Welcome to Summer Term 1!

 I can't quite believe we've already made it to our Summer term. This is a very exciting term as we begin our transition activities which will help us get ready for year 1. This term, we will begin weekly P.E lessons. You will receive a letter informing you all about this in our first week back to school. 

The term commences with a topic called 'I am Super'. We will be learning all about ourselves and will explore what makes us super, special and unique. We will be talking about our 'identity', eye colour, hair colour etc... and our families. To help aid our learning, we ask that children please send in a baby photo and a family photo. We would love to display these on the children's special squares and in our home corner after they have been shared.

We will then enjoy reading and retelling the story, Supertato!  We will talk about healthy eating and enjoy creating our very own Supertatos.

Our traditional tale this term is The Gingerbread Man. We will learn this story through actions, songs and will have a go at retelling it in our writing. We will use props and puppets to help us to act out the story together.

We will finish the term by being 'mad about minibeasts'. We will even enjoy some minibeast themed maths such as doubling ladybird spots to help us create number sentences and using butterflies to help us understand symmetry. 

Goodbye FS 2021 - 2022

What a fantastic year, full of special memories! We are so proud of all the children and I will miss them so much. We wish you a wonderful summer!

The FS team 

Week commencing 06.06.22
 

FS have had a wonderful time learning about the Jubilee and the Queen this week as well as talking about London and different London landmarks. They have been busy having a street party in the home corner and making flags and crowns.  We have read the book, 'The Queen's Knickers' this week which has inspired some royal knicker-making and writing descriptive captions for them.

We would like to thank everyone today who made it for the Jubilee picnic for Grandparents. It was so lovely to see lots of you and the children were so excited to see you. We hope everyone made some special memories.

Week Commencing 23.05.22

Our Farm inspired art work

Manor Farm Trip - the most fantastic time!

We had the most amazing time at Manor Farm on Wednesday. We started our day with a session in the Play Barn and put our climbing and navigating skills to the test in the maze castle that had a spooky slide! We also pretended to be Pirates in the gigantic Pirate ship. After that, we went to meet some small animals. We met a rabbit, a guinea pig, a (teenage) chick, an 80 year old tortoise and it's younger 18 year tortoise friend and an albino hedgehog called Snowdrop. The children were incredibly gentle stroking these animals and we enjoyed their different textures. We explored the small animal centre and saw different reptiles and lots of little furry friends. Next, we had lunch together: we loved our packed lunches! After lunch, we explored the Owl centre and met some birds of Prey. We were amazed to see an owl who had laid an egg: we could even read the sign, 'Sam has an egg!'. We loved see an American Eagle, who was ginormous, despite only being 3 years old and not yet fully-grown. Then, we had a walk through the Paddocks and saw a white peacock, reindeer, ponies, lots of sheep and alpacas. We met an incredibly friendly lamb who let all the children stroke them. After that, we heard a roar in the distance...what was it? Dinosaurs! We loved exploring the dinosaur trail and met many dinosaurs including a huge diplodocus. Next, we played in the adventure playground and had fun balancing and swinging. Finally, we made it back to the coach for a well-deserved sit down.

All of F2 were incredible on the trip and made Haydn very proud. FS were polite to all the staff and thanked the driver as they left the coach. Many FS children were very welcoming to a younger child playing on the Adventure playground. Well done FS!

We are looking forward to learning more about farms next week and recounting our trip. 

Week Commencing 9.5.22

You can't catch me I'm the Gingerbread Man! 

We have loved continuing with the story of the Gingerbread Man this week. The Gingerbread Man wrote to us to say someone had stolen some of the story and that he needed our help! We of course helped him and wrote the missing parts of the story because we are fantastic writers in FS! He thanked us by leaving us some Gingerbread Men that we decorated ourselves and then 'SNAP!' we gobbled them all up. We have also been practising our threading skills making Gingerbread Men garlands and necklaces. We have loved learning about teens numbers this week and have been busy making them on our tens frames. We are magical mathematicians in FS. 

Week Commencing 03.05.22

Run, Run as Fast as you can...

We loved starting our week with a clue hunt to find the Gingerbread Man. We were amazing at working out the clues to find the Gingerbread Man! We have been reading the story this week and learning it with actions. We have been creating our own super story maps. We have really concentrated making our own split pin Gingerbread Man completely independently using our fantastic fine motor skills. FS have relished making a bridge over the wide river to help the Gingerbread Man cross, using their co-operative team skills in doing so! 

We celebrated Eid together on Wednesday. We loved learning about Ramadan and the Eid celebrations from our friends Adam and Subhan, who did an amazing job explaining how they celebrated and even told us about going to the Mosque. We learnt about how Muslims prepare for Eid and why it is so important. Adam explained how adults fast during Ramadan to us and this is why there is so much delicious food during the Eid celebrations. F2 had a taste of different Eid foods including pakoras and samosas and curry!

Week commencing 25.04.22

Supertato to the Rescue!

We have had another super week in FS. We have LOVED reading Supertato and acting out the story with our very own amazing Supertatos! We have been talking about what makes us special and unique: what makes us a 'super me'! Creating out own superhero costumes and accessories has been a big hit too. We have also been busy squishing evil peas to help us subtract and practising our number bonds to 10 using numicon. We have been 'digraph detectives' and have been spotting digraphs in words to help us with our reading skills.

FS loved their first PE lesson and we are so proud of how well they all listened and followed instructions. We warmed-up our bodies and talked about how our heart beat and breath changes when we exercise. We played 'traffic lights' and 'I went to the zoo and saw...', a game in which we had to pretend to be different animals. Super job FS! 

Week commencing 21.03.22

Step into Spring!

FS enjoyed a superb Spring themed week last week. We spent a lot of time talking about the 'signs of Spring' we can see when exploring outside and even learnt a simple Spring song. I' You can find the lyrics under 'nursery rhymes of the week'. 

A highlight of the week was most certainly our trip to the school wild garden. The children transformed into photographers for the morning and used iPads to take some beautiful Spring photographs. It was lovely to see the garden through their eyes and watch them appreciate the Spring flowers and wildlife. They spotted many  different flowers and blossoms as well as many Ladybirds. They observed everything so closely and took many stunning photographs. They really enjoyed using the iPads independently and showing each other their photos. We will use these photos to make Spring collages next week. 

Whilst being in the garden, we noticed that a large number of the flowers were daffodils. This prompted us to enjoy creating observational drawings of daffodils in our busy time.

FS also enjoyed their well-deserved class treat: a rock n roll party and some party snacks in the sunshine! They certainly know how to throw some shapes and have a knees-up in FS!  

Welcome to Spring Term 2


We are so proud of how well FS have settled back into our routines and school life this week. They have loved seeing their friends again and have been so kind and thoughtful to one another. It has been lovely to hear about everything they got up to over the holidays.

This term, we are focusing on reading and writing traditional stories and thinking about how we can become amazing storytellers! We will enjoy the stories of ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ and ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and will learn new songs and rhymes to support our topic work. This is also the term where we celebrate our love for books during World Book Day! (3rd March)

Whilst reading Jack and the Beanstalk, we will conduct an experiment where we will grow beans. We will have to find out all about the important things plants need to grow and will decide where is the best place to place our beanstalks. We can't wait to measure them and watch them grow!

Later in the term, we will learn all about people who help us. We will enjoy Doctor Ranj's book, 'A superhero like you' and will share all of the real life superheros we know. We are so excited for our Teddy Bear Hospital experience, where we will have a consultation with a Teddy-Doctor about our “sick” Teddy. We will attend a variety of workshops on health related topics which provide a friendly experience, reducing any worries about visiting a doctors surgery or hospital. 

Our term will commence with lots of Easter fun! We will enjoy egg hunts, an Easter bonnet parade and lots of baking! 

We will continue to develop fine motor skills which enable us to use tools safely and efficiently.  We will continue to enjoy challenges set by our classroom characters; ‘Pop’ who brings letter sounds for us to learn and ‘Puzzle’ to help us with our numbers. We are excited to learn Phase 3 phonics sounds and spend more time applying our phonics skills to independent reading and writing tasks.

Miss Smith, Mrs Wallace and Miss Fletcher
 

Week commencing 14.03.22 

A Super Week! 
 We have loved talking and learning about real life superheroes! We learnt about people who help us and shared photos and information about the important jobs some grown-ups in our families do.

Our home corner has been transformed into a Vets and we have loved acting as vets. We learnt about lots of different equipment used by Vets and how to help animals, we were particularly interested in medicine and injections for animals.

On Wednesday, we took part in a teddy bear hospital experience. We enjoyed activities such as a teddy consultation and x-ray, looking inside a doctor's bag, an exercise station and investigating different senses. The session was led by medical students from the University of Nottingham and aimed to reduce anxieties around visiting the doctors.

We have been carefully observing the beans we planted last week and can't believe how fast they are growing!

On Friday, we enjoyed outdoor busy time in the sun! We especially loved having the water provision out again.

Week commencing 07.03.22
 

Jack and the Beanstalk
 We have continued to complete activities that link to our story of the week - Jack and the Beanstalk. We can now retell the story confidently.
We planted our very own magic beans and can't wait to observe them over time. We took it in turns to water our seeds and talked about what plants need to grow. We even sang a song about the process of a plant changing from a seed to a seedling, growing roots, shoots and then flowering.

We have also been busy designing and building giant's castles in our workshop. 

On Friday we enjoyed our first ever assembly with the year 1 and 2 children. FS sat beautifully in the hall and Mrs Mason said how proud she was of their behaviour and listening. 

We have been practising adding 2 amounts together this week and using manipulatives to help us. Lots of us have even started to write our very own addition number sentences which is an amazing achievement. Next week, our maths focus will be doubling. 

Week Commencing 28.02.22

What a busy, book-filled week!

This week we have been busy reading the story of Jack and The Beanstalk. We have been retelling this story through actions and have been making our own story maps. We have been practising our counting and sharing skills. We have been creating our own beanstalks with playdough, paint and paper! We have even been measuring them to see how tall they are.

We have had the BEST day celebrating World Book Day. Everyone looked amazing in their costumes. Thank you for putting in so much effort for such a special day. On World Book day, we enjoyed reading books together. We had a costume parade with FD. We talked about our favourite books. We were very lucky to have a university student join us for our first session of 'Storytime Spanish', in which the children are reading a story and learning some Spanish words. The children were amazing and really enjoyed the session. 

Week commencing 21.02.22
Welcome back!

Wow! What a busy first week back. We are so proud of how brilliantly FS have settled back this week, particularly as so many of the class have been poorly with chicken pox and have returned throughout the week. We are so excited so have our whole class back together soon. We can't wait for an exciting 'Traditional Tales' themed half term ahead!

This week, we have been learning the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We have retold the story confidently and have learnt a song with Makaton signs to help us remember the order of the story. We even enjoyed making porridge and choosing our toppings. We completed a breakfast survey as a class to practise our tally skills and discovered that pancakes were the most popular breakfast choice! In Puzzle time, we have been learning how to share amounts equally and have practised making pairs. Perhaps the children could practise these new skills by helping your pair shoes and socks at home, or sharing out the food at dinner time.

*CHALLENGE CARDS *
You will notice that the children have come home talking about 'Challenge cards' and 'Challenges' this week.

Challenge cards are designed to promote independence in learning and encourage the children to have a go at a variety of activities to develop a range of skills. Now that we are becoming much more confident in our reading, writing, creating and number work, we are ready to have a go at important busy jobs all by ourselves! The children have enjoyed using their challenge cards. They of course still have free choice of all other provision in our classroom and outside areas as well. We now also have a celebration assembly on a Friday where Mrs Mason comes and helps us to celebrate our learning of the week. This week, every child that completed all 5 challenges, received a golden sticker in our celebration assembly! We will continue to use challenge cards each week for the remainder of the school year. 

Happy Lunar New Year!
Gong xi fa cai!

FS had so much fun learning all about Chinese New Year. We spoke about where it is celebrated, why and how. The children loved exploring China and other countries in Asia on Google Earth and our class globes!

Some highlights of the week involve making lanterns, creating dragon puppets, trying noodles, watching and then dancing to lion dance music, painting tigers, joining in our very own Chinese New Year parade around the whole school, building a 'great wall of China', having a go at writing numbers 1 - 10 as Chinese characters and learning and retelling the Zodiac story. 

Week commencing 17.01.22

We are Super Scientists!

We have had another brilliant week this week! Our story of the week has been 'Lost and Found' by Oliver Jeffers. This has led to some wonderful learning all about the South Pole, cold climates and of course, penguins! The children have loved creating their own magical arctic lands using our small world animals and loose parts. They have drawn and painted beautiful illustrations, inspired by the images found in 'Lost and Found' and have had a go at writing and drawing what they would pack in their suitcases if they travelled to the South Pole! 

This week, we have become scientists! We have completed a number of investigations  as our Puzzle learning has been all about measurements. We used balance scales to determine whether objects were heavier or lighter and talked about what we could do to make each side of the scales equal in weight. We also measured length and capacity and enjoyed investigating which containers could hold the most amount of liquid and why. 

FS have loved investigating floating and sinking this week. They loved investigating which objects would float or sink and we were surprised by a few that floated: a banana and a carrot!

We have certainly had a week full of enquiry and investigation. It has been brilliant to take a step back and let the children take the lead in their experiments and problem solving. 

Week commencing 10.01.22

A nice and icy week!

We have continued to complete activities based around Percy the Parkkeeper as part of our Winter topic this week. We loved making bird feeders, going on a frosty winter walk around school, creating some winter artwork and completing a 'sticky ice' experiment using ice and salt. This was so popular that I'll link instructions below. The children loved predicting what might happen and sharing their explanations for why the salt helped the ice to become drier and 'sticky'. We linked this to our understanding of the world around us by talking about the salt or 'grit' we have spotted on the playground this week to help us walk safely on the icy grounds. 

We have finished our phase 2 phonics learning now and are about to kick-start phase 3 - how exciting! Please find our 3 new sounds of the week by clicking on the phonics star above.

FS have loved consolidating their learning about numbers to 10 and practising their number bonds to 10. We are really working hard to form the numbers correctly too. Well done FS!

Week commencing 04.01.22
Happy New Year!

I could not be more proud of how well FS have settled back into school routines this week! ThThe children have worked very hard to remember all of their phonics and writing learning from last term and have made Puzzle the squirrel very proud with their brilliant maths work. 

Our story of the week has been Percy the Parkkeeper, One Snowy Night. We will continue to link our learning to this story for one more week. We have also been reading The Colour Monster and have talked about different emotions and feelings. We talked about our feelings, what might make us feel that way and what to do if we feel sad, tired, scared or angry. We also talked about how you can feel more than one emotion at the same time and our emotions change all the time, and that this is normal. FS were fabulous at naming emotions and discussing them. 

We have spoken about the changes we see in Winter time and have enjoyed watching the snow and observing the frosty mornings! We went on a frosty walk last Thursday and the pictures are below. Next week, we will go on a Winter walk around our school grounds and observe the signs of winter.

Our Frosty Walk

After discussing the weather in the morning, we decided to go and look at the frost outside. We talked about where we would find the frost. We walked outside and felt that the grass and ground was hard and cold beneath our feet. We found frost on leaves and the grass. We even found solid ice! We talked about why frost and ice occurred. When we came back inside, we put on a 'fire' to warm our hands and then cosied up with blankets and books! See the photos below.

Autumn 2 fun!

Welcome to a new half term! This is a wonderful and special half term as it is packed full with so many exciting things to learn and celebrate!

This term, we will begin by finishing our Autumn learning. We will go on an exciting trip to Woodthorpe Park to enjoy an autumnal scavenger hunt, collect some autumn finds and play with our friends at the park. We will celebrate bonfire night by creating some beautiful firework themed art. We will even decorate biscuits and create our very own rocket ships. Later in the term, we will celebrate Diwali. We will be able to retell the story of Rama and Sita and will learn all about this Hindu festival of lights. As the days get colder, we will learn about changes we see in Winter Time. We will discover lots of artic animals and find out about their habitats. Our term will end with an array of exciting Christmas activities and of course, our Christmas Party Day! Wow - we will be so busy!
 

Tiny Town Visit 7th December

FS had the BEST time on their trip today. They were absolute superstars and their behaviour on the coach and at Tiny Town was a credit to Haydn. Well done FS, we are so proud of you!

We had so much fun using our imaginations! We made pizzas, ice cream and coffee. We gave the grown-ups a pamper session at the Hairdressers. We loved being Firefighters putting a fire out in Haydn's dining hall. We were police officers patrolling the traffic. The vets helped make the poorly animals better. We built houses and looked after all the babies. It was so much fun for all the children (and the grown ups too!) to play so creatively together. Enjoy the photos from our trip! 

Week Commencing 29th November

We have had snow much fun today with lots of snow-themed activities in our provision today. We were very excited it had snowed and talked about what we did in the snow. We observed snowflakes and drew them using chalk and made snowflake transient art. We explored snow and ice in our water tray and even made snow people using snow playdough! 

Week commencing 22.11.21

Sustainability Week

This week has been our sustainability week. Our focus has been learning about different ways we can keep our planet clean and happy. We talked about cleaning up and recycling litter, we re-used recycled plastic to make stain glass sun catchers, we had a go at 'clearing the forest floor' by sorting materials into the correct bins and we made our own posters to remind children around the school to put their rubbish in the bins. We showed them to Mrs Mason and she was very impressed!

We worked collaboratively to paint our very own forest scenes and then had a go at painting characters from our story of the week (Little Red Riding Hood). We had to select the correct colours to make the characters come to life and used fine paint brushes to add detail. Next week, we are going to cut out our characters and place them onto the forest scene backdrop.

Celebrating Bonfire Night and Diwali

We had a wonderful time celebrating Bonfire Night and Diwali. We talked about Bonfire night and what we would hear and see. We described the fireworks and used this as inspiration for our Fireworks Tuff Tray scene. 

We celebrated Diwali together on Thursday 4th November. Jenika told us all about how she celebrates Diwali and came to school in her special clothes for Diwali. Jenika's mummy made Jelabi for us all to try.

We sang our Diwali song and lit our lanterns.  We had a fabulous week celebrating Diwali.

Woodthorpe Park trip

We had such a wonderful trip to Woodthorpe Park. The children walked so sensibly to the park and made us so proud. It was a very long way to walk but they did a super job and we talked about how lovely it is to have a walk to the park together. We saw lots of signs of Autumn and ticked them off on our spotter sheets. We walked under the trees and the leaves fell all around us, which was so magical. 

Week beginning 20th September

Sounds of the week!

This week we have been learning the sounds:

s     a    t

These sounds are also in your shiny new Home-School Diary! 

Nursery Rhymes of the Week!

This week we have been learning these song:

1,2,3,4,5 once I caught a fish alive!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWWEUChKo6s

Three little pigs song (to the tune of Three Blind Mice)

Three little pigs

Three little pigs

See how they run

See how they run

The pigs don't have a place to stay

The sticks and straw have blown away

The big bad wolf is on his way

Poor little pigs

They need bricks!

FS 2021-2022

_{Hello FS Families!}

_{Welcome to our class page.}

This is where you will be able to find information about what we are up to each week. You will find our phonics sounds of the week, maths focus and our story of the week. Please check back regularly!

Most importantly, you will be able to find photographs of some of the exciting things we have enjoyed over the past few weeks!

FS have had a super first week. We are really proud of how well FS  have settled in and are getting to know each other. They have been kind, confident and full of excitement. It's going to be a fabulous year! Thank you for all your support over the last week and a half too. It's been lovely to meet you all. 

Miss Smith, Mrs Wallace and Miss Fletcher 

CLASS LETTERS - FS - 2021-2022