In Bumble Bee Class, our topic this term has been ‘Come & Play!’. Our focus is toys, both new and old. We started off by sharing some of our favourite toys from Christmas with the class, and then continued by looking at some of the old toys that Miss Bray and Mrs Gent had bought in. It has been very interesting to see how toys have changed over time, although some haven’t changed very much at all!

We started the term with the story ‘Kipper’s Toybox’, by Mick Inkpen. Kipper created a lost poster for his sock thing and we helped to find him! We then created our own sock things, made our own lost posters and created our own stories featuring our favourite toys! We wrote some amazing stories, and really focused on our handwriting.

   Our final story of the term was ‘Naughty Bus’, by Jan & Jerry Oke. That cheeky bus has made a big mess in our classroom! We imagined our own version of the story, choosing our own ‘naughty’ toys to write about. Year 1 focussed on joining sentences with ‘and’, whilst Reception are beginning to use capital letters and full stops in their sentences.

Our science this half term has been based on materials. We have learnt all about the different types of materials and practised distinguishing between the object and the material from which it is made. We have also tested the properties of materials, seeing if they are absorbent or transparent.

We Have also enjoyed Forest School this half term, especially sharing it with our friends from Somerby Primary School, and have had a lot of fun doing it! We have explored the signs of Winter, including some very rainy days, and enjoyed experimenting with different uses for sticks.

In maths, Year 1 have been adding and subtracting with numbers to 20. We have used counters, number lines, and recalled our number facts. We have just started working with numbers to 50; using tens and ones to make numbers and partition them.

Reception have explored numbers 6, 7, and 8 this half term. We have loved using Numberblocks to help us to understand. We have looked at the composition of the numbers and practised counting forwards and backwards, including finding 1 more and 1 less. We have also spent some time exploring pennies and doubles.

In Design Technology, we have been making puppets! We read both the old and new versions of Little Red Riding Hood, and designed a puppet based on the characters. We explored different ways of joining fabrics (glueing and stapling) and chose which way we’d like to join our own puppet. We then made our own puppet and decorated it based on our design.

Our PE has focussed on gymnastics this half term, and we have loved it! We’ve practised hard to perfect our jumping using a spring board onto a vault, with some of us mastering our straddle jumps. We’ve enjoyed using the apparatus and the beam, and practising cart wheels.