We’ve had a fantastic first week back in Clee!

On Monday we had our first PE session. The children were absolutely amazing at independently undressing and dressing themselves. They showed fantastic listening skills as there were new rules to be followed and a whistle to listen out for. We started by finding a safe space. We then did a warm up when the children walked slowly on tiptoe. When the whistle blew the children practised freezing and listening to instructions. They moved around in different ways showing happy, grumpy, sad etc. The children then each had a spot which was ‘stuck to the floor’ they had to put different parts of their body on the spot as the were instructed e.g. foot, hands, head, elbow, toes, knee, back etc…

On Wednesday we had our first Forest School session. Again, there were lots of new rules to follow. The children had a fantastic time exploring the forest area:

In Maths this week we have been recapping on doubles and learning about odds and evens.

We regularly look at our registration ten frames and what we can see. We look at how many ten frames are full and how many photos are on the remaining ten frame as an introduction to place value.

This week we counted using buttons and feathers; it was quite tricky to wait to count until they had hit the bottom of the container:

As our introduction to our Literacy focus book ‘Silly Doggy’ by Adam Stower Mrs Edwards told us about an animal which had been rummaging through the bins in school. A neighbour had some photos from their doorbell camera showing the animal. This caused great excitement and the children were very enthusiastic to make ‘WANTED’ posters, plan and make traps and draw maps to show the route the bear may have taken:

In ‘Show and Tell’ the children showed photos of their holiday, a Frozen book and two children showed a dance they had made up:

Here are some of our LEX activities, the children enjoyed using twirlers and making gliders among many other activities:

Our School Value this half term is Service. We looked at people who serve us in school, talked about who serve us at home and who would serve us in an emergency. We made hearts to say thank you to the NHS for serving us:

What an exciting, busy week!

Next week we will have our next PE and Forset School session. We will say hello in Bulgarian and in Maths we will be learning about pattern.

This week we have learned to say ‘Good Morning’ and ‘Good Afternoon’ using Makaton sign language.

In Literacy we finished reading ‘The Journey Home’ by Emma Levey. The children have really enjoyed the story, learning about journeys and memories, families and what animals hatch from eggs. This week’s challenge was to sequence and retell the story:

In Mastering Number we have been learning about doubles. The children enjoyed joining in activities which supported their understanding of doubles:

In preparation for PE, which we will be starting after the Easter holidays, the children played musical shoes and socks. They danced and when the music stopped they were given instructions to take off one shoe or sock. When they had taken both shoes and socks off we repeated the game to put them back on:

Here are some of the learning and exploring the children have been initiating:

On Thursday it was Mr Cartwright’s last day in Clee Class. He wrote a special song all about us which was absolutely lovely and made some of the children a little emotional:

The children who have brought in their home learning projects showed them to the class. Thank you for supporting the children to make these; they are really fantastic:

In Understanding the World we have learned why we celebrate Easter. The children gave their ideas about why they think we celebrate Easter. We then watched a video showing the Easter story and discussed what they had learned. We joined the rest of the school at the Easter service in church. The children were absolutley amazing in church and wowed everyone with their signing while singing ‘Celebrate’. It was great to see so many families supporting us. A big thank you to our families who helped make Easter bonnets at home. We did an Easter parade to show them off to the rest of the school.

To finish the term off, and as an Easter treat, the Easter Bunny came and hid Easter eggs in our outdoor area. He even sat and ate a carrot while we watched from the classroom. The children went on an Easter egg hunt and collected the Easter eggs and we shared them out:

Wishing you all a very Happy Easter,

Mrs Meddins and Mrs Owen.

In Clee this week our language of the week has been German. We have learned to say ‘Guten Tag’ (Good Day) in German.

In Maths we have been learning about composition of the number 7. We have used rhymes, Numberblocks and visual representations of 7.

In Literacy we have read some more of Hattie Peck The Journey Home. The children have been mark making in sugar, made lists of birthday presents for Hattie’s hatchlings and drawn and written what they would take in their suitcase if they were going on an adventure with Hattie:

On Monday we had a visit from Helen. Helen works for Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust and talked to the children about the importance of looking after their teeth. This was done using some really lovely interactive activities. The children had some great questions for Helen and gave some good answers to her questions:

The children have shown an interest in shadows, to extend this learning we looked at how shadows are made, the children made shadow puppets and found shadows outside. The weather helped the children to understand that we need light to make shadows!

Wednesday marked the start of Ramadan for some families in our class. Mr Cartwrght read the story of Ramadan to the children. The children then made sun and moon suncatchers:

Here are some of the LEX time activities from the week:

Next week we will be learning to use Makaton signing to say good morning and good afternoon.

We will learn about Easter and the Easter story. We will be joining the rest of the school in church for the Easter service and on Friday afternoon we will be having an Easter Bonnet parade.

We have had another fantastic week in Clee.

Our language of the week has been Japanese. We have learned to say  こんにちは(Kon’nichiwa) which is Japanese for hello.

In Mastering Number Maths we have been learning more about comparing numbers. We have used Numberblocks for many of the activities which the children have really enjoyed:

In Literacy we have read some more of ‘The Journey Home’. The children have drawn and written about their favourite day out and enjoyed some fun Literacy activities:

In Understanding the World we have found out about animals that lay eggs and The Queen and why she was an important part of our past:

Here are some of our LEX activities:

We have also made cards for someone special in our life for Mothering Sunday:

Have a lovely weekend.

We have had another great week of learning in Clee.

Our language of the week has been Welsh. We learned to say ‘Bore Da’ and ‘Helo’ during register time.

In Mastering Number in Maths we have been learning more about ‘more than’ and ‘less than’.

We have also learned about shape and been on a shape hunt inside and outside:

On Wednesday we came back inside to find some mysterious footprints and a suitcase. The children thought the footprints were made by “chicks because they are small, a polar bear, a snake and a bear.” Inside the suitcase we found an umbrella, binoculars, bird seed, a map, suncream and a book called ‘The Journey Home’ by Emma Levey. The children then predicted what they thought might happen in the story:

In Understanding the World we learned about St David’s Day. We looked at where Wales is on the map, the Welsh flag, daffodils, a leek and we ate Welsh cakes for snack. 

We also learned about Baba Marta Day which is celebrated by our Bulgarian families. We looked at where Bulgaria is on the map, the Bulgarian flag and some of the older children came and told us the story of Baba Marta and showed us how to make martenitsas:

We also learned about some famous women in History:

On Thursday we celebrated World Book Day. The children’s costumes were fantastic. They each had a turn to describe and show their costume to their friends.

We were invited to Book Bookshop for a story session and the children had the opportunity to use their World Book vouchers to choose a book:

Here are some of our LEX activities:

Next week our language will be Italian, we will say ‘ciao’ during register time. In Literacy we will be starting our focus text ‘The Journey Home’ by Emma Levey. In Maths we are continuing our Mastering Number work on counting.

This week we have learned to say ‘hello’ in French. The children have enjoyed saying (and singing) ‘Bonjour Mrs Meddins’.

This week has been Children’s Mental Health Week. We have read the story ‘The Colour Monster’ and talked about which Colour Monster’s feelings we are and why. The children made Colour Monster stick puppets and made up their own colour monster. We also talked about the different emotions Naughty Bus had shown in our book and why he would feel like that.

On Tuesday we learned celebrated ‘Safer Internet Day’ by playing a game called ‘Can you help me please? This game allowed the children to practise asking for help. We did this by playing using a puppet to pass around the circle, when the music stops that child is asked how the scenario on a card might make them feel, and who would be the best person to talk to. 

In Mastering Number this week we have been singing the song ‘Five Little Speckled Frogs’ to learn about the composition of 5. We used our fingers and thumb to represent the frogs on the log and in the pool. We used the sentence ‘5 is made from…….3 and 2’. The children followed this by accessing activities and showing their understanding independently:

In Literacy we finished reading ‘Naughty Bus’. We spotted the tricky words in the story, looked at Naughty Bus’s emotions, bed time routines and talked and wrote about where Naughty Bus had been in the story:

We continued last week’s Storytelling Week as more adults asked to read to the children. The children also told their own stories. They told stories about a crocodile in a pond and a dragon who ate everything and everybody.

Some mornings this week it has been icy in different areas of the playground. We talked about being safe and why the children couldn’t go in those areas. The children wanted to investigate the ice; they described it as being cold, freezing and white:

LEX time: The children have shown an interest in bubbles this week; they used washing up liquid and water to make bubbles. We provided different resources for them to use to explore the bubbles:

Next week we will be celebrating Valentine’s Day and making up our own adventure for Naughty Bus. Our language of the week will be Spanish.

We have had another exciting week in Clee.

This week we have been celebrationg National Storytelling Week. Many different members of staff from the Academy have read or told stories to the children which we have really enjoyed. We will continue this into next week as there are more adults and children who would like to take a turn at reading to us.

In Literacy we have read some more of ‘Naughty Bus’. Naughty Bus had messed up our classroom and we had a visit from Jack’s mum to say how sad and cross she was because Naughty Bus had driven over her tablecloth with dirty wheels! We wrote some letters to Jack’s mum explaining how we felt about this:

In Maths we have been learning about number order, counting and how many. We spend a short time being taught this and then practise it independently with Maths activities:

We learned some more about the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch and joined in a physical activity where we hadd to listen to which bird picture we needed to fly to and if we flew quckly or slowly. We also flocked into trees but found out that one of the trees was chopped down and so the birds had nowhere to perch:

In LEX time outside the children made tents and campfires. This was enhanced by introducing pop up tents and toasting cotton wool marshmallows. Next week we will pretend to toast real marshmallows sitting around a campfire and sing some songs:

On Friday it was NSPCC Number day, the children took part in lots of number based activities and really enjoyed showing off their fantastic outfits. A big thank you to parents and carers for their support. Here are a few pictures from the day:

Next week is Children’s Mental Health week all week, and Safer Internet Day on Tuesday 7th February. 

Our language of the week has been Polish. Each day we have said ‘witam’ which means welcome.

This week as part of our Understanding the World learning we have learned about Chinese New Year. We watched a video about preparing for Chinese New Year, looked at where China is on the world map, enjoyed lots of Chinese New Year activities, performed a dragon dance and used chopsticks to taste some chinese food:

We also checked our cress seeds and were amazed at how much they have grown. The children talked about the tallest and shorter pieces of cress:

We continued our learning about the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch by looking at birds that migrate. Some of the children made paper plate birds and danced like birds:

In Mastering Maths we have been learning more about subitising. We showed our understanding by independently completing activities:

In Literacy we have continued our learning on our focus book ‘Naughty Bus’ by Jan and Jerry Oke. We read that Naughty Bus had raced passed the passengers waiting at the Bus Stop and how the passengers felt when this happened. We read captions; ‘I am mad’, ‘I am cross’, ‘I am sad’ into talking pegs, and wrote words on post-it notes to describe how the passengers felt:

Here are some of the activities we have enjoyed in LEX time:

Next week we will be joining in with National Storytelling Week and NSPCC Number Day on Friday when the children are invited to dress up as a digit. Our language of the week will be Turkish. We will say ‘Merhaba’ which means ‘hello’.

We have enjoyed another great week of learning in Clee.

In Literacy we have continued our learning based on our focus text ‘Naughty Bus’ by Jerry and Jan Oke. We read a few more pages of the book and found out that it is about a London bus. We watched a video of a London sight seeing tour. Following this we talked about some famous London landmarks and wrote labels for them on a map:

In Maths we have been representing amounts using our fingers and other items. We have also been practising the ‘stopping number’ when counting:

A number of children have spoken about planting recently, following on from this in Understanding the World we looked at seeds and bulbs and talked about how to plant them and what they need to grow:

We continued our learning about the RSPB Big School’s Birdwatch by walking around school and bird spotting. We then made bird feeders; some were pine cones with lard and seeds and some were made using cheerios threaded onto pipe cleaners. The children then chose where to hang them outside:

On Friday the Air Ambulance made an emergency landing on the school field. We were able to take a close look at the helicopter and watch it land and take off:

Here are some of photos of Show and Tell and our LEX time activities:

Next week we will be learning about Chinese New Year, continuing our Naughty Bus focus and Mastering Number Maths.