This half term we have been exploring our topics of ‘winter wonderland’ and ‘night and day’.  We had some fun thinking about all things ice and snow and finding out about places on our planet where it is always cold and snowy.  We then moved on to learn about nocturnal animals, why we get night and day and what we can see in our night sky.

In literacy we have worked on learning our phase 3 sounds and tricky words. We have been practicing using these to read more independently and to write simple words and phrases.  We have continued to share stories and improve our mark making through the drawing club. In maths we have been finding out about different ways to measure things alongside our continued number work.  We have been working on partitioning numbers into 2 parts, learning what the word ‘equal’ means and finding out about doubles.

In PSHE we have covered various topics such as good bedtime routines, tooth brushing and how we can all be good friends to each other.  We had a lovely day celebrating Chinese new year with special snacks and some fantastic dragon masks.

This half term we have been very focussed on preparing for our nativity show, Prickly Hay.  There have been lots of songs to learn and we have worked hard practising to be on stage.  It was a huge success!  Everyone was very proud of us.

In literacy we have worked on consolidating our phase 2 sounds and moving on to phase 3.   We have been practising using these to read more independently and to write simple words and phrases.  We continue to share stories and improve our mark making through the drawing club.

In maths we have done some work on shape and pattern alongside continuing to embed our number recognition and counting.  We have been looking at ordering numbers, recognising them quickly in various contexts and being able to find two small numbers that can go together to make a bigger one.  In our Topic 'Big Wide World' we have explored maps and different countries and cultures.  We had several visitors come and talk to us about the countries they have lived in and we found out about flags and famous landmarks.  In PSHE we have been thinking about feelings.  We discussed different emotions and how we can tell how someone is feeling and we thought about what makes us happy and sad and how we can help ourselves feel better.  We also talked about our opinions and thought of things we like and dislike.  Our art this term has included lots of Christmas activities.  We have practiced our cutting skills and making decisions about materials and colours to get the best effect. We have also used lots of different mediums.

During this first half term we had a significant focus on settling the children into the school and the routines that run alongside this.  The children have got to know the classroom and outdoor space better and understand that it is divided into different areas with the activities in these areas changing weekly to build on objectives across the curriculum.

In literacy this half term we focused on sharing stories, listening for initial sounds, rhyming and developing our mark making. In maths we looked at patterns, number recognition and counting objects. During our ‘Me and My Community’ topic we explored families, looking at similarities and differences, knowing how we change as we age and identifying what makes a good friend. We joined in with songs during our music lessons and explored how to make music using our bodies and in our dance lessons during PE we learnt how to move our bodies to music and created our own mini flash dances. In our other PE lessons we began to find out about why it is important for us to exercise to keep healthy. Lastly during our Understanding the World lessons the children explored different people who help us, learnt about different communities and learnt about some seasonal changes.