Class News

3/4C Class News

In Living and Learning, we have talked about the importance of being resilient in learning and that sometimes learning is tricky. We have reflected on the times when we have been resilient and have been successful.

We have discussed climate change in related to COP26 by building on and responding to the views of others.

In Art, we have closely observed pattern and shape in fruit, completing some careful drawings.

A great start to a new half term!

Bonfire art in 1,2B

Living and learning : vampire cough, sneeze and yawn

Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Such a perfect day for a walk in the park. The sun was shining and all  children were in high spirits as we set off on our adventure to explore the magnificent Sculpture Park. Works by Hepworth, Moore, Price and Hirst had the children appreciating and discussing art like never before.

Artistic adventurers!

We have had the most amazing day at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. We began the day taking part in a workshop that allowed us to explore our inner artist! We were able to see sculptures that focused on nature and used this idea to create our own sketches. Our drawings needed to incorporate shade, texture and even some leaf rubbings. We then observed Barbara Hepworth’s Family of Man sculpture and created some clay models from our observations. I think we got more clay on ourselves than on our mini sculptures!

The afternoon allowed us to explore the rest of the park. We discovered numerous sculptures by Henry Moore and completed more sketches. Ask your child what their favourite sculpture was? Can they remember any facts about the artists?

Welcome back

We have a busy half term planned. Our topic is art based this half term. We are artists!

We’ll be visiting Yorkshire Sculpture Park to gain inspiration for creating our own sculptures before Christmas. Each pupil will need a cardboard box (shoe box sized) for thier masterpiece. If you have any boxes, then starting sending them in over the next couple of weeks.

At the Yorkshire Sculpture Park we’ll be looking at three key artists: Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Thomas J Price.

Reading Records

Before half term, the last week’s activity was Draw It!

Thank you to all the adults who wrote some fantastic comments in their child’s reading records. Remember – useful comments might include what went well, what they need help with or how many pages they read at home.

This week’s reading activity is ‘Step into their shoes’. This activity is about knowing a character’s thoughts and feelings.

Possible activities:

• Draw a character and it’s thought bubbles – what would they say?
• Write a short diary entry for one of the characters.
• Tell or show the reader all about the character

Autumn, Harvest and Henrí Matisse

There was so much going on in class this week, we thought we’d celebrate even more great learning in Reception! Your second Class News post of the weekend! …

Autumn and Harvest

We’ve been discussing the season of Autumn and learning about the Harvest Festival.

Poppy D- It’s when you get in all the fruit and the vegetables… the farmers.

Max- Crops are chopped up by a machine and the machine is called a combine harvester.

We discussed why collections of food are taken in at churches, schools and community centres.

Lewi- It’s going to hungry people who need it.

We also made some Harvest posters and sang some Harvest songs!

Click here to watch Rainbow Class singing Big, Red, Combine Harvester.

Careful Counting

As well as continuing to learn about the numbers 1,2 and 3, we’ve been helping some toys do careful counting after they made some little mistakes in our Maths lessons!

We made sure we only counted each object once and that the number we identified as how many objects we had altogether, was the same as our stopping number. We said what we were counting after each number, to help us slow down (i.e. “one conker, two conkers, three conkers…”)

We used special tagging ‘wands’ to help us count our objects too.

Henrí Matisse Art Project

This week, Reception explored the art of Henrí Matisse. We focused on his ‘cut out’ artwork in particular. We listened to the story Henrí’s Scissors by Jeanette Winter, to learn about the artist’s life and methods used to create his cut outs.

The children chose their colour, painting a whole page. Next, using a stencil, they drew around the ‘leaf’ shape and cut it out. Together, we created a collaborative piece of art on a large canvas.

We can’t wait for you to see what we have created at our classroom drop-in sessions!

If your child would like to learn more about the artwork of Henrí Matisse, Tate.org.uk have some child-friendly videos and resources you can watch at home. Click here to visit now!

 Diary Dates…

 Tuesday 9 November- Maths in Early Years (Zoom)

Friday 12 November, 3.30-4.00- Classroom Drop-in, Rainbow Class.

Friday 19 November, 3.30-4.00- Classroom Drop-in, Sunshine Class.

Pumpkins and potions

It doesn’t seem like two minutes ago that we were visiting our new children on their door steps and  now we’re writing our final post of the half term! We’ve had a fantastic start to the autumn term and have already seen children making lots of progress with their learning and becoming much more independent.

Here are a few things that we enjoyed in the final week, some of the most popular activities involved exploring pumpkins!  We investigated what was inside them, enjoying putting our hands in the slimy, squelchy flesh and picking out some seeds.  Children also loved decorating and painting them in the creative area and joining in with the ‘Five Little Pumpkins’ counting story in our maths area.

Children enjoyed re-telling the story of ‘Room on the Broom’ and working together to complete jigsaw puzzles of the witch and dragon. The water area was a hive of activity with children working together to share eye balls, spiders and bugs to mix into their potions!

We hope that you all have a lovely, relaxing holiday and we look forward to hearing all about your adventures when we return to Nursery on Monday 01 November. If you have any photographs that you would like to share with us, or if your child achieves something that they’ve been working towards, don’t forget to send us a quick email –  scholesnursery@spherefederation.org

Reminders

• Please ensure that your child’s water bottle only contains water.
• As detailed in our letter, please let us know if you are interested in increasing your child’s sessions in Nursery. We will be welcoming new children in January and may not be able to guarantee extra hours after this point.
• As the weather has most definitely become more autumnal, please ensure your child has a warm, waterproof coat at Nursery (with a hood) every day.

What a Half Term

It has been a fabulous half term in both Sunshine and Rainbow class.   We are so proud of how well all the children have settled in and have begun their learning journey in reception.

This week, we have particularly enjoyed: dressing up in costumes, making patterns with pumpkins and scooping seeds out of pumpkins.

In phonics, we have learnt the new sounds – o, c, k, ck. We have been using our new segmenting and blending skills to write words.

In Maths, we have continued to deepen our understanding of the numbers one, two and three. We created our own number stories.

In PE, we enjoyed using the equipment to climb, balance and hang. This is all great for our core strength.

We have loved using dough to strengthen our fingers. Check out our different moves.

pat

ball

squeeze

roll

two finger dancing

Have a lovely half term break!