This half term we have learnt through our main topic ‘Sunshine and Sunflowers’ where we found out about how plants and animals grow and change over time and understood how to keep safe in the sun.. We looked at how plants change through the seasons, learnt about different plants and visited the local area to see how and where things grow. As part of the topic we made art with resources from our natural environment such as pebble pictures.

We then had two mini topics, one entitled ‘Splash’ which helped us cool down in the hot weather and another entitled ‘Moving On’ which helped us in our preparations for Year 1. We also began to slowly increase the amount of time spent on focus activities whilst continuing with independent learning time to make the transition into Year 1 as smooth as possible for the children in September as well as arranging lots of other transition opportunities. 

In music we continued to develop our ability to tap rhythms and identify different instruments we can hear in music. In our forest school sessions we explored our environment to find out what is growing and living in our local habitat. In phonics have recapped our prior learning of phase 3 sounds and extended our phonics beyond phase 3, becoming confident writing and reading words and sentences containing these sounds. In maths we learnt about numbers beyond 10, understanding the place value of numbers and learning about doubles, odds and even numbers. We also looked at patterns in number and understanding how this can help us to solve trickier problems. 

This half term Acorns have been busy learning through different topics. The first was called 'Once Upon a Time' through which the children explored a large range of traditional tales and some nursery rhymes. When we learnt about Jack and the Beanstalk we planted our own bean seeds and watched how the roots developed and the bean stem grew all the way up to the castles before we took them home to plant in our gardens. When we learnt about Cinderella we found out about the Royal Family and turned photos of ourselves into Kings and Queens by adding our own crowns and royal garments. We enjoyed joining in with the repeating refrains in The Three Little Pigs and practised using different voices as we acted as the different characters. 

At the end of this unit Acorns moved on to a topic called 'Reflections and Shadows' where the children explored different places they might find their reflection, looked at how shadows were made and how shadows made by the sun 'move' as time moves on. The children also had a go at making their own shadow puppets using torch light. 

At the end of the half term the children were excited to receive some duckling eggs and learnt about the importance of the incubator. They were very excited to see several of the ducklings hatch during the school day. The children have helped us to look after the ducklings, knowing that they need cleaning out, new water and new food each day. This final week in particular the children have enjoyed taking the ducklings swimming - watching them dive under the water has been a highlight.

In the first half of the Spring term Acorns have continued to develop their phonics knowledge, consolidating the sounds they learnt in phase 2 whilst also learning new sounds in phase 3. They then used this new knowledge to help in literacy lessons, starting to write sentences with purpose. In maths lessons we looked at capacity, length and height as well as developing our understanding of numbers to 10, including 0. 

We have explored the night in our Understanding of the World lessons, discovering how we sleep best, what animals are active during the night-time and we have also looked at space. In our Expressive Art and Design lessons, we explored new media, such as pastels, to help us create our own space pictures, which linked to our Understanding of the World lessons, and we found out about different ways to combine materials together. We have continued to develop our skills to help us be supportive friends, understanding the impact our words and actions have on others through our Personal, Social and Emotional Development lessons and we had lots of opportunities to work as a team. We were also excited to provide the children the opportunity of joining Oaks on a weekly basis to have a poetry session with Mrs Dervish.  The children always love these sessions, and we know that many of them have come home sharing poetry with you!  We hope you enjoyed it as much as they did.