2022/23

Term 6

Welcome back Apples, hopefully you all had a lovely half term week in the sunshine! One last term together before you all move on to Year 1!

Elmer

We are starting the term with Elmer by David McKee. We began by reading the story of Elmer and then drew our own. The chidlren were very resilient during this activity as drawing elephants is not easy! The final products were lovely and colourful 

Fish

For the last two weeks of Term 5 we are reading Fish by Brendan Kierney. The story is about Finn the fisherman and his dog Skip who are unable to catch any fish due to the amount of litter in the sea. Our first activity was to write about why we thought the seals might be sad in the story. 

We then wrote lists of all the rubbish we could see in the story and also what we might find at the beach.

To show the children the impact that litter has on the animals we watched some videos on YouTube showing seals caught in fishing wire, turtles with plastic wrapped around, birds with their tummies full of plastic and even a turtle with a plastic fork stuck up its nose! The chidlren we so engaged with the videos and were horrified at what damage litter can cause. It had such an impact that in Child initiated time Jamie drew a sea scene picture including the rubbish from the clips and Evie wrote a letter asking people not to drop their litter as it will harm the creatures 

We created posters asking people to take their litter home with them or to put it in the bin!

PE has been fun! We have been using the balance bikes. Week 1 was just about getting used to the bikes and how they move and travelling from one side of the MUGAs to the other, trying to keep the bikes in a straight line. Week 2 we learned how to move the bikes around and were able to travel around the edge of the MUGAs and even slalom in and out of our friends!!

We have spent time on the field learning how to use all of the new resources in readiness for Term 6 when we get to play with them all the time! We had a lovely afternoon, Mrs Jessop was at the pond and Piper and Nancy managed to find a massive tadpole and a frog!!

Whatever Next

For the last few days of term we have been reading Whatever Next by Jill Murphy. The children have really enjoyed this book. We began by writing about what we thought the moon might be like.

To finish the term the children wrote about what happened in the story. They worked really well independently, using their phonics skills to help the, sound out the words they wanted to write.

During PE we have been negotiating space, changing direction to the beat of the tambourine, practicing our ball skills, our balance skills and we have also been learning Mrs Jessop’s favourite the Cha Cha Slide! 😂

For the next two weeks we are reading the story On Sudden Hill by Linda Sarah and Benji Davies.

We labelled pictures of 'Mr Climbfierce' from the story.

We designed our own 'Mr Climbfierce' in preparation to make them next week.

We made the most of the nice weather during our child initiated learning! We even spent the afternoon in the woodland area of the school.

Although the weather meant that our trip to Mote Park could not go ahead, the children had lots of fun role playing with boxes and getting muddy on the school field. It was wonderful to watch the children just having fun and rolling around in the mud!

This week we are reading Good Little Wolf by Nadia Shireen. The chidlren are really enjoying the story and are having fun roleplaying with the puppets from our new reading area.

Look at our writing about what makes a good wolf and what makes a bad one!

We had great fun with Mrs Savage in PE this week!

Measuring ourselves, sculpting the sand, making cakes, roleplaying receptionists in our child initiated learning this week.

Reading Challenges

Have you completed your reading challenges yet? We have a new display in the classroom where the children can mark off when they have completed each challenge. We have made a steady start with 5 children completing their challenges and choosing a book to keep from the vending machine. I wonder how many more children can complete them before the end of term?

Term 4

We are focusing on a new book over the first two weeks of term. We are reading The Jolly Postman by Janet and Allen Ahlberg. We began by looking at the front cover of the book and thinking about what the story may be about. We also looked at photos of the authors and had a class discussion about how long ago we think the book was written.

We have had lots of writing opportunities linked to the book and had some fun creating witches potions!

We have be learning how to make patterns!

We created witches potions! We had to write out our list of ingredients before making our potions. Apples classroom was very smelly by the end of the session 

Child initiated learning has been busy this week 

We are continuing to read The Jolly Postman this week. We made postcards, the children are unaware but we will be posting them to you so keep an eye out for the 'jolly postman' 

After the Jolly Postman visited Cinderella and delivered her a book we had a go at creating our own books! We had a variety of topics from zombies, Spiderman and football parties! The children worked really hard on their writing using their phonics knowledge to help them, they then illustrated their work!

Finally, we made birthday cards for Goldilocks!

We have been very creative during our child initiated learning. We have been drawing superheroes, working on our addition skills, making people and pets feel better in the roleplay and building!

Week 4 - The desert

This week we have been learning all about the desert. We have learnt that it is incredibly hot, there is LOTS of sand and it does not rain very often. The children were already very knowledgeable about the subject, naming camels, spiders, lizards, snakes amongst some of the animals living there and that cactus' are the main plant.

Our first activity was to sort pictures into what we would find in the desert and what we wouldn't. We have not practiced our cutting for a while and it was lovely to see so much progress with this skill from the children.

We created a desert picture using sandpaper! This was an interesting activity as the children were amazed by the resistance of the pencil on the sand. Funnily enough, although the paper was completely sand, lots of children chose to draw sand onto their pictures! We also had a couple of cactus' in pots 

We also practiced our writing! We had to label the camel picture, label the desert pictures on the large paper and then write any words or captions we wanted to about pour topic so far this term. The children were brilliant and are starting to show some really great phonics knowledge!

Week 3 - Under the Sea

This week we have been learning all about life under the sea. We read Commotion in the Ocean and discussed all of the different animals which live under water. We shared our knowledge of all the sea creatures we already know: swordfish, shark, jellyfish, star fish, dolphin, fish, crabs, turtles, whales, puffer fish. We create our very own unique jellyfish using different resources to create the tentacles.

We had a great large art Adult Directed session where we were able to paint on a large scale! We had strips of wallpaper on the floor and had to create sea scenes, we created corals using brushes and sponges and we recreated an under water scene copying the small world set up. This was a very fun activity and the children really enjoyed it 

PE

During PE this term we are practicing our ball skills. We have been practicing rolling, catching and throwing. The children have really embraced the new activities and their ball skills are improving week by week.

We have had a brilliant week of child initiated learning. We have investigated ice, made cakes, painted, explored on our boat, visited Costa Coffee in the roleplay area and much much more.

Term 3 - The world around us

This term we will be learning all about the world. We will be virtually looking at other countries and comparing them with where we live. We will be looking at different houses, clothing, animals, schools and food. We will be learning about life under the sea, the desert, the arctic and the jungle.

Weeks 1 & 2

The first two weeks of term we thought about where we live. We looked at the surrounding area and went on a Google walk around Maidstone. We read What the Ladybird Heard by Julia Donaldson and then created out own maps. 

We went on a virtual Open Top bus tour around London. The children amazed us with their knowledge, telling us the Prime Minister lives at 10 Downing Street, the Queen used to live at Buckingham Palace but now it is King Charles, we knew that really tall buildings are called skyscrapers, we could name the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, and the London Eye. Once we had finished our tour, we used different construction items to recreate some of the more famous landmarks.

The Jurassic World Experience!

We finally got to go on our school trip to see the dinosaurs. The children were so well behaved and really enjoyed the minibus experience. Once in London, they listened really carefully to the adults and rangers. Some parts of the experience we a little scary but the children coped brilliantly and were incredibly sensible. It was an absolute joy to be able to offer the children this experience 🦖🦖🦖

Snow Day! 
We had a brilliant day in the snow! Although we were disappointed to have to cancel our school trip to see the dinosaurs, we had great fun having snow ball fights and making snow angels. We limited the amount of time the children were outside so they didn’t get too cold 🥶

Christmas Activities

We have been busy creating some goodies to bring home at the end of term! These need to be kept a secret 😁

The children had lots of fun looking for clues on the santra trail. Some were very tricky to find! 

We all had a brilliant time at the Christmas Fair! The children really enjoyed the teddy tombola and came away with some amazing prizes! We really enjoyed seeing Father Christmas and discovered that all of the Apple Tree children are on the good list, however, Mrs Jessop is on the naughty list so has a bit of work to do before Christmas Eve! 😂

Week 5 - The Christmas Story

We have been learning about why we celebrate Christmas. We learnt all about the birth of Jesus in a stable in Bethlehem. We remembered lots of characters from the story, Mary, Joseph, the inn keeper, the three wise men, the shepherds and the angel. The children then used lolly sticks to create a stable outline and then drew some of the characters from the story.

We made puppets of the characters from the story and then in groups role played the story to see how much we could remember. The children enjoyed making the puppets but struggled a little with the retelling of the story as this is not something we have done before using props! With support each group could recall the main points of the story. 

Week 4

This week during PE we were again practising our climbing skills. Some of us got try out the big apparatus! We did a brilliant job and were incredibly sensible while we were on the equipment.

As part of our dinosaur topic we learnt about fossils and how they are formed. We made our own fossils by manipulating some clay to make it nice and soft and imprinted dinosaur skeletons into the clay. A couple of days later once the clay had dried we carefully painted the insides of our fossils using cotton buds as paint brushes. The children really enjoyed this activity and were very excited to take them home 🙂

We read the story of Dinosaurs love underpants. We then had to colour in a dinosaur and make it a pair of pants using a choice of fabric or paper. This was a really fun activity to finish off our dinosaur topic. The children have amazed us with their knowledge and we are really looking forward to taking them to The Excel in London to learn so more 🦖🦖

During our child initiated learning we have been painting, creating obstacle courses, making pictures using small parts, scavenger hunting and much much more!

Week 3

This week we are continuing the story of The Girl and the Dinosaur. We created our own crazy dinosaurs using body parts from lots of different dinosaurs. The children loved this activity and it was nice to see a wide variety of different creatures.

We read more of the story, the dinosaur came to life and went to Marianne’s house and they went on an amazing adventure together finishing up in a party place in the sky. The children were asked to create their own party places using pictures to cut out and their own drawings. As usual they didn’t disappoint! Their imaginations are brilliant 🌟

Week 2.

For PE this week we were using the apparatus in the hall to practice climbing and moving along the various equipment. We are getting more and more confident doing this!