Week 6

This week, in Willow tree class, we have been looking at comparing the differences between Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes version of Little Red Riding Hood and the traditional tale. The children had a wonderful time re-enacting their favourite parts during English time and retelling the story during child-initiated time. In Maths this week, our focus has been on doubling and revisiting part-whole models. We have been very fortunate to be visited by the incredibly talented and wonderfully inspiring Illustrator Garry Parsons. We had a draw-along with Garry where we created our own monsters. He also signed our monster book which he illustrated. Our topic this week has been Judaism in RE. The children have been learning about the importance of Shabbat within a Jewish family, Jewish symbols and traditions. We will continue this topic into next week, where we will be looking at a virtual tour of a Synagogue. 

                    

                  

                 

                

                      

                                                              

 

Week 5

What a wonderful week in Willow Tree Class. In English, we have been looking at Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl. This inspired us to focus on the importance of clear speaking and delivery. We did this by performing poems to the rest of the class. In Mathematics, we have been working on numbers greater than, less than or equal to. We have also been looking at storytelling in maths to give a narrative to number sentences. Our learning experience this week has been the continuation of animals, including humans, in Science. Our focus has been keeping our body and mind healthy through healthy eating and exercise. The importance of washing your hands and brushing your teeth. It was Mr Nourish's birthday on Thursday and to celebrate we created some beautiful birthday cards. This week, we have learnt how to use palm drills safely in the workshop and will continue to develop our skill with the different tools. We finished our week with the most incredible trip to Wildwood. We used the knowledge we gained in the classroom of grouping and classifying animals and applied them to the animals that we saw in person. We came away from our trip with lots of new knowledge about food chains and about different classes of animals, including omnivores, herbivores, carnivores and rodents. 

             

        

                

                

               

                          

             

Week 3

Our week in pictures...

      

      

      

      

      

                          

Week 2

 

English this week, consisted of continuing with our picture book, 'The Whale Who Wanted More.' We used this in exploring sentence structures by learning about actions and subjects and the importance of capital letters and full stops. 

       

This week in phonics, we focussed on the first four graphemes in chapter 4a. The children then took their learning outside whilst undertaking a grapheme hunt around our new garden. Once they found the graphemes, they used their phonics knowledge to write words related to them. 

  

During Maths this week, we have been looking again at place value with the focus being tens and ones.  The children have been using their new-found knowledge and made wonderful use of the manipulatives in class to cement their understanding. 

    

Learning Experience – this week has been the final week of our geography topic, 'Where we live.' The children delighted (as did Mr Brooks!) in creating a tour bus. They made a bus stop and a timetable of places that they wanted to visit around Maidstone. We also learnt about physical and human features on maps and also the ones we could find around us on the school grounds. The children took great pleasure in building and creating towns and cities within the classroom, prompting lots of rich discussions. 

       

                      

During our PE lessons this term, we have the pleasure of Boogie Tots coming into school and teaching the children all about dance. The lesson this week was very energetic, and the children had lots of fun as they got to grips with the dances. They can't wait for the next session!

                  

Welcome and week 1

It was wonderful to welcome the children into Willow trees this week. There have been a lot of changes made over the summer holidays, the most prominent and exciting of which is our new garden.  The children have had the most incredible time getting to experience and explore all the wonderful different areas and equipment that will be inspiring and enhancing their learning. 

This term in English, our picture book is The Whale That Wanted More by Rachel Bright, our poetry book is Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl and our class sharing book is George's Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl.    

                                                

During our phonics lessons this week, we have been consolidating all of our previously learnt sounds and recapping our prior knowledge, with the help of our decodable books.

During Maths, our focus has been place value, starting with building fluency with numbers between 0 and 20.

  

Our learning experience for the first two weeks of the term will be Geography and 'Where we live.' This week our focus has been on learning about the four countries that make up the United Kingdom, their flags, their traditions, foods and their capital cities. 

Myself, Mr Brooks and the children have had a fantastic week exploring, discovering and getting to know each other. Below are images from our learning this week.