The best fifth birthday party in the world

Muddles had a magnificent birthday party today. He and the children enjoyed their learning around birthdays and parties over the last couple of weeks. They particularly enjoyed making the delicious chocolate birthday cake.

Today children have been learning a lot at the party. They were learning to move in different ways, particularly as they planned a game of limbo for the party!  They were moving rhythmically to music. They were clapping in time to a rhythym. They were listening to changes in music and sounds. They were taking turns and sharing. Most of all they were talking to their friends.

The children's behaviour was exceptionally good. They were thoughtful, considerate, polite  and sympathetic to the needs of others. They should all be very proud of themselves.


 

 

 

 

 

Caterpillar update - Saturday

I have brought the caterpillars home over the weekend to look after them and keep an eye on them for regular blog readers. I can confirm some caterpillars have now changed into chrysalis but some haven't changed yet.

Caterpillar update

The year R caterpillars have crawled to the top of the pot and are hanging down from the lid. We wonder if this means they are about to change into their chrysalis. What do you think? Talk to your family about it and use the comment to let us know.

 

Mitzy visits

The Reception class have won Mitzy this week. Mitzy is awarded to the class who gets the most thumbs up stickers for good behaviour. Mitzy has enjoyed spending time with Muddles.

Evacuation!

We had a fantastic discussion about evacuation! We looked at some of the things that a child might have in their suitcase. Which item did you find the most interesting?

 

We then had to decide which ten items he could take. It was really tricky! Can you spot any patterns between groups?

 

 

 

If you were evacuated tomorrow, what would you take with you? Why?

Every Wednesday we will be learning about Fairtrade. This week, we met our visitor, Flick. We had to think about Fairtrade and tell her everything we know about the importance of Fairtrade. We are looking forward to next weeks lesson. 

 

Basics Bank

Duncan visited us from the Basics Bank  and told us about the work his charity makes. He also told us about his role as a volunteer. Do you do any volunteering? What volunteer work would you
like to do when you're older?

An elf has a birthday

Muddles our woodland elf friend is having a birthday next week. The children have decided to throw him a party. They have been busy making party hats, decorations and invitations. Some children even made and decorated a party room outside. It had a games area and a cake with five decorations, because Muddles will be five.

 

The party will be on Tuesday. Children will not need to wear school uniform that day. If anyone would like to donate a packet of biscuits, some fruit, vegetable sticks, snacks or squash we would be really grateful. Please come and ask us what we still need - this is entirely voluntary.

 

 

 

 

Welcome to the garden centre

The children have been making the role play area into a garden centre this week. We have been having great fun selling plants and seeds. If you have any old seed packets or artificial flowers at home that you no longer need we would love them for our shop.

 

 

Mixing hues of blue

In this unit children will mix colour to create different hues of blue for the sea. They will also create their own underwater sea creature designed

to suit its habitat.

Fun was had!  Much to the horror of onlooking adults with the only casualty, being a small spot of paint on the carpet.

The children grasped the concept, very quickly, of adding 'little by little' (not the Oasis song) to gently move from dark to light and vice versa

These skills will be put to use in further art and DT projects. Keep a weather eye on the horizon for them.

Note: weather on the horizon....

Following our mixing of blues to create lighter & darker shades, we have since been investigating primary, secondary and tertiary colours.

Above and below you can see some of the children's excellent work.  Following a look at some different underwater scenes the children were challenged to make their own underwater backdrop in preparation for their sea creature next half term.

Katie used her knowledge of colour and techniques to create this sea bed.

Now, do any of you think this creature belongs way down deep in the depths?  If not, can you use your knowledge of habitats to think where it might belong?

Harry's drawing

Harry's work is very impressive. Some great 3D effects shown.

Laurie's drawing

Laurie looked very closely at her shell and added lots of small details.

Jai's drawings. He thought really carefully about the shape of the shells.

 

Extreme Reading

In year 4 we're planning on being the schools extreme readers.  Your class needs you Year 4! Where can you read that is so extreme, it will cause a stir of admiration amongst the rest of the school.

Pave the way Year 4

Shell Drawings

Our topic this term is 'Coasts'

 

In art we are drawing shells. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sophie's drawing today. She thought carefully about shading.

Our caterpillars

The children in Reception have some new pets.

Ordering numbers

War Begins

Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, met several times with Adolf Hitler to avoid the outbreak of war. Hitler promised Chamberlain that his country would remain peaceful and not invade Poland. However, Hitler would go back on his word within six months and, when Germany invaded Poland on 3 September 1939, it was Chamberlain's solemn duty to announce to the nation it was 'at war with Germany'. How would you feel if you heard this announcement on the radio? Add your comments below. 
 

World War 2

We've started our brand new topic on World War 2. 
What facts have you found out so far? 

Add your ideas to the comments section below. 

Communication hut

As part of our work on communication and language this year we have been transforming the playhouse from a glorified shed into a communication friendly space. This work will be continuing over the holidays when it will be given a lick of paint to brighten it up.

Eggs-cellent learning!

This is a post that was sent to our old blog a couple of days before Easter. Due to a technical problem it never arrived so we are really happy it can be published now!

The children in Reception have loved learning through activities on an egg theme this week. They have made chocolate nests, decorated eggs, found out about the animals that lay eggs, read Dora's Egg, used money to buy eggs, fished for eggs, been on an Easter egg hunt, and written lists of animals that come from eggs using their eggs-cellent segmenting skills in phonics.

 

 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

As part of our topic next half term we will be reading the Very Hungry Caterpillar. This is a very original retelling of the story that you might enjoy.

http://www.earlylearninghq.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/TheGreedyCaterpillarV2.swf

This is a flash file so in most instances it will not work on Apple handheld devices or Kindles.

Songs And Rhymes Sessions

Don't forget the songs and rhymes sessions we will be running after Easter for our Reception children, younger siblings of children who are at the school and children due to start at Kings Copse next year. We will be singing songs related to our topic - It's Spring, Off We Grow!

Here is the song 'Five Little Speckled Frogs' if you fancy practicing.

NEW BLOG

As you know Posterous is closing down this month. The staff at Kings Copse have been working away behind the scenes and I can now announce the launch of our new blog! It is a Blogger blog hosted by Google (fingers crossed they don't close down)!
Find our new blog at http://kingscopseyearr.blogspot.co.uk/

Money

I have been so impressed with how the children have been using and counting money this week. This is something you can easily help your children with at home. When you go shopping give them opportunities to pay. Discussing the coins they use.

Another great way to help your children is to give them some coins to count and make different amounts with. Start with 1p and 2p coins. Give them a small handful of coins to count. Support your child by counting with them at first and remind them that the 2p is worth 2 of the 1p coins. When we count coins in class we touch each of the 1p coins and count up one but when counting a 2p we have to touch it twice quickly counting up 2.

Challenge your child to make different amounts from the coins you have given them. Can they find different ways of making an amount from 1p and 2p coins? What is the most coins they can use or the least?

Perhaps you could set up a little shop or cafe with the toys at home and use real money to pay for the items you buy!

Help your child to recognise the 5p and 10p coins. When they are really good at counting 1p and 2p coins you may want to introduce these into their counting too.

 

Egg boxes

Calling all families! We desperately need donations of egg boxes as soon as possible. We would appreciate any donated egg boxes for children to use in their learning next week. To ensure there is no salmonella risk we need to microwave the egg boxes in advance of using them so if you can give them to Miss Bailey by Friday she will be able to do that before we use them on Monday. If anyone has any long (dozen) egg boxes they would be especially appreciated as children can use these for sequencing some numbered golden eggs.

Assembly

The Year R team were so proud of the children's assembly performance yesterday, as, I'm sure, were you.

Well done children and thank you to all the parents and family members who made time in their schedules to come and support us!

Money, Money, Money

This week we will about money. One of the songs we will be singing is 'Five Curant Buns'.

 

Assembly and trip

The Reception children enjoyed their recent trip to the Blue Reef Aquarium. The all behaved brilliantly and a good time was had by all.

To find out more about our trip make sure you come to our class assembly at 9:00 on Tuesday morning. We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible and telling you about what we have been learning.

Phonics

The children working on phase 3 have now covered all of the phonemes
from phase 3 and will be reviewing them all over the coming weeks
reading and writing one and two syllable words.

The children working on phase 2 are currently reviewing and applying
all the phase 2 phonemes.

Apologies

You may have heard that Posterous (our blog provider) is closing down in April. This has meant I have been spending lots of time exploring new blog providers and so have not been posting as often as usual. Rest assured we will soon have a new class blog up and running. Apologies for the reduced blogging in the meantime.

Welcome to the zoo

The children have chosen to turn the play corner into a zoo office. Today they made some animal masks for the zoo animals.

 

 

Questions

The children have been considering what they know and what they want to find out. Here are some of the questions they have come up with.
Do hippos live in the sea?
Where do tigers live?
One of the children told us people are mammals. This led to a few questions.
What are mammals?
What other animals are mammals?

Playdoh

As part of our topic People and Other Animals children have been using Playdoh to make animals and food for animals. When using Playdoh children are developing their hand muscles and fine motor control learning to squash, squeeze, roll and flatten.

 

Patterns

This week in maths we will be learning about patterns. One of the children made this four step repeating pattern.