Spring 1
This term has been such an adventure. It all started with mystery parcel containing a gingerbread man cutter and a jar of ginger. The next day we were ready to bake. The children were very excited and talked about how they would make sure the Gingerbread Man wouldn’t run away! As the Gingerbread Man baked in the oven, the children went off to play. We started to notice the delicious smells filling the room and knew he must be almost ready. When we went to check to see if he was baked, we found something very alarming! The oven door was wide open and the Gingerbread Man was nowhere to be seen! The children were in utter shock and disbelief! They asked around school to see if anyone had seen him, creating wanted posters and traps to try and catch him!
After a couple of days, we received a postcard…it was from the Gingerbread Man! He was in London! We wanted to find out lots of information about this amazing city so we started to look at the different sights to see including Big Ben, Tower Bridge, The London Eye and Buckingham Palace. We also looked at the different transport in London and read the story ‘Naughty Bus’. After looking at Tower Bridge in London, the children all built a bridge for the Gingerbread Man to cross. They discussed how it had to be long enough and strong enough for the Gingerbread Man to walk across. They also received a letter from King Charles III inviting them to afternoon tea where they made crowns and talked about Buckingham Palace.
Our adventure didn’t end there…the Gingerbread Man sent us a postcard from France. He told us he was very sorry for running away but he wanted to travel the world before we ate him! As well as his postcard he sent us lots of French foods for us to try. The children loved trying the foods and showed confidence in tring something new! We looked at photographs of the different buildings in Paris and made French flags by collaging red, white and blue materials. We even tried speaking a little French… bien joué!
Another week, another postcard. The Gingerbread Man was then in China. He sent us lots of exciting Chinese resources to explore. We read the postcard which explained about the special celebration in China – Chinese New Year. We didn’t know much about this celebration so we continued to look through the different things we had been sent. We learned about dragon dances, Chinese symbols, The Lunar Race Story and even had a Chinese banquet! It was so much fun!
Last but not least, the Gingerbread Man arrived in Italy. We looked at Italy’s flag and some of delicious foods…even making our own pizzas. We also learned about two exciting landmarks in Italy; The Colosseum and The Leaning Tower of Pisa.
It has been such a busy half term but we have loved it! We have also explored adding, number bonds to 5 and part, part, whole in Maths and made wonderful progress with our Literacy skills!
Keep your eyes open for the Gingerbread Man, we still haven’t seen him…
Spring 2
Reception and nursery have been busy learning about castles.
We have learnt all about the main features of a castle, labelling and drawing castles and finding out who lived in them. During the topic, the children in reception were very happy to be joining the rest of the school on a trip to Tutbury Castle. We saw the castle ruins and had the opportunity to learn about the clothing and instruments they would have worn and used during that period. We had such a wonderful day. Class 1 have also been learning about knights and why knights were needed many years ago.
During the term, we had a very special egg appear in our classroom. It was a dragon egg! The next day, it had hatched and out popped a lovely, baby dragon. However, it didn’t stay a baby forever and we were left with a mystery video of a huge fire-breathing dragon escaping our classroom! We made booklets about caring for the baby dragon and wanted posters to catch him.
We used our wonderful skills to create amazing dragon eyes, printed castles and coats of arms during our ‘Art Week’.
We have also been very working hard in phonics. Nursery have continued to develop their listening skills, voice sounds and language through lots of games. Reception are reading books and using their fabulous phonic knowledge independently. Amazing!
In maths, the children are always practising counting, reading numbers and using maths in their everyday school life. They have been learning to subtract, use a tens frame and double, halve and share.
We cannot believe we only have 1 term left but we are excited to see what learning adventures next term brings.
