We hope you are all having a lovely Easter break! We can't wait to hear about what you've been up to and see you on Monday. Send photos in on tapestry if you have anything to share with your friends. 

🥁🤸‍♀️🤸‍♂️🎉🥁🤸‍♀️🤸‍♂️🎉 *DRUM ROLL* ..............

OUR NEW TOPIC FOR THIS HALF TERM IS... 'LET IT GROW'

In this topic, we will be finding out about plants and how we look after them. We will discover that plants are living things that need air, sunlight, warmth, and water to grow. We will be growing our own vegetable patch/flower garden outside and finding out how amazing worms are - adding nutrients to our soil which also helps the plants to grow. We will be looking closely at sunflowers and labelling the parts of a plant (roots, stem, leaves, flowers, and petals). We will also be talking about how we stay healthy - eating lots of fruit and vegetables! 

How you can support our learning at home

• Grow some quick growing plants together, such as salad leaves, radishes or cress.
• Plan and go on a teddy bears picnic - what fruit and vegetables will you take? Can the children help to make the sandwiches? 
• Go on a local walk and talk about the changes that have happened to living things throughout the year.
• Get involved with our home learning challenges shared on our weekly blogs. 
• Share and discuss 'The Big Idea' question's and vocabulary (see below and attached PDF for a clearer version). 

The big idea question we will be focusing on this week is:

What job do bees do?

We will be finding out how bees slurp nectar from flowers with their tongues, take it back to their beehive where it is turned into honey! How clever! 

We will be sharing the brilliant story 'Bumblebear' have a listen below- it's the author Nadia reading the story! 

Can you draw a bee and beehive at home following the instructions from Squiglet? Send in your drawings on tapestry! 

• F1 & F2 -Please remember to book your parent's evening slot (should have received an email last week with a link to book online). Thanks if you already have :) 

🌿🍓🍊🍏🍭🍉🍰🥧🤢🦋 🌿🍓🍊🍏🍭🍉🍰🥧🤢🦋🌿🍓🍊🍏🍭🍉🍰🥧🤢🦋

Hello Little Dreamers! We hope you have all had a lovely half-term and can't wait to see you all tomorrow. Let's announce our new topic (drum roll please)..... 

🕷🕸🐌🦋🐞🐛🐜 🕷🕸🐌🦋🐞🐛🐜 🕷

We will be finding out about magnificent mini beasts!

We will be exploring things such as- how many legs do insects have? Is this different from spiders? What mini-beasts can fly? What are antennae, and what are they used for?

We will be talking about and finding lots of fascinating facts about bees, spiders, ladybirds and many more marvellous creatures. We will be scientists observing lifecycles in the classroom and watching how a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly! 

As always, our topic will be brought to life through brilliant books. For more information please see our big ideas' poster below (a clearer version is also attached at the bottom of this page). 

Some ideas of how you can embrace our topic at home: 

• Research your favourite mini beasts - can you find any fascinating facts to share with the class?
• Make your very own bug hotel! There are lots of great designs online- but they can be made from things such as: old plant pots, small rocks, sticks, stones bark and leaves... You'll soon have lots of mini beasts checking in! 
• Go on a mini-beast hunt in your garden or local area/park - what can you spot? 
• Share and discuss the 'Big Ideas' poster, talking about the question's and key vocabulary. 
• Share any mini-beast related stories you might have at home or spot at the library.

Thank you for your continued support - we look forward to seeing you all tomorrow! 😊

Wow, wow, wow! What fabulous storytellers your children are becoming. We are really enjoying our ‘Books, Books, Brilliant books’ topic.

It is wonderful to see the children confidently re-calling stories in their play and drawings with brilliant expression! 

’Run, run as fast as you can… You can’t catch me I’m the gingerbread man!’ Can you guess what our story of the week will be? Of course… It’s The Gingerbread Man! Have a listen to the tale we will be sharing: 

We will also be singing these jazzy tunes:

This week we will be becoming scientists and learning the words 'absorbent' and 'waterproof' (F2) along with 'float' and 'sink' (F1). We will be exploring why the Gingerbread Man didn't want to swim across the river... And experimenting making our own rafts to help him cross our water tray without getting wet! 

You could collect some objects at home (waterproof ones!) and predict whether they will float or sink before testing them out your sink, bath or a big container.  We would love to see your photos of this - send them in on Tapestry, and we will share them in our show and tell sessions. Along with any gingerbread man inspired activities you might like to do- especially delicious gingerbread baking! (see PDF's at the bottom of the page). 

F1 will be exploring the number 4 and the different ways the number four can be made-here are some activities you could try at home:

In F2, we are starting our new white rose focus on growing, 6, 7 & 8. We will be digging deeper by combining two groups and finding out how many altogether. Check out this numberblocks episode to look at the part-whole model. We will be using this model in school to help us visualise combining numbers to find the total. 

• F2- You are doing so well with your doodles! We are in the top 3 on the score board. Look at all of those stars you have collected - 1035! 🤩🌟 well done, keep up the super work! 

Hopefully you've had chance to check out our new big idea for this half term: Books, Books, Brilliant Books!

Over the next couple of weeks, we will be sharing these texts and answering our big idea question's

• Can you re-tell a story?
• Can you describe the setting of a story? (using We're Going on a Bear Hunt to support this)
• Can you describe the characters in a story? (Using Goldilocks and the Three Bears to support this).

We will be drawing simple story maps and acting out the stories to help the children remember and re-call them.

This week we have started sharing the brilliant book 'We're going on a Bear Hunt',  the children are loving it! They are already so confident re-calling the different settings and story language used in the book (e.g. 'thick oozy mud' 'deep cold river'). Next week, we will be going on a 'Bear Hunt adventure' across school to try and find a bear ourselves!

Have a listen to the story at home (and Michael Rosen, the Author performing it himself!)

Here is the Goldilocks and the Three Bears Story that we will be sharing in school:

We will also be singing this song linked to the Goldilocks story:

Here is the vocabulary that we will be sharing with the children for 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt'

• Can you have a teddy bear's picnic at home? 
• Can you share any books from home or find any in the library that feature a bear in them?
• Watch this episode of Andy's Wild Adventures finding out all about black bears that live in North America.
• Can you play hide and seek with a teddy bear in your house? Can you or a grown up use positional language to describe where the bear is hiding (e.g. under, behind, next to, between, on top, in front etc).
• Can you play this Teddy Bear's picnic careful counting game?

• Remember to enjoy sharing stories and record these in your reading diary-the school expectation is to read at least 3 times a week and get along the way to collecting the next reading award!
  (F2) practising your speedy sound cards, or doing any reading or writing activity can also count as an entry.
• Can you send in a picture on tapestry sharing your children's favourite story? We will be using these throughout our topic and sharing them during show and tell sessions. 
• (F2) Keep up with those doodles! Little and often. Mrs King is monitoring which class is in the lead.