Week 2

This week, we have been learning lots of different things. In phonics we have learnt s, a, t and p and in maths we have been looking at how to arrange and sort different objects.  With Miss Tsang, we have been thinking about the world around us and have been on a nature hunt.  We have also spent time with our Year 6 Buddies - we have been very, very busy!

Week 3

We have had another very busy week in Foundation Class this week!  The children are settling into school life brilliantly and are particularly enjoying their phonics lessons. We have learnt 4 new sounds in phonics this week ‘i, n, m, d’. Children have been practising matching the new phonemes to objects, forming the graphemes in the sand and play dough and they have been practising writing the graphemes on their boards.  In maths we have been comparing different amounts, using the vocabulary ‘more’, ‘less’ and ‘fewer’.  We have enjoyed building towers to help us with our learning.  We also loved our PE lesson in the hall, it was great fun!  We practised our jumping skills this week. 

Week 4

Word of the Week:  Phoneme

What a week!  We have been very busy and have been reading lots of stories!  
 

This week we have learned 4 new sounds in phonics - g o c k and the tricky word ‘I’. We have also been practising lots of blending using all the sounds we know.

With Miss Tsang, we have been reading ‘The Gingerbread Man’ and have been adding actions to the story to help us to recall it.  We’re looking forward to doing some more work on The Gingerbread Man next week.

in Maths, we have been comparing different measures, using the language: bigger, smaller, heavier, lighter.  We have also looked at patterns. We read the stories ‘Dear Zoo’ and ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’ to help us with our learning.

We have also been reading the book ‘You Choose’ as part of our ‘No Outsiders’ work. As a class, we discussed all the things that we like - chocolate, stormy weather and ice cream were all popular choices!

And to end the week, we not only went to our first assembly, but we performed in front of the school and our families!  Miss Tsang, Mrs Wakefield and Mrs Bland are so proud!

Week 5

Word of the Week:  Digraph

5 weeks of being in school and it’s flown by!  The children have well and truly settled into school life and are amazing us with their learning!

In phonics this week, we have learnt the phonemes ck, e, u and r. Our tricky word this week is ‘I’.  We are practising our segmenting and blending daily and applying this to our reading.  We have learnt 16 sounds already!

in maths, we have begun to subitise the number 3.  We have looked at the composition of the number 3 and used 5 frames, objects and our fingers to represent this, e.g. 2 and 1, 3 1s, 1 and 2.

In Understanding the World:  Past and Present, we have been thinking about when we were babies. We looked at baby photos and had to guess which member of staff each was - we were very good at working each out!

We have been as busy as ever and we can’t wait for next week to continue our learning!

Week 6

Word of the Week:  Subitise
 

This week we have learnt 4 new sounds in phonics - h, b, f and l and we have learnt the tricky word ‘the’.  We are really enjoying our phonics lessons. In each lesson, we learn to write the new phoneme, to segment and blend words for reading, including tricky words and we have just started to write CVC words.  
 

In maths this week, we have been subitising and representing the numbers 4 and 5 in different ways. We have even been adding 1 more to numbers!

Our Understanding the World topic this week has focused on Autumn. We have begun to learn about Autumn and why the leaves fall off some of the trees. We have learnt a song called ‘Autumn Leaves’, made leaf crowns with our Y6 Buddies.  When the weather improves next week, we will be going on an Autumn walk around school wearing our crowns!

Week 7

Word of the Week:  Hibernation

We kick started our week with an Autumn walk around school. We used our senses to explore the different signs of Autumn and wore our leaf crowns.

We have also been busy revisiting all of the phonemes learnt this half term in phonics - all 20 of them!  Mrs Wakefield, Miss Tsang and Mrs Bland were amazed with how many we remembered!

In maths we have been representing the numbers from 1 - 5 and continued to practise our subitising - we’re getting really good at it and have even learnt a song to help us with our learning!

With Mr Guildford and Miss Roberts, we did relay races which involved different obstacles and challenges. We had so much fun practising different skills.

The children have worked so hard during their first half term of school, we are so proud of them!  We hope you all have a lovely half term and we will see you on Tuesday 31st October.

The Foundation Team

Week 8

Word of the Week:  Terrifying

We have had a great first week back. We started the week by reading ‘Room on the Broom’ by Julia Donaldson.  We then wrote ingredients lists for our own potions and explored the potions tuff tray.

In phonics this week, we have learnt the sounds ‘ll, ff, ss, j’.  We are putting our phonics into practise in our reading and our writing now.  We are becoming more and more confident every day!

In maths, we are continuing to look at composing the numbers 4 and 5. This week we have been using the numicon to represent 5 in different ways.

No Outsiders

For our No Outsiders work, we discussed how we all like different things, but that is OK and we can still be friends.  To support our learning, we read the story ‘Red Rockets and Rainbow Jelly’.  We then worked with our Year 6 Buddies to find out what different things they like.

Week 9

Word of the Week:  Remembrance

This week we have enjoyed learning all about Remembrance. We watched an animation and talked about why we wear poppies.  We also went on our first local visit!  We walked with our buddies and the rest of the school to Elworth Cenotaph to pay our respects.

In phonics this week, we have learnt four new phonemes:  v, w, x and y and even more tricky words!  These are all listed on your home learning sheets.  We are getting better and better each week at recognising the different sounds and at blending them.

In maths we have been focusing on finding 1 more. We have been finding 1 more by using different objects, 5 frames and by playing ‘Kim’s Game’.

Next week, our Understanding the World focus will be Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights.

Week 10

Word of the Week:  Diwali

This week has been as busy as ever in Foundation class.  In phonics we have learnt the grapheme z and the digraphs zz, qu and ch.  We have also looked at plurals and learnt the tricky words:  go, no, to and into.

In maths we have continued to look at adding 1 more to a number. We have used 5 frames and number fans this week to support our learning.

Anti-Bullying Week

This week has been Anti-Bullying Week in school. In Foundation Class, we have read stories about kindness and created a ‘Kindness Heart’ of handprints. We discussed how we could be a good friend and what kind things we could do.

Diwali

This week, we have also been learning all about Diwali:  the Hindu festival of lights. We have listened to the story of Rama and Sita and re-enacted this using puppets. We have also learnt about how Diwali is celebrated. We have applied our learning by:  colouring in Rangoli pictures, creating our own salt dough Diyas, exploring our Diwali area, which had lights, sand and stencils to create Rangoli patterns and also colourful rice to create fireworks.  We have really enjoyed learning about this Hindu festival.

Next week, we will be moving onto our next topic ‘People Who Help Us’.

Week 11

Word of the Week:  Superhero
 

This week, we read ‘Supertato’ by Sue Hendra to start our new topic ‘People Who Help Us’.  We have been writing about Supertato, colouring in Supertato posters, working in our hospital role play and using the people who help us vehicles in the sand outside.  We are excited to carry on our learning next week.

In phonics we have been reading and writing CVC words and captions. Our new sounds this week are:  sh, th, ng and nk.  We have also learnt the tricky words:  she, push, he, of.
 

In maths we have been focusing on finding 1 less than a number.  We have done this by counting objects, playing ‘Kim’s Game’ with the ‘People Who Help Us’ vehicles and by splatting play doh balls!  It’s been lots of fun!  We will continue to find one less next week.

Nativity

Our nativity rehearsals are in full swing and all children have chosen a part to play (letters were sent home on Wednesday).  We are excited to share our performance in a couple of weeks time!

Week 12

Word of the Week:  Villain

This week we have been super busy preparing our Christmas performance ‘Wriggly Nativity’, ready to share with you all next week!  We had a dress rehearsal today and performed in front of the whole school!

In phonics, we have been revisiting all of the sounds we have covered so far and have also been looking at plurals such as: bags, cats, dogs.

In maths, we have been continuing to look at finding 1 less. We have done this through songs, the use of number lines and objects.

We reread Supertato this week - we really do enjoy it!  But instead of focusing on the hero this week, we have been focusing on the villain!  We have been writing about the Evil Pea and also trying to build a trap for him using the marble run, which we have loved doing!

Week 13

Word of the Week:  Performance

This week has been all about the Wriggly Nativity!  Foundation class have absolutely loved learning, rehearsing and performing this year's Nativity, alongside KS1.  We hope you enjoyed watching it as much as we enjoyed performing it!

In phonics this week, we have continued to practise everything that we have learnt so far.  We have also continued to apply our phonics to our topic work.  This week, we finished off our Evil Pea descriptions We thought of some great adjectives such as: evil, mean, bad and mad.  Supertato is fast becoming one of our favourite stories.  We love to join in with Supertato, especially when he says 'Not today my friend!'.

In maths, we have been practising our 'Subitising' to 5 and finding 1 more or 1 less.  A great way to practise these skills at home, would be to play board games using a spotty dice.

For our Understanding the World:  The Natural World this week, we took advantage of the beautiful frosty mornings and explored the seasonal changes outside.  We couldn't believe how 'furry' the frost had made all of our toys look!  The children made some fantastic observations!

Next week, we will be finishing off our 'People who Help us' topic.  We will be learning about the emergency services, for which our local PCSO will be coming into school to talk to us about her job.

Week 14

Words of the week:  Emergency Services

Wow, we have had the busiest week yet!  This week has been all about people who help us.  We began the week by meeting pilots and air hostesses from Easy Jet.  They collected our letters to Santa to take to Lapland and gave us a flight log and some chocolates as a gift.  We learnt all about their jobs and how they help to take people to different places.

We then moved on to learning all about the different emergency services.  We have watched videos, read books, built a police station outside, worked in our Post Office role play and played with the small world emergency vehicles.  We were even lucky enough to have a visit from our local PCSO, PCSO Kim.  She talked about how she helps lots of people for lots of different reasons.  She brought us police officer colouring sheets to do and we then got to sit in a real police car!  It was SO much fun!

In maths, we have been learning all about circles and triangles.  We have discussed their properties, compared them and been on a shape hunt outside.  Next week, we will be learning about 4 sided shapes.

In phonics, we have been continuing to recap everything that we have learnt this term.

Week 15

Word of the Week:  Festivities

What a lovely end to the term we have had!  We have continued to consolidate all of the sounds covered this term in phonics and we have completed our shape work in maths. 
 

We have also been very busy taking part in festive activities. We have been making reindeer food and Christmas cards ready to take home for the holidays.  We also enjoyed taking part in Christmas jumper day and eating our Christmas dinner in the hall - it was like being in a real restaurant!  The highlight of the week however has to be our very special visit from a very special person….Father Christmas came to visit us and read us a story. We also sang some Christmas songs to him. 
 

We hope you all have a lovely Christmas and a Happy New Year!  We will see you next year for another exciting term!

Merry Christmas from the Early Years Team 🎄