This week we talked about what an explorer is?

The children came up with some amazing answers. Answers that showed they had discussed their new class name at home. Take a look at some of the children's explanations.

Explorer’s “look for things”    (Jacob Z)

Explorer’s “find new things”       (Austin)

“They find different lands and places”     ( Marley)

“It is good to be an explorer because we can find things in our woods”  (Lilly)

“Explorers find cool things…. Treasure” (Edward)

“Explorer’s find corn and bring it home to us”. (Harry)

“They bring us chocolate too!” (Sam)

“Explorer’s find new places and new houses”  (Matthew)

Well this week we are going to talk about what an adventure is! How would you explain what an adventure is? Here are some slightly older children explaining their ideas

 

As we are going on adventures............... our focus single sound  is going to start off as  'a'

Later in the week we might also be talking a little about the letter 'h' too as we will be looking at houses and homes.

  

At home you could visit Evie and Dodge or the Cbeebies alphabet songs to reinforce our focus sounds.

Take a look at the Alphablocks blending sounds together to make simple words

For the children learning 'special friend' sounds we will be looking at 'ay' May I play?

Now that the children are all getting to know each other we thought it would be nice to learn the actions and signs for things we play with together

 

Next week in maths it's all about matching and sorting. This is a great one to do at home. Simple tasks around the house are really good to help developing their sorting and matching skills. It might be 

Tidying their room 

Helping to put the shopping away in the right cupboard. 

Matching pairs of socks 

A game of snap

A game of pairs

Matching and sorting different types of apples

To stretch their thinking you could ask them to decide how to sort objects and items. Discuss where they could put objects and why they should go together.

A simple you can also do online is https://pbskids.org/sid/games/sorting-box

 

We will be learning a rhyme about an apple tree too.

For our movement each morning we are going on an adventure to the rainforest!

Good old Aunty Mable will also be taking us on an apple journey  when we watch an episode of come outside

 

Get ready for a  musical story  to start off  the week! We are going to be pirate explorers next week! Why not watch and sing a long  so the children  can join in on Monday!

 

We are so looking forward to our first full week as the Little Explorer Class

A big welcome back to all who are familiar with the unit and a huge hello to all of our new starters and their families.

We use our blogs to communicate all of our learning so that parents can really get involved and  know that when their child comes home and they say they have done nothing all day..... they actually have been learning a lot without even knowing it! 

To introduce the letter of the week we always use a story. Then we spend one whole week really getting to know that letter.

This week our letter is the letter 'm'.  We always start teaching the children the small lower case 'm' and introduce capital letters later in the year. This means they do not get confused.

We often try to record one of our Foundation team reading the story but occasionally, if there is a really good version available online or even the author of the story themselves reading it, we will attach that link instead.

Welcome to a new school term!

Hello to all of our new starters!

We have both F1 and F2 children learning together again and our collective class name is 

The 'Little Explorers'!

This theme is in line with the rest of the school who have taken inspirational people as their class names.

We will be finding out all about lots of inspirational explorers and people who were the first ones to do new things.

For instance Maria Montessori. She was the lady responsible for ensuring children today can learn through play. 

Our main topic for this half-term is "Lets Explore"

In the Let’s Explore project, your child will explore their class environment and school grounds so that they feel settled and happy in their new surroundings. They will learn about the local environment and find out about places they have visited on holiday. They will look at and create maps for journeys.

Supporting your child at home

• Use Google Earth to explore the locality.
• Go on a walk around your local community and talk about the things that you see.
• Encourage your child to talk about the activities they enjoy doing at school.

Here are the areas of learning we will be visiting whilst engaged in this topic.

Maths	Number; Numerical patterns
Physical Development	Gross motor skills; Fine motor skills
Personal, Social and Emotional Development	Self-regulation; Managing self; Building relationships
Learning about the World	Past and present; People culture and communities; The natural world
Exp Art &Design	Creating with materials; Being imaginative and expressive
Communication and Language	Listening, attention and understanding; Speaking
Literacy	Comprehension; Word reading; Writing