Amazing Applique Artists
Our design and technology project is well under way in Year 5/6.
Children have designed, make templates, cut fabric and are now starting to show off their applique skills.
Help at home: Talk about the skills needed to be a designer/ artist in textiles. How does it feel when you’re creating something? When did you have to be patient and resilient?
We are designers
This week, we’ve begun the design process for our cushions. The children researched different cushion designs and thought about which elements they’d like to use for their cushions. The drew out their designs and annotated them with aesthetic details and dimensions. Then the fun began! The children drew out templates for their applique (an additional design for the front of their cushion) and used these to draw around onto felt. Once they’d cut them out, they pinned their applique onto their cushion ready to sew.
Commotion in the Ocean
“There’s a curious commotion
At the bottom of the ocean
I think we ought to go and take a look…….”
So we did!
The children thoroughly enjoyed reading this rhyming story and learning about a variety of sea creatures, including dolphins, whales, jellyfish, and sharks.
The children retold the story using props, helping to develop their language and storytelling skills.
They also created their own sea creatures using playdough and used their observational skills to draw a range of spiral-shaped shells.
To support their early maths development, the children played a magnetic fishing game to practise counting to five. They used a five-frame to help them check and represent how many fish they had caught
We will continue to read this story this week, printing fish, counting shells, and finding out more about the creatures that live under the sea.
In our maths work, we have been exploring the language of capacity in the sand and water areas. The children have been learning to describe containers as full, empty, or half full. Why not encourage your child to practise this at home by filling different containers with water during bath time or helping in the kitchen?
Nursery Rhyme of the Week
This week we will be learning the rhyme Row, row, row your boat.
Reminders
It is going to be very hot this week!
To help keep your child safe in the sun at Nursery, please ensure they bring the following:
- Named sun cream for staff to apply at lunchtime (please place this in the group basket with your child’s water bottle).
- A sunhat.
- A water bottle.
Class Photographs
Class photographs will take place on Wednesday 23rd June. If your child does not usually attend Nursery on a Wednesday and you would like them to be included in the photograph, please contact the school office.
Year 1 Maths
This Maths unit is all about money in Year 1. First of all, we learned how to count in 2s, 5s and 10s. After this, we learnt about 1p, 2p, 5p and 10p. We know how to identify them and know that each amount can be made using different coins.
‘5p and 5p makes 10p.’ (HE)
‘1p and 5p makes 6p’. (LD)
Help at home by asking children to help you count coins. Can they make the same amount using different coins?
Challenge – make 20p
PE – yoga
2C and 1,2B did their PE lessons indoors this afternoon due to the weather – bit of Cosmic Kids Yoga. (This is a YouTube link. Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog along the play bar and turn off autoplay – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip.)
Year 1 and 2 have been going through our Sports Roundabout so we’re ready for the big day on 3 July. Don’t forget to check bags for your child’s letter and to find out which team they’re in.
Starting school: Tips to try at home
PE-Sports Day here we come!
We have been busy being athletes! KS1 have been enjoying the field, the heat and our Sports Day equipment. We hope the weather conditions remain superb for our actual sports day roundabout on Friday 03 July. We will certainly be ready to gain points for our teams.
All our teams this year are based on some of the countries taking part in the FIFA World Cup 2026 football competition. We would like the children to come in clothing loosely matching the flag colours of the country that they are representing. We have sent all children in KS1 home with a letter giving details of each child’s team and what colour clothing to wear. Please do not feel under any pressure to buy anything new. Children can always wear their school PE kits. Each team is puposefully made up with children from Recepetion, Year 1 and Year 2. We aim to put siblings together in the same teams too. It really is a wonderful event, full of fun and active children. We hope to see you there!
Sun safety
☀️ Sun, sun, sun! ☀️
With the warm weather set to continue next week, we’d like to remind you of the following sun safety measures:
- Please send your child with a named sunhat every day.
- Ensure your child brings a named water bottle.
- Parents and carers should apply sun cream before school.
- Please label your child’s sun cream with their name.
- If you would like your child to apply sun cream at lunchtime, please ask them to put it in the basket in the classroom each morning. Staff will remind them as they come into the classroom.
- To help us, please consider using an all-day sun cream and applying it at home before your child arrives.
Thank you for helping us to keep everyone safe in the sun!
Tidy
This week, children enjoyed reading our new story, Tidy by Emily Gravett.
Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog (it’s along the play bar) and turn off auto play – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip.
We’ve enjoyed discovering the woodland world of Pete the Badger and have started to explore some of the themes and important messages in the story in preparation for our trip to Nell Bank next week. As we listened to the story, we paused to discuss the meaning of unfamiliar words. Some of the vocabulary we explored included tidy, environment, habitat and mistake. We also started to retell the story using a story map to help us remember the key events.
Many of the activities at Nell Bank will be linked to this story so look out for next week’s post to find out more!
Phonics
In phonics, we’ve been learning to read and spell words ending in -s and -es. Children explored how the letter s at the end of a word can make different sounds (/s/ and /z/) and we practised reading plural words such as trains, sports and dresses. The children also worked on reading and spelling longer words using the phonics sounds they already know, helping to build their confidence and fluency in reading and writing.
Help at home: Support your child to consolidate their learning of tricky words by playing Tricky Word Treasure Hunt.
- Write a few tricky words on separate pieces of paper.
- Hide them around the room.
- Ask your child to find a word, read it aloud and then use it in a sentence.
You could make the game more challenging by asking your child to find a specific word or by timing how quickly they can read all of the words. This is a fun way to practise recognising tricky words and build reading confidence.
Maths
This week in maths, we’ve been revisiting and consolidating our understanding of numbers to 10 by:
- Exploring how numbers can be split into smaller parts and recombined to make a whole.
- Comparing quantities and using the language of more than, fewer than and equal to.
- Investigating one more and one less within 10.
- Using practical resources such as rekenreks, counters and our fingers to deepen our understanding of number.
- Playing games and solving problems to develop confidence with numbers to 10.
PE
Children were very excited to find out we were going to play our ‘Mouse Trap’ game again! We revisited the game to continue developing our aiming, control and coordination skills and added a new twist. This time, we adapted the game by using rackets and hockey sticks to control and stop the balls. We experimented with different-sized balls to provide a range of challenges and to encourage the children to move in different ways to intercept, stop and direct the ball.
Poetry Basket
This week was a rhyme week in our Poetry Basket sessions. The children enjoyed joining in and singing ‘The Big Ship Sails on the Ally Oh‘ and had lots of fun learning the actions and joining in with the repeated phrases.
Poem of the week
We read a poem every week in KS1. We do this to increase our fluency and prosody. We have a big focus on oracy in KS1. At the moment, we are focussing on using our facial expressions and body language when reading our poem. This is particularly useful when reading this poem, which we all love!
Here are some of our ‘Funny faces’.
