Dear children and families,

Welcome to term 5, where we will be continuing with 'Down on the Farm', There will be lots of animal fun this term with surprise visitors.

Please take a look at the letter and topic web below for more information.

Miss Horton and the EYFS Team 

Spring Lamb

Mrs Marsh is currently looking after a lamb and she has been kind enough to bring it into school. We are learning how to be kind and caring towards the lamb. She has been named Nancy after Mrs Marsh's grandma.

Parent Support

Every week we will update the website with activities you can do at home with your child, which will support the learning they have been doing at school.

Please send in photos of the children enjoying these activities to Emeraldclass@cherhill.wilts.sch.uk

WB 22nd April 2024

What an exciting time we are having with Nancy the lamb visiting us regularly. Please talk to your children about what Nancy has been doing and how much she has changed.

The children have started planting sunflowers for our Emerald garden. Talk to them about what they have learned.

In Phonics this week are using their phonic knowledge to write CVC words. Please use the children's phonics books to support them with their learning at home.

Reading is essential and the children need to be reading at home at least 4 times a week with an adult.

The children are really enjoying our farm topic and have started to bring things in from home to share.

Day eight

The chicks are growing fast and we can see huge changes in them. Their wings are growing and they love running and jumping about in their brooder box.

Day five

Today was the day that the children got to hold a chick! We were super impressed with how gentle they were with them.

Day Three

Overnight we have had 5 chicks hatch! The children were super excited to come in and see them this morning. We are also closely watching one more egg that has a big hole and a little beak poking through.

Day Two

The children have been watching the eggs very carefully and they have seen a few of the eggs wobbling. They have also seen some cracks appear where the chicks have been using their egg tooth to break through the shell. This is called pipping.

If the children listened very very carefully they could also hear some cheeping!

Breaking News!

Today we have had 10 chick eggs delivered in an incubator. One of our lovely Cherhill families has kindly donated the eggs so that we can hatch them.

As of 4pm we have 3 of the 10 eggs wobbling and we can hear some cheeping! 

Keep a watch on this page for more updates.

Our Music Tree

Mrs Marsh kindly made us a new Music Tree in the holiday and we have been exploring the sounds we can make by using different beaters. It is so much fun!

Links to videos to help learning at home.

Below are links to some of the videos we use to help us with our Phonics and Maths.  Ask your child to show you what we do in school. These are really helpful to use at home.

Chinese New Year

The children enjoyed learning how people celebrate Chinese New Year. They loved the yummy noodles and rice that we had for snack and each of the children received a red envelope with coins for luck.

Mr Men & Little Miss

In gymnastics the children have been learning lots of different moves and have used them to tell animal stories. Ask the children if they can show you what they have been doing. They have been learning to do a straight, a straddle, a star, a pike and a tuck.

They have then used these moods to create the story. Ask the children to show you a tree, a rock, a river, a caterpillar, a snake, a bear, a scorpion and a crab.

The children have been partitioning numbers up to 8 and have been exploring how many different ways they can make that number. Ask your child to show you at home.

The children went on a Welly Walk around the school to look at the changes in the environment. Talk to your child about what they saw, using the photos below.

Mathematics in play!

In Maths we have been learning to subitise. The children loved the activity so much that they set it out for themselves so that they could build on their learning.

Egg Watch

Last week we found two eggs in a nest. We were thinking and talking about who the eggs could belong to. We thought about birds, spiders and crocodiles.

On Tuesday we received a letter from mummy dinosaur asking us to look after her eggs.

We have been busy looking at the changes and recording them on our Egg Watch.

Remembrance 

We have been learning about why people wear poppies at this time of year. Miss Horton was very impressed with us as we were able to do our 2 minutes silence. We all made a poppy which we then used to create a wreath for our classroom door.

Fireworks!

The children have created some amazing artwork using cotton buds and paint. They also enjoyed using the 'grown-up' sparkly pens to write words to describe their fireworks.

Firework Experiment!

The children enjoyed watching the episode about Bonfire Night on CBeebies My First Festivals. The were very excited about an experiment using mints and a bottle of Cola so we thought that we would try it out. Before the experiment we made our predictions about how many mints it would take to make the pop explode. We also used some of the things we have been learning in Maths to help.

It was such good fun! The grown ups loved it too!

Take a look at the photos and videos below. Talk to your children about what happened.

The Importance of Play

‘Play underpins the EYFS. It also underpins learning and all aspects of children's development. Through play, children develop language skills, their emotions and creativity, social and intellectual skills. For most children their play is natural and spontaneous although some children may need extra help from adults.’

Early Years Matters

Play is a crucial part of children’s development. They can learn so much through quality play. It may seem like they are ‘only playing’ but to them they are making sense of the world around them and learning and developing new skills. Therefore, it is important that they have a number of opportunities throughout their day to engage in play.

Term One

If you go down to the woods today . . . 

The children really enjoyed our teddy bear's picnic in the Sensory Garden. They enjoyed sharing a snack and a drink with their teddy and exploring the Sensory Garden.

Maths and PE

During a game in PE the children were counting the beanbags they collected for their teams. They were also comparing the numbers to find out which team won!

The children are really loving running as fast as they can around the running track. They love cheering each other on!

After our run today we found a butterfly sunbathing on the field.

Previous Year

Thank you so much to the children and families for our wonderful gift of afternoon tea at Bowood. We had a fantastic time and were thoroughly spoilt.

We have had the most fantastic visit from bee keepers Elaine, Robert and Amanda! They kindly brought along a hive with lots and lots of bees in for us to look at.

We also had an opportunity to learn lots about bees and dress up in bee keeping clothes.

Please ask the children about the names of the bees, how they make the honey and why the queen bee has a red spot!

One of the children declared 'The bees are super cool and precious!' Which is how we all felt.

The Coronation of King Charles III

The children have really enjoyed learning about and celebrating the Coronation of King Charles III.

Please take a look at what we have been doing in our class for the Coronation.

We all wrote a message to King Charles and asked him a question. Here are some of the messages that the children wrote all by themselves.

'What's it like being king? Are you excited to have your crown?' Aria

'You are tall.' Sonny

'I love your crown. Is your crown heavy?' George D

'I love you.' Leo

'I love you so much. What do you do as king?' Amelia

Titch has been enjoying learning new things at school!