Home Page

2021/22

Term 6

Julia Donaldson

This term we are focusing on Julia Donaldson. We will be focusing on 3 main stories, ‘The scarecrows wedding’, ‘The singing mermaid’ and ‘Cave baby’. All of our learning will be based around Julia Donaldson stories.

Growing

This term we are learning all about growing.

We will be finding out about what grows, what plants need to grow, what we need to grow, life cycles and baby animals. We will be doing lots of planting including beans, cress and sunflowers.

Our learning

Look at the learning we chose to do.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Our farm visit

Learning about life cycles and measuring

Look what we like to do in our learning time

Learning about capacity

SPACE

We are learning all about Space this term. We will be thinking about where space is, what is in space and about all of the planets. We will be using stories to help extend our learning. In Maths we are focussing on Shape and patterns, as well as applying our number skills. We look forward to showing you all of our learning.

We started with lots of shape learning.

We focussed on the story 'Whatever Next'. We read the story together and then sequenced the pictures to retell the story.

Mitchell had a great time roleplaying the story of 'Whatever Next'

We have been doing some fantastic Space themed child initiated learning.

Reading for pleasure fun.

Ordering numbered pants!

We have been working on patterns, using shapes and colours. Look how well we did.

We used different media in child initiated learning. The plates were great fun.

Apple Tree pants party photo

Making our own solar systetm

More space activities

making our own patterns

making shapes and balancing

On the large equipment

All around the world

Term Three

Welcome back for a new term. We are looking forward to our new topic 'All around the world'. We will be exploring this topic in many different ways, such as looking at different homes, weather, animals and food around the world.

This week we have been exploring maps and Google Earth in our learning. We have been linking lots of our topic learning into our child initiated learning too. The children have told us they are digging through the sand to reach the south pole, we have been saving sea animals from the frozen lakes, building bridges in London, England and thinking about how people might dress in other countries.

Look at our amazing block play

We have been exploring adding and subtraction

Celebrations

Term Two

This term, our topic is Celebrations! We will be looking at different celebrations around the world and exploring them with writing, drawing, stories, singing, dancing and baking.

We have been learning to climb, balance and jump safely on the large equipment

this week in PE.

This week we have been learning about fireworks and 'The Gunpowder Plot' story.

Today we created our own firework display using music and movement.

Look at the bonfire we have made with twigs. The children thought of ways we would light a bonfire and spoke about the reasons we celebrate firework night.

We have a lot of fun while we learn in Apples.

We have been on a number hunt. We found all the numbers 1 to 10.

Apple Tree Class have worked so hard on their understanding of Remembrance day.

We have been matching quantities with their numbers to 5 and beyond. We used items from the classroom and matching cards.

Diwali - The festival of light.

We have looked at the ways that Diwali is celebrated and our focus for reading has been

The Story of Rama and Sita.

The children have done so well with the story and show great understanding, here are their favourite parts of the story.

Look at our Diwali celebration dancing and sarees.

To finish our week celebrating Diwali, we decorated our hands with Henna.

This week, we have focused on the celebration 'Hanukkah'. We have prepared, cooked and tasted potato latkee and also looked at artifacts such as the Menorah candle and created our own. The children were tasked with finding items from around them that they could manipulate, snip, tear or balance to create their own artistic Menorah candle. This was a team task and we had some amazing team work and creativity.

During our chosen learning time, we have explored a lot of physical activities, such as building our own obstacle course and perfecting those hula skills.

We have also enjoyed lots of maths, art, puzzles, also snakes & ladders .

Today we enjoyed a bagel and a book morning - Yummy!

We have been looking at different Christmas in the past and thinking about how our parent's Christmas may have looked different to our own. This has lead us to writing a list of

what we might like to have ourselves or for someone else.

We all used different ways to display our lists.

We have been doing lots of writing and maths in our chosen learning time, we even took photos of the work ourselves.

Look at all of our Christmas learning we have been choosing to do.

We have been celebrating all our hard work this term with Christmas activities, party games, dancing and snacks.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of our Apple Tree families.

All about me!

Term One

As this is our first term in school, we are going to be learning all about ourselves and our new friends. We will talk about our families, friends and pets by looking at photos, summer books, drawing portraits and learning about each other.

We have been exploring our new classroom and trying out new activities in Apple Tree class and the outside area.

We introduced ourselves to the rest of the class and spoke about what we like doing. We also spoke about what we did in the holidays, taking turns while holding the bear.

Next week we will be starting PE, so today we met Mr Borg and showed off our super fast running during our daily mile.

In reading this week, we have been doing activities based around our story 'What makes me a me', by Ben Faulks. The children then drew a picture of their favourite part of the story. I think the volcano part was a hit with Apple Tree Class.

Look at our beautiful number writing.

Our first PE lesson today and everyone did very well. We played the traffic light game and when we stopped, we had to pull a funny face and freeze. Look at those faces!!

We ended the lesson with a calming game of sleeping lions.

During our adult directed learning time, we designed our own superhero costume using a range of tools, resources and materials. We then went on to paint a self portrait.

Don't the Apple Tree Superheros look amazing?

As part of our learning about families, we have been doing activities relating to the book 'Monkey Puzzle', by Julia Donaldson. The children all acted out the story, using their understanding of the what happened, the order of the book and took on an animal to be.

For maths this week, we have been counting out a given number of compare bears from a larger group, then checking our counting to see if we have the right amount.

This week we have focused on 'friendships'. We have spoken about all the qualities that make a good friend, who our friends are and how we can be a good friend to others.

During reading, we have read and taken part in activities based on the story 'Room on the broom', by Julia Donaldson. The witch was kind to the animals and in return they saved her from the dragon.

We have been able to sequence the story to show how well we have understood and remembered the story.

We have a lot of fun with our phonics.

This week we have been focusing on 'We are all different'. We have thought about differences in looks, abilities, what we enjoy doing and also what we like eating.

As part of this, we have listened the story of 'Elmer' by David McKee. Apples have really enjoyed this story and all of the activities linked with it. We even acted out the story using props, the children did a fantastic job!

We have been exploring different equipment in child initiated learning this week in the construction area, in our leaf salon for some number work and practicing our phonics with paint.

We were all very excited to see the top of a crane through our top classroom window this week. When we went to investigate, we managed to see part of the new nursery building being lifted and put in place. There were lots of excited questions for Mrs Tritton!

This week, we have been focusing on pets. We have looked at what different types of pet need and shared photos of pets we have at home. Everyone has enjoyed finding out about each others pets and asking questions.