In this half of the summer term we have been very busy towards the final part of the year.  We have had Father's Day activities, sports day, a trip to Twycross zoo, school picnic, whole school art inspired by Banksy, fun times in our nursery playground and transition days to name but a few! And as always we have also bee busy...

...In Maths we have been learning all about position and direction learning our left and right and thinking about where things are positioned using vocabulary such as ‘above’, ‘below’, and ‘left’ and ‘right’.  We have been learning the 8 British coins and thinking about amounts of pence we do not have coins for.  How can we make 6p if we don’t have a 6p coin?  We also looked at the 4 different British bank notes and thought about how many £1 and £2 coins are in them.  We have been measuring time using o’clock and half-past the hour.  Why not ask me to help you to tell the o’clock and half-past hour time at home.  Get a jump on things and begin to learn quarter past/to the hour. 

In English we have been writing stories based on Little Red Riding Hood.  We set wrote our own sentences based on the traditional tale using lots of descriptive language.  We than started writing our own stories based on this but set in more modern times with a new ‘baddie’ animal.  We used lots of strategies to make our writing more interesting to read such as WOW vocabulary some suggested by Granny Fantastic and some of our own ideas.  We also used onomatopoeia to make sound effects on the walk through the woods.

In P.E we have been looking at ball skills using rackets, bats and balls as well as kicking techniques.  We have been learning all about how to control the ball using either rackets or our feet.  We have been controlling a ball to hit a target or to pass to a partner.  We have been learning how to dribble the ball and how to kick with certain parts of our feet.

In Computing we have been learning how to programme an animation using an app called Scratch Jr.  We have used the iPad to select ‘sprites’ (characters) to then make codes to animate them in certain ways.  We eventually created separate codes for each sprite and made our animations.  Why not download it at home, the children loved it.

In RE we have been learning about how Christians show that they care about others and the world and why it is important for us to care about lots of different things and in lots of different ways, in our own lives.  How can Christian values compare to our own?

In science we have been learning about how our plants have changed over the past few weeks into summer and to observe those changes asking questions and finding out answers to our questions.  We also learned about where our food comes from, reflecting on what is grown in Britain and across the world for us to eat.  We learned that food produced by farmers in vast quantities for us to eat is called ‘crops’.  We collected information about weather in summer by making a weekly weather chart to see the types of weather occurring over a 1 week period.  We recalled seasonal changes that take place in summer and reflected on seasonal changed that have taken place throughout the year as a whole.

In History we have been learning about what holidays in the 1900s were like and how holidaying in the 2020s compares.  We learned about why people began to take holidays and about transportation, destination and entertainment.  We also learned about ways in which we know about holidays in the past by identifying evidence such as photographs, videos, holiday poster and postcards.  We learned what ‘bathing machines’ were and why they were used, what influence trains had on transforming holidays and what people wore when on holiday.  We also learned about a man called ‘Thomas Cook’ and how he helped to change how we took our holidays.

In Design & Technology (D&T) we have been learning about Textiles.  We explored different ways of joining fabrics including stapling, gluing, taping and sewing.  We designed our own finger puppet and used the ‘over-stitch’.  We also decorated our puppets by sewing on a button for detail and then we evaluated them comparing our original designs from the beginning of the process to how they turned out.  We though about what stitch we had used and which were the easier and more challenging parts of the process.

In Music we have been learning about musical vocabulary.  We discussed and reflected on which musical vocabulary we had already learned such as ‘pulse’, ‘tempo’, ‘pitch’ and ‘timbre’ and then we began to learn about ‘rhythm’ (a pattern of long and short notes), ‘dynamics’ ( how loud or soft the piece of music is and how it can change throughout the piece of music) and ‘texture’ the layers of music which is usually different instruments being played at the same time).

In PSHE we have been learning about change and how we have changed in particular.  We looked at how we have physically changed since we were born through different stage of our lives.  We thought about and discussed things that we no longer need or do (have nappies, bottle feed, sleep in a cot) and about things we can now do that we couldn’t (walk, talk, ride a bike, swim etc.).  We also discussed changes that we may face in the future such as moving house, moving classes/schools, growing bigger.  We also learned about different body parts of boys and girls.

As you can see, this half term has been very busy but it has also been fantastic!  We have loved spending time in Maple class and now, as it is time to move on, I would like to say thank you for allowing me to borrow your children for a little while.  I will always treasure the memories we have made.