This week, we’ve explored all things autumn!
Understanding the world; seasonal changes
We took an autumn walk to spot signs of autumn and changes in the natural environment. We were inspired by our story this week. Thank you to everyone who brought in conkers, leaves and other natural objects to explore in class.
Leaf Man
We’ve been reading the book Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert.
“A Leaf Man’s got to go, where the wind blows”
The book takes us on Leaf Man’s journey, as he travels on the autumn wind across different autumnal landscapes.
Our ‘word of the week’ is season. We know that we have four seasons in the year; spring, summer, autumn and winter.
Inspired by the book, we made our own ‘Leaf Man’ pictures.
Our focus in maths this week has been comparing quantities. We’ve developed our skills to look carefully and use the language of ‘more than’ and ‘fewer than’. We’ve developed our number sense by noticing how the size, colour and other properties of objects do not matter when finding out how many.
PE; football skills
This week, we’ve been working on our kicking, balancing and passing skills.
We started by practising ‘small kicks’ around hall, keeping the balls close and under control. We then balanced on one foot whilst trying to move the ball around our standing leg. We finished with some partner work, passing the ball with good control and stopping it with our foot.
Did you know…
We’ve developed our PE curriculum across our Sphere Federation schools, alongside Foot-Tech Academy. Foot-Tech are an innovative sports coaching company that provide sessions across the city for children to develop their skills and develop a life-long love of sport and physical activity. As teachers, we have received their training and guidance on how to teach effective PE lessons. Our PE sessions have a purposeful, game-based approach and include a range of activities involving multiskills.
On Wednesday afternoons, Reception are taught their PE lesson by Foot-Tech coaches.
Finally in our PE news, a big thank you to Foot-Tech for donating a new set of footballs to Reception. They are rainbow-tastic and so much fun!
Poetry Picnic
Each week we will be learning a new poem. We will recite this poem each day. By saying the poem out loud, we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers. This week’s poem is called Five Little Pumpkins.
Phonics
This week has been a revision and phonics assessment week.
There will be no new ‘Learn at home’ sheets until the first week of next half term. Please continue to revisit previous sheets with your child.
Help at home; blending
Oral segmenting/blending games are great, both if your child is still learning to blend and for those children who are confident ‘blenders’, to revisit their skills. Here’s just one idea to try at home: Dress the Baby (idea taken from earlyimpactlearning.com)
Any toy can be used for this game. Put a baby doll or another toy down with some clothes round it- for example a hat, boots, a nappy, a coat and gloves.
Say one of the pieces of clothing in sound-talk. For example a boot would be a ‘b-oo-t.’ If your child can blend it, then they can put a piece that piece of clothing on the baby/toy. To make it easier, you can say all the pieces of clothing like robots before you start.
Let us know if you try this game at home!
More pictures of our learning this week…
Swimming
We do not yet have a start date for our swimming lessons, due to swimming coach availability. We’ll let you know when the start date is confirmed. We also put swimming date posters in our windows or on the door, so you will have notice before the children start.
Dates for your diary and reminders
Parent teacher consultations: Week commencing 20.10.25- individual appointment times.
Nasal flu vaccinations: Thursday 23.10.25
School closed- training day: Friday 24.10.25