objects accurately and practice their fine motor skills at the same time. We ended up with chickpeas everywhere and a science investigation into what might happen if we added water to the test tube and left the chickpeas overnight? (All this because of a very rainy morning on Tuesday). The result was that the chickpeas soaked up all of the water and became bigger and more mushy.

Please take a look at some photographs of our learning time.

Celebrating families and understanding that we are all unique

This week we have started our RHSE lessons and the focus has been on what family means and understanding that other people’s families may look different from our own. The children have explored the word family in class discussion and shared what it means to them. They have also drawn pictures of their own families to create a class book. In addition we have been talking about where in the word family members come from. We are going to find these places on the world map.

Settling in and becoming focused learners

This week the children have been developing their imaginative play alongside adult led activities.

We have had fun in the water tray with pouring and measuring water beads, finding treasure in the sand tray and spending lots of time in the Architects Area.

I have seen a real change in how they are engaging with the learning environment and am delighted to witness some really deep engagement in their choice of activities. We have had magical mathematicians, creative builders, budding artists and lots of drawing and writing taking place.

The adults are gaining a clearer picture of what the children are both capable of and interested in. We are having lots of fun in the process!

Our first week in Squirrels Class and Year 1!

What a thoroughly enjoyable and fun week we have had, with lots of exploring, investigating and playing taking place. The children are beginning to understand the routines and are becoming increasingly eager to share all of their achievements in their play and learning. Their work goes up on the ‘Be Proud’ wall and I am becoming very used to hearing “Can you take a picture please Miss Gordon?”

Please enjoy looking at photographs of some of our activities.

Caving!

Today we had a visit from the Cave Bus. Inside the bus there were lots of tunnels which we had to crawl through. Sometimes we could see where we were going and in some tunnels we had to use our torches to see. We were all very brave and had great fun!

Street Dance

We had a fantastic time today street dancing. We learnt lots of moves and positions and even put them into a routine to music!

A Flying Start to Sports Week!

Today, as our first sports week activity, we had a go at frisbee. Mr Butler taught us how to hold, stand and throw a frisbee properly. We had great fun catching the frisbees with our crocodile arms.

The Great Fire of Plaistow!

As part of our London topic we have been looking at the Great Fire of London. To understand how and why the fire spread so quickly we built houses and then took them down to the environmental area and set fire to them. We learnt that the houses were made of wood which burns easily. They were also very close together so the fire spread from one to another easily. The wind also played a part in spreading the fire.

Nativity

Over the last couple of weeks we have been working super hard on our nativity. This week we all came in our costumes to perform it to the camera. We looked fabulous. The nativity will be ready to be viewed soon.

Little Red Riding Hood

In English this week we have written our own versions of the story Little Red Riding Hood. Miss Dore was really impressed with all the Squirrels. They all worked really hard to get their stories down on paper.

Well Being Week

This week we have been focusing on our well being. We have been looking at things that make us happy, what we are grateful for, what we are good at, how we can deal with worries and who we can go to when we are worried.

Gardening

Today we had a lovely afternoon in our outside area. As part of our science we planted lots of new bulbs ready for the spring. We talked about how the bulbs grow and looked at the roots.

Super Foods

Today we used our senses to explore super foods. We tried blueberries, cranberries, sweet potato, avocado, seaweed and green tea. We liked some of them but others we thought were disgusting!

My Hero

This afternoon we have been thinking about who our heroes are. Our heroes are our sisters and our brother, our Mums and Dads, our Grandparents and other people who help us like doctors.

Friday 22nd May

Hello Squirrels.

It’s Friday!

Next week is half term so I will not be posting any work. Well done for all you hard work over this half term. Make you sure have a good rest over half term and enjoy the sunshine.

After half term I will not be posting work on the blog. I will only be posting work on to google classrooms.

English

Today I would like you to hold a tea party. You are going to be the King/Queen. Your guests will need to follow the rules for meeting royalty. What do you think the King/Queen would chat about during a tea party?

Maths

When you go out shopping it is important to know how much money you have so that you don’t over spend.

Have a look at these shopping list.

Can you choose 2 items from a shopping list and add them together to find out how much money you would need?

For those of you who like a challenge - How much money would I need if I bought everything on one of the shopping lists?

Art

Quite often when we go somewhere new and exciting we buy a souvenir - something that is a reminder of the place.

In London there are lots of souvenir shops.

Here are some examples of things you may find in a souvenir shop in London.

Can you identify any famous landmarks on these souvenirs?

Can you design a souvenir? It could be a key ring, a fridge magnet, a snow globe etc. featuring somewhere in London or something from London.

Joke of the day

Why is Cinderella bad at football?

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Because she’s always running away from the ball!