Autumn Term: Week 3
The week started with a special treat for the Key Stage 1 children. Mrs Garrett, the school Librarian read the children Roald Dahl’s, The Giraffe and The Pelly and Me. They were enthralled and thoroughly enjoyed the story.
Both Year 1 and Year 2 were very excited to exercise their democratic rights on Monday as they voted for their class representative on the Pre-Prep School Council. One Year 1 child was heard saying, “It is just like adults voting” and that they might not put a cross in the box for Boris! The elected held their first council meeting and will find out next week if their requests have been granted.
In Year 2 this week the children have been discovering more about the Great Fire of London and the importance of Samuel Pepys’ diary. The children drew a portrait of Samuel Pepys and tea-stained the paper so it looked like a very old piece of art work. The children were also keen to get started on joined-up handwriting, always a sign that they are growing up and making progress. And, they attended a most enjoyable and informative violin and cello demonstration; hopefully the class have been inspired to give the instruments a go themselves.
Year 1 have been taking their spelling books home and learning all about vowels and diagraphs. They have been focussing on words ending in ‘ff’ and ‘ss’. The beautiful weather this week allowed mathematics to be taken outside to the Boat Garden, where they practised their quick recall of numbers one more and one less than a given number and the always favourite loop games.
The Reception children have been learning about Harvest and teamwork through the story of the Little Red Hen. The children had a wonderful class discussion on what hard work is and the importance of working in a team and they talked about what wheat is and what it can be used to make. They re-created the story with puppets in the outdoor classroom and talked about the sequence of the story. On Friday they made bread, just like the Little Red Hen. The children have also been working hard in phonics and learnt about the phonemes d, g, o and c. In fact, they took selfies of themselves making the ‘o’ sound using iPads and then decorated the circular shape of their mouths with sequins to highlight the shape. In maths the children have been practising counting and matching numerals to quantities; they had great fun playing circle games counting as a class together.
The Chaffinch and Kingfisher classes made their first adventure across to Forest School. The children loved exploring the wooded area and sat round the fire circle as Mrs Marshall explained the rules of the forest. As they explored, there was a huge burst of excitement when they discovered that there were insects under logs so they enthusiastically went around turning logs over! Some of the children were happy to hold the insects – whilst others were not quite so sure. The children were also keen to practise their climbing skills and attempted to use various unique methods to climb up and attach themselves to branches. They concluded that pretending to be a koala was the best way to succeed. Their exciting morning in the forest ended with hot chocolate and a biscuit!
Children in the Nightingale class have been exploring different mark making media and used chalk to create lovely pictures. They enjoyed a ride on the beach train in their role-playing activities and made the most of the beautiful sunshine this week. Robin class children have begun to investigate Autumn. They used their imagination well when creating collages using leaves they had gathered. Using the outdoor area, they explored sand and found different hidden objects. The Sparrow class children have also been enjoying the beautiful weather and went for a walk to collect leaves and pine cones and had great fun getting messy painting on leaf shaped paper.
Armelle Wilkinson
Head of Pre-Prep and Nursery
