Literacy

In our first half term, our Gruffalos have been doing lots of learning! We have been focusing on phase 1 phonics, looking at different letters and how they sound and practicing writing our letter formations. This has helped us with practicing writing our names every day and recognising our own names, identifying our already learned graphemes. We began reading our first story ‘Owl Babies’, discussing how Mama Owl left her babies and how we feel about our own families and how they keep us safe. We practiced our cutting and sticking skills in decorating our own owl masks and role played the characters of Bill, Sarah and Percy. Our second story focus was ‘The Bog Baby’ which is all about a magical pond creature that is taken in and cared for by 2 young girls, however they learn the lesson that sometimes when you love something you have to let it go. We created our own bog babies using different materials such as playdough and practiced our writing as we created their names. We tried other methods of creating our bog babies using household items and narrated our own stories for them, taking them on tours around the school, thinking about what our babies would enjoy seeing and doing and why. We discussed how to properly care for pets and what they need to survive and be loved, practicing using our stuffed dogs and facilities in our indoor provision.

Maths

In our Maths lessons this half term, Gruffalos have been learning all about the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. We have learned lots of different number rhymes, using different props and characters to perform them in class. Our class have been learning how to count using different manipulatives such as toys, blocks and cubes, we know how to count using our fingers and can show different ways of representing these numbers. We have practiced our number recognition and how to write these numbers ourselves using different methods. We have also been learning composition and understanding what numbers we can add together to create another number. Gruffalos have made so much progress this half term in our Maths lessons!

 

Understanding The World – Geography and History

This half term, Gruffalos have been learning lots of different things about the world around us. We have learned about the 4 seasons and the different things we can see in each season, we have read books and looked at pictures all about Autumn and the environmental features around us, even going on a nature walk bingo game to identify how many conkers, leaves, and other autumnal objects we can find on the school grounds. We have created our own autumn tree paintings and collages using different materials in our creative area and learned about what things seeds need to grow into plants and how we can care for them. We have learned about how we were when we were babies, looking at actual photographs of ourselves and each other as babies and how we have changed since then, looking at our differences and similarities and what happens to us as we grow.

Expressive Arts and Design

We have had lots of opportunities this half term to express and create our artistic sides that link to our topics of learning. We have created our own magical potions, seeing how we can change the colour, viscosity, and patterns through adding different items to our buckets. We’ve loved creating autumnal objects using playdough, manipulating it into different shapes such as pumpkins, leaves, cats etc. To practice our phonics, we have been able to use different malleable items such as spaghetti to create our learned graphemes and writing them in ‘magic sand’. We have a permanent section of our classroom dedicated to junk modelling, allowing the children to use their own imaginations to think and produce their own creations using household items, scissors, Sellotape, glue, hole punches and colours. The children have made some brilliant pieces already and it is wonderful to see them using their imaginations freely and working together to bring their ideas to fruition.

Physical Development

We have been focusing a lot on our gross motor development through lots of fundamental practices; running, jumping, hopping, throwing, catching, and skipping. The class have enjoyed building their own outdoor tracks and obstacle courses using different objects that test their abilities to jump, balance, and climb. We have focused on our fine motor development in the classroom through practicing our pencil control, correctly using scissors to make small and large snips following lines, creating bird feeders by carefully threading cereals and pipe cleaners and using tweezers to move manipulatives, focusing on our grip and control. Practicing our fine motor skills will help us in our writing as we are moving forwards in our letter and number formations throughout the rest of the year.

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

It has been wonderful for all of the Gruffalos to build relationships with one another this first half term and we have spent lots of time highlighting how we can work together to overcome problems and how teamwork can help us face challenges. We have been learning how to share with one another and take turns whilst using the indoor and outdoor provision, even helping each other in the process. We have been learning about ourselves and our growing independence, how to go to the toilets ourselves, how to zip up our own coats and making our own snacks, applying our fine motor skills to spread butter, cream cheese and jam onto our crackers. We have really enjoyed building our developing sense of self and maturity.