Dear children and families,

Welcome to our last term together which is called 'A Bucketful of Memories'. This term we will be working hard to get the children ready for their transition into Year One. 

We will be becoming independent learners and we will be making lots of memories along the way.

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

Miss Horton and the EYFS Team 

As part of our transition into Year One, we are starting to go out onto the 'big playground' for snack and morning play.

Mrs French kindly came into school with some water she had collected from the local river. We were able to look at the different species she looks for in the water. Talk to your child about what they found.

We had a fantastic trip to Bristol Aquarium. The children thoroughly enjoyed looking at the fish and learning lots of facts. Please ask your child to talk to you about our trip.

We are so proud of all of the children for great behaviour 

We have been enjoying the story 'Billy's Bucket' and the children have written what they have seen in their magical bucket. Please talk to your child about this story and their work. Take a look below at a few examples of the children's work, which they completed independently. We are so proud of their writing.

Strawberries and honey.

The children picked the strawberries that we have been growing in our Emerald Garden. We were surprised to have over 60 juicy strawberries. We enjoyed these with some of the honey that Sherribee had given us from her bee hive.

Beekeeper Visit

We were very lucky to have a visit from the lovely Sherribee a local beekeeper from Kennet Valley.

She did lots of fun activities with us to help us to learn all about bees. Sherribee also gave a us a little bee of our own to look after and some yummy honey to try.

Miss Horton's favourite part was being the Queen Bee!

Please ask your children to tell you all about the bees!

Breaking News!

A pirate chest has arrived in our classroom. Ask your child to tell you about it. 

Sports Week

The children enjoyed a large range of sports activities for our Sports Week.

It started with an obstacle course in our playground and a dance lesson by one of the children in our class.

Mr Darcy

The children were very excited to meet Mr Darcy, Mrs Marsh's cockerel!

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.

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.