Our first half term of summer!
Date: 19th Jun 2022 @ 11:08pm
What a wonderful, busy but short half term we had. The Owls have been super busy with our topic on Minibeasts. We have used this for the basis of our work to engage the children and give them purpose to their learning.
In Phonics, we consolidated our learning of phase 2 and 3 sounds and the skills of blending and segmenting, through a range of games and activities such as bingo, putting bugs on various sounds, hiding words under leaves for our bugs to find, hiding words around the outside area to collect and read, playing online phonic games, using the parachute to roll a ball to sounds and/or words, jumping through a hungry caterpillar's body which was made of hoops, to say the sounds of a word, helping us to segment and blend the word to read it and writing words on butterflies, throwing them in the air to catch and reading them when we did, as well as many more other bugs related activities.
In Literacy we focused on the classic books of Eric Carl, "The very hungry caterpillar," and "The bad tempered ladybird." The children were working hard on developing their sentences as well as listening carefully to all of the sounds in a word, helping them to spell as accurately as possible. They ordered the stories, looked at the main character and other characters in the stories, as well as using different words to describe them. They explored non-fiction texts and the features of these, as well as what a fact is. The children sorted true and false sentences about bugs and wrote their own, as well as beginning to make their own information books.
In Maths, the children have been exploring numbers 10-20. They have looked at how these numbers fill a ten frame and how there are extras. The children have also begun to look at the 100 square and the patterns of numbers on it. They have developed the skill of estimating small quantities through using bugs, natural objects and cubes. Using a range of resources, we have looked at spatial reasoning by creating small models for their partners to copy. We have used numicon and other resources to make 10 and recorded these as number sentences and we have focused on recording and understanding addition and subtraction. We have also been learning about symmetry. Take a look at the fantastic symmetrical scorpion the children created in the classroom!
Within our let's explore time, the children continued to develop a host of skills through topic related activities. The children have made bugs and flowers with the construction, painted a range of bugs and made symmetrical butterflies, used egg boxes to make the very hungry caterpillar, used natural objects to make a variety of bugs, gone on a bug hunt, explored signs of spring, played in our "Bug investigation lab" role play area, hunted for bugs in the small world area and used the playdough to create bugs. In addition, we received five very small caterpillars which we were super lucky to watch grow and cocoon. We then saw them turn into beautiful butterflies and released them into the natural world, where they will live happily. We also had the opportunity to make a wormery and watch how the worms create their tunnels.
We began our swimming lessons as well this half term. The children were all super excited. How lucky are we to have our very own school pool! We talked about safety in and around the pool and went on a visit to explore the pool area, before having our first few lessons in the pool. The children have been blowing bubbles, jumping, striding, learning how to kick their legs, how to scoop with their arms and becoming confident in the water. A great start so far Owls, well done!
We have had our first balance bike lessons. We learned how to pick up our bike safely, take our bike for a walk and practised our balancing skills before riding our bikes around a cone course. In our second lesson we learned how to glide (lift our feet up when the bike is moving) and the children’s confidence is developing so quickly.
In our final week, we were very lucky to have one of our parents bring in their two baby orphaned lambs, which she was hand feeding. The children each had a turn at giving the lambs their milk and feeling their wooly coat. The children were absolutely thrilled and had such a wonderful time stroking them, watching them and feeding them. Thank you very much Mrs Hayes for such a wonderful experience.
The children also had a week of Jubilee celebration. They wrote congratulations letters to the Queen, picked out gems from water with tweezers to complete a crown, built castles from construction, made numicon castles and learnt all about the royal family, what the jubilee was and the British flag. The week ended with a whole school jubilee party!
What a wonderful half term! Well done to all of the Owls and all of the fantastic parents for their support. Here's to the final Summer half term as an Owl, before you all fly off to Kestrels!
