We are starting this school year with the topic, Who Am I?.

Children will be welcoming their new Barn Owl friends and helping them to settle as we remind the class of our routines and rules.

During this topic we explore traditional tales and have fun retelling and recreating the stories.

Term 1 Week 1 Goldilocks and the Three Bears

We have had a wonderful start to this term. It has been lovely to see the children return and meet our new Barn Owl friends, who have settled really well.

We are enjoying the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We have used puppets and masks to retell the story. 

Term 1 Week 2

The Barn Owls have been having lots of fun this week. We  used our bear masks to retell the story together. On Wednesday we made porridge and tried to get it tasting 'just right', so we wanted to eat it all up. There has been sorting of different sized  bears and bowls, and lots of counting too. The Barn Owls have been developing their problem solving skills by making a giant ball run outside and working together to get the ball flowing along from one end to the other. There was great team work!

The children have also produced beautiful self-portraits to go on our class display.

The Three Little Pigs

As we are settling in to our routines it has been lovely to see how the Barn Owls support and encourage each other. Our class rule is that we use kind hands, kind feet and kind words. To help us remember this rule we had fun painting and printing our hands and feet to make a new display. We also thought of different ways that we use kind words, such as when we say 'please' and 'thank you'. The children came up with fantastic suggestions.

The class have been enjoying the story of the Three Little Pigs. They have been very busy as builders using our bricks and builders trolley. We have also linked this topic to testing different materials to build bridges and to make boats. The Barn Owls were great at investigating and decided that certain materials were stronger or needed to be waterproof to work. There has been lots of counting this week, including a number hunt in the garden and then sorting the numbers out.

We also went on  a walk around the school grounds looking for signs that the season is changing and we will continue to do this each week, so we can see and record the changes. 

Little Red Riding Hood

The Barn Owls have really embraced retelling this story. They have been dressing up as the characters and using stick puppets to act out the story. There have been lots of fine motor activities to help build our hand muscles up for writing. We have been mark making in flour, glitter and shaving foam, as well as using pipettes to change the colour of cotton wool pads to look like autumn leaves on the tree. 

This week when we went on our walk around the school grounds to look for signs of autumn we took magnify glasses and binoculars. We collected lots of different coloured and shaped leaves. Then we painted the leaves to make prints on our autumn tree.

We have also been making maps to find the way to Grandma's house through the woods and using footprints and arrows for a friend to follow the path.

The Barn Owls enjoyed watching the ballet of Red Riding Hood where we could see the story being retold through dance and music.  

The Little Red Hen and Harvest

This week we have been busy on the farm, sweeping the leaves, feeding the animals, milking the cows and driving the tractor! All the Barn Owls were happy to help out, unlike the animals on the farm when the Little Red Hen asked for their help.

We made harvest red hen crowns to wear when we sand our harvest song, 'Big Red Combine Harvester'.

The Barn Owls have also followed a recipe to make and bake bread. It was delicious.

On our autumn walk this week we noticed more changes and collected even more leaves!

During our focus on maths this week we used different shapes to make a picture of a hen and we placed the animals in pens matching the number. 

Term 1 Week 6

This week we have been reading the story of The Three Billy Goat Gruff and exploring the school grounds as part of Geography Week. The Barn Owls have been using a resource called Tales Toolkit to help familarise ourselves with the characters and the setting in the story. The children have been able to add actions and retell the story adding lots of details and great voices too! There has been lots of bridge building using a variety of resources.

Using an aerial photograph of the school we walked around the school ground looking for the different features. We then made our own model of the school with junk modelling.

We have also made our own maps and using arrows to make a route our friends can follow.

Term 1 Week 7

This week Barn Owls have been reading the story The Colour Monster by Anna Llanas. This book allows children to explore and describe different feelings and emotions. In the story each feeling has a colour. We have been thinking about how we look and move differently depending on how we feel. The Barn Owls used musical instruments to make different sounds linked to the different feelings. Colour has also been a theme this week and we have mixed paints and colour water to make new colours. The role play area has been the doctor's surgery and the children have been fantastic at looking after, and being the patients! We have used the leaves collected from our autumn walk to decorate and turn into leaf creatures. This has been another lovely week having fun and learning together.

Term 1 Week 8

During our final week of this term we have used two books for inspiration. The first is Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud. This book reminds us how our actions can affect others and if we show kindness, we feel happier too!

The other book, Kindness is my Superpower by Alicia Ortego also taught us about the power of kindness.

We have made Kindness cards to give to people who have been kind to us. We have chalked around our friends on the playground to create superhero outlines. There was also a superhero assault course for us to complete, showing kindness as we did it, by taking turns and encouraging our friends.

The Barn Owls used their handprints to make leaves on the kindness tree.

The role play area has been the vets and just like lots of other people who help us, we think they are everyday superheroes. There has been fun dressing up as superheroes too.

We used the leaves we collected from our autumn walk to test if leaves can sink or float. The conkers were covered in paint and together we shook them to create a picture. We had a wonderful time on our welly walk with the Robins class, especially when we found some squelchy mud to walk through!