Teacher Mrs Turner and Teaching Assistant Miss Perry.

Big, Bigger, Biggest!

Term 5 - Our topic for this term is "Big, Bigger, Biggest!" We will be learning about growth and life cycles as well as looking at families and how we have changed since we were born. In maths we will be continuing to secure our number knowledge around numbers to 10, especially working out different ways to make a number by adding groups together, and even taking away from a larger group. We will explore measure of length, weight and capacity. Our Drawing Club lessons have finished however we are progressing on to Story Club, which involves a deeper focus on sentence composition. Each week the children will take part in the highly interactive Squiggle Me Into A Writer dancing and writing lessons which focus on letter formation. It promises to be another wonderful term full of discovery, exploration and learning. We are really looking forward to it!

Term 5 - Week 6 Godly Play

This week Reception took part in their very first Godly Play all about the Bible story 'Noah's Ark'. The children listened very carefully to the story before taking part in lots of different Noah's Ark activities. The children had a brilliant time, using their fine motor skills, to complete scenes from the story using play-doh and creating arks of their own by cutting and sticking. Some fantastic arks were built from the construction blocks to house Noah and the animals and keep them safe from the flood and the children thoroughly enjoyed acting out the story through role play too. We also explored different versions of the story before ending our Godly Play with some reflection on why it was important for Noah to listen to God and why it is also important for us to do some great listening too.

Term 5 Week 5 - Sacrewell Farm Visit

This week we have been finding out about different types of farming, including animals and crops. We have learned about various farm animals and the correct name for a range of baby animals, how to care for farm animals and some of the things they like to eat.

All of our learning was consolidated in a wonderful trip to Sacrewell Farm near Peterborough. It was a fantastic day out involving field walking to meet the different animals that live on the farm, a tractor ride out into the fields to find out what grows at Sacrewell Farm and even a trip up to see the reservoir that is used to water all the crop fields! Great fun was had by everyone in the park where the children demonstrated excellent climbing and balancing skills, super teamwork and a lot of determination! It was a superb day out!

Term 5 Week 4

This week Ducklings class have been 'buzzing' with excitement as we have been busy learning all about bees. We have learnt many fascinating facts about bees and how they actually make honey. Did you know that bees have 5 eyes and 2 stomachs? It was amazing to learn that one of their stomachs if for collecting nectar which is then turned into honey. We had a go at pretending to be bees and visiting lots of flowers (bags of Wotsits) to collect nectar. We saw first hand how pollen can be transferred from one plant to another and this helped us to understand just how amazing and important bees are. After learning all about bees, we then had a chance to try honey on toast - delicious!

Term 5 Week 3

This week we had a lovely time during our forest adventures session, letting our imaginations run wild! We had great fun building dens, making 'pink soup', travelling to Poland on an aeroplane, sailing across the seven seas and digging up an enormous turnip! We also created our very own nature portraits of King Charles and Queen Camila. A fantastic afternoon was had by all.

Term 5 Week 2

What a busy week we have had in Ducklings class. Alongside our usual learning we have really enjoyed taking part in lots of activities linked to our school Wellbeing Week. These activities have included a 'Glow Dance' in the hall complete with glow sticks, some mindfulness activities and Friendly Friday. During Friendly Friday we enjoyed spending time with some of the Year 6 pupils in Mr Myland's class and completing some activities together.

Term 5 Week 1

What a busy first week we had back after the Easter holidays! We have really enjoyed looking at pictures of ourselves as babies and we have completed some great writing all about shoots popping through the soil and chicks hatching from eggs. We have been busy learning all about the life cycle of a human and the different parts of a plant too. On Friday we also enjoyed planting cress! Watch this space to see how we get on growing our cress at home.

Out of this World

Term 4 –  Space, aliens, knights and princesses, dinosaurs... things are rather odd in the Reception classes this term, completely out of this world! From Aliens who love underpants, to Smeds and Smoos, to gigantic dinosaurs and witches on brooms. This term our topic is fantasy based and our imaginations will be running wild!

Literacy – This term the children will be writing a description about their chosen alien and making nonsense words that the aliens might say. The children will be thinking about what they would take in their rocket if they were flying into space. A dinosaur will also be on the loose and the children will be writing Lost and Wanted Posters

Maths – This term in our maths lessons children will be introduced to pairs will begin to look at number sequences such as counting and grouping objects into twos and recognising equal amounts and double numbers. The children will be practising their addition to 10; two parts to make a whole, also known as number bonds. They will also be learning about length and height.

Ducklings class have enjoyed a wonderful World Book Day. We all dressed up with whacky hair or as a favourite book character and it was fantastic to see so many parents join our class to read with their children.

The children also enjoyed listening to the story 'Oh, The Places You'll Go' by Dr Seuss read by Miss Andrews from Year 3.

The competition entries, based on a favourite book, were truly amazing. A fun day was had by all. 

The children are enjoying our topic this term 'Out Of This World'. We have been learning about the astronauts Tim Peake, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin and their adventures into space and on the moon. The children have been very busy creating some super rockets and spaceships out of recycling materials. Super work Ducklings. 

Help! Help!

Term 3 - KERPOW! It’s time to rescue the planet! Who is your favourite superhero? Spiderman? Wonder woman? Maybe your heroes are ordinary people who’ve achieved great things. Or is it those people who save lives in our emergency services that you admire the most?

This exciting topic investigates a wide range of people who help us and allows the children to take on the role of their favourite hero. Through this term’s topic the children will be learning about the role of Police Officers, Fire Fighters, Doctors and Nurses. We will be inviting our local PSCO and Dentist into school to find out about their roles and how they help us. This term we will be learning about how the Chinese celebrate the Chinese New Year as part of ‘Understanding The World’.

Literacy – In our guided writing the children will begin to look at how to structure a simple sentence. We will be writing ‘wanted posters’ as well as labelling our illustrations and looking at fiction and non-fiction texts.

Maths – Children will now begin to use their number understanding to make compositions and comparisons. Capacity will be introduced through lots of practical maths lessons.

The Reception Classes have been extremely luckily to receive another visit from a Nurse who works at a local Doctors surgery. The Nurse explained the variety of places a Nurse can work and how they help everyone in our community: babies, children, adults and older people. They were thrilled to be able to try out some of the equipment that our visiting Nurse very kindly brought in. The children had a superb time measuring heads and limbs and listening to each hearts and lungs with a stethoscope.

They were all fascinated with the two versions of blood pressure machines the Nurse brought in to show them. It was very kind of the Nurse to allow the children to try out the equipment and fabulous to see them so interested and eager to participate with this valuable experience. 

Ducklings have been learning all about The Chinese New Year and the various ways it can be celebrated.

Inspired by watching a traditional Dragon Dance they made their own colourful dragons, masks and even recreated their own Dragon Dance outside. A few of the children have also made some awesome dragons out of cubes.

Some of the children have enjoyed looking closely at the way Chinese numbers are formed and have made a brilliant job of painting the numbers in Chinese from 1-10. 

Many of the children have been very busy buying food from the Chinese shop to make some special Chinese food and visiting the Chinese restaurant in our kitchen role play area. 

We have had a very interesting visit from a nurse this week. The children learnt all about the role of a nurse and how they help people in our community. The nurse very kindly brought along some of her equipment for the children to try out - they found it a lot of fun and very intriguing! 

As part of our topic this term ‘Help! Help!’ we are learning all about ‘people who help us’ within our local community. We were all so excited to see the Fire Crew today who visited us to tell us all about the fire engine, the equipment they use and the different ways they help people and animals. They also showed us their protective uniform they need to wear to keep them safe.

As part of our topic about people who help us, Ducklings class have been learning about the role of a Police Officer. The children have been very busy this week as Police Officers looking for Sid, Goldilocks’ naughty brother, who went into the 3 little pigs’ house. They found some clues that Sid had been in the forest, so they placed their wanted posters they created around the forest to help to find him.

Some of the Police Officers drew maps and some had a Police dog to help them to recover some money from the coffee shop and some gold in a treasure chest! Some also made a Police car using crates and parked in front of the Police station while others were busy making a jail.

Great Police work Ducklings - Well done. 

Marvellous Me!

Term 2 - Marvellous Me (including celebrations, family).

We will be starting this term with a bang! The children will be finding out about why we celebrate Guy Fawkes on the 5th November and why Hindu’s celebrate Diwali. We will be making fire work pictures and designing sweets.

The children will be talking about themselves and what it is like to be them! We will be talking about families and what things we celebrated and why.

Father Christmas will be a big focus this term where will be writing our Christmas lists and Christmas cards.

Literacy - In our phonics lessons they children are working through phase 2. In literacy lessons, the children will be listening to sounds in words to enable them to write the initial sounds and even some simple 3 sound words. The children will start to look at different forms of writing including writing an invitation to a birthday party and writing cards ready for Christmas.

Maths – In maths this term, the children will be looking at composition of numbers, counting, ordering and cardinality and comparing amounts.

Both Reception classes have enjoyed a wonderful ‘Indian Experience’ this week with our visitor Sunita, as part of our R.E. this term. The children had a lot of fun as they dressed up in traditional Indian clothes and learnt some Indian dancing.  Sunita retold the story of ‘Rama and Sita’, a traditional Indian story, often retold during the Festival of Diwali.

The children have really enjoyed learning a variety of ways that Diwali can be celebrated and made some fabulously decorated cakes. Well done Ducklings. 

As part of Science week, Ducklings have class enjoyed spotting and discussing the signs of autumn as well as going on a minibeast hunt. The children were fascinated to find worms, centipedes, spiders and slugs as well two ladybirds. We were even lucky enough to watch a very busy squirrel busy running up and down the tree trunk for a few minutes. Great work Ducklings. 

The weather was so kind for our first 'Forest Adventures' session where we all enjoyed the beautiful autumn sunshine out in the woodland area. The children were very creative and found many materials to choose from to make their autumn collage faces - they all looked brilliant.

We finished the session with a fairy tale that is set in the woods: Hansel and Gretel.

We are all looking forward to next week where we will be completing our Science Day out in the woodland. Great work Ducklings. 

Once Upon a Time...

Term 1

At the table in the kitchen, there were three bowls of porridge. Goldilocks was hungry. She tasted the porridge from the first bowl. "This porridge is too hot!"! In our topic this term, ‘Once Upon a Time’, the children will be listening and responding to familiar traditional tales in order to recognise the characters and role-play the stories. As the children will be settling into school they will be getting to know the school routines, making new friends and exploring their new classrooms. The free choice activities inside and out will reflect the chosen traditional tale of the week and will develop all areas of the Early Years’ curriculum.

Literacy - Throughout literacy we will be working on our pencil control to write our names, sequence and role play our favourite traditional tales, designing houses, writing plant labels and listening to and matching words that rhyme.

Maths - During our maths sessions the children will be focussing on their counting and ordering skills. They will be sorting a variety of resources into colours and categories as well as exploring patterns.

This week Ducklings class have had a lot of fun retelling one of their favourite stories ‘Little Red Riding Hood’. First, they cut out a mask and then used repeated phrases with expressive voices brilliantly, to represent the characters to retell the story.

Later in the week, Little Red Riding Hood wanted to make a sandwich for Granny, but she didn’t know how to make it so she asked Ducklings class if they could help her. The children were very keen to order the pictures correctly to make a sandwich and then gave Little Red Riding Hood verbal instructions of how she could make a cheese sandwich.

To make sure we gave Red Riding Hood the correct instructions the children each made a jam or ham sandwich, this time following the instructions for themselves. They all enjoyed making, and best of all, eating their sandwiches during snack time – super following of instructions to make a sandwich.

Now that Little Red Riding Hood had made the sandwich and selected some more goodies to take to her poorly Grandma, she needed a basket to carry them in. So, Ducklings helped Little Red Riding Hood again by making a fantastic range of baskets out of junk modelling materials. They looked fantastic. Little Red Riding Hood would definitely have found your baskets very useful.

Super effort - Great work Ducklings – Well done.

Ducklings have been enjoying the story of The Three Little Pigs this week. After discussing the main features of a house, the children became architects to design their own house for The Three Little Pigs. There were some very thoughtful and creative designs. I am sure The Three Little Pigs would have been very pleased with their new homes.

Excellent effort Ducklings – what super architects you are!

Ducklings Class were very shocked after lunch to discover that Goldilocks had made a right mess in our role play area. They were startled to see that the chairs and bowls had been upturned and porridge flung all over the floor. And, if that wasn't bad enough, they discovered that Goldilocks was still fast asleep in Baby bear's bed! which really upset Baby bear.

So, after much discussion of what to do, Ducklings class very conscientiously tidied up for the 3 bears but they remained unhappy with Goldilocks. The next day Goldilocks wrote a letter to say she was very sorry and that she felt sad for making such a mess, so the children kindly sent her cards and letters as well as made delicious chocolate cakes and biscuits to cheer her up. 

Ducklings Class have had a very exciting first full week at school.  They have all been playing together brilliantly, sharing their toys and taking turns extremely well. They requested the story of Goldilocks and The Three Bears and have had fun singing number songs, using some newly learnt Makaton signs. 

Many of the children have enjoyed our outside learning area in the beautiful sunshine this afternoon as well the newly refurbished home and book area. It has been wonderful to see them settling in so well. 

They are all already budding artists and have all painted a self-portrait that we have put on display.

Well done Ducklings Class - you have all been super stars.