Welcome back to the first half of the Summer term in Team EO. We hope you all had a lovely holiday and are ready for an exciting and busy half-term ahead! We are looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow.

This half-term our topic focus is 'Watch it Grow'! We will be exploring life cycles, minibeasts, seeds, plants and healthy eating. 

Our Science focus throughout the Summer term is 'Plants'. We will be learning to identify and name common wild garden plants and trees, identify and describe the basic structure of lants and trees, observe how seeds and bulbs grow into mature plants and find out what plants need to grow and stay healthy. 

Our core book for this half-term is "Jack and the Jelly Beanstalk".

This week we have been learning about ‘what is life like on a farm?’ and ‘what is Easter?’. We started the week listening to the story ‘A Squash and a Squeeze’. We have learnt to name and sign different farm animals and where they live, we have learnt about different jobs a farmer has and the various farm vehicles that help a farmer to do their job! 

Our learning activities this week have included; writing about what we see on the farm, colouring and writing Easter cards, creating split pin eggs with chicks inside, completing Easter dot-to-dots and practising our cutting skills to cut the animals out and stick them in their correct home. We have also enjoyed creating stories with the farm small world animals and listening to lots of different stories about farm animals! We have also been carrying out observational paintings off daffodils in the painting area! The Sunshines have enjoyed working together to complete Easter jigsaws - this has enhanced our fine motor skills, spatial reasoning and problem-solving abilities!

​Our Talk through Stories this week was “Farmer Duck” and we have enjoyed joining in with the repeated and favourite phrases! We took on the role of the duck and freeze-frames the duck's expressions for the following situations:

• The farmer stays in bed all day and you have to work (miserable/glum).
• You have worked hard all day (tired/exhausted).
• You see the farmer has gone (relieved/overjoyed).

Can you work out which photo shows the above situations?

​Our Reception children have continued to work hard in their RWI groups and have been assessed by Miss Overton ready for new groups after the holidays.
​Our Year 1 children have worked hard to write their diary entries – spelling the days of the week, using the conjunction ‘and’ and using the suffix ‘ed’! On Thursday we read our diary entries to a Reception partner before sharing our amazing writing with the class! I am so proud of how confidently and clearly our Year 1's spoke to read their writing aloud.

​In Maths, our Reception children have begun to learn how to use the Rekenreks! We know that we push a number of beads with one finger – we have spent time choosing our own number of beads, saying how many we have pushed and sharing this with our partner, we have pushed along a given number of beads. We have used ‘one finger, one push’ to subitise and explore ‘1 more’ patterns of beads and we have used ‘one finger, one push’ to subitise and explore ‘1 fewer’ patterns of beads. 

​Our Year 1 children have learnt to explain that addition is commutative, found pairs of numbers to 10 and looked at subtraction facts to match and added and subtracted 1 from any number within 10.

Here we are playing a game with our partner where we had to work out the missing number in the pair to 10 to help us learn the fluency facts to 10!

​In RE, we have learnt about the Easter story. We know that on ‘Maundy Thursday’ Jesus had his ‘last supper’, on Good Friday Jesus died on the cross and people were sad, on Saturday Jesus was put in the tomb and on Sunday Jesus rose from the dead and told his disciples to spread Gods love. We also discussed the different ways in which Christians celebrate Easter. These included; going to Church, sending Easter cards, having a special dinner and giving Easter eggs to represent new life.

 On Thursday, before Welly Walk we listened carefully to the story ‘The Easter Bunny Hunt’ from the World of Peter Rabbit. Then we learnt that we were going to go on an Easter hunt just like Peter had done in the story – we were very excited and worked as a team in the nature reserve to find bags of ‘eggs galore’ and to make sure everyone had a bag!

This week we have been learning about ‘what is in the egg?’. We started the week listening to the story ‘Bumpus Jumpus Dinosaurumpus’ and our Talk through Stories unit has been ‘Gigantosaurus’. We have enjoyed listening to lots of different stories about dinosaurs too! We know that dinosaurs are extinct and that this means they are no longer living. We spoke about how some dinosaurs were herbivores (plant eaters), carnivores (meat eaters) and omnivores (plant and meat eaters). We are excellent at identifying different types of dinosaurs. Our learning activities have included; writing captions about what we can see in the dinosaur pictures, developing our pencil control with colouring sheets, using stencils to create dinosaur paintings, using the creative resources to create our own dinosaurs (thinking carefully about the features), developing our scissor skills by carefully cutting out and creating our own split pin dinosaurs and exploring the dinosaurs in the small world area. 

​Our Reception children continue to access appropriate RWI groups and they are loving completing independent writing in provision. Our Year 1 children have worked hard to write diary entries for what they have done on each day of the week and we will continue with this next week. Children have worked hard to spell the days of the week correctly and use the conjunction ‘and’ within their writing

​In Maths, Reception children have joined in with counting backwards from 5 to 1, ordered towards of cubes on a class number track, used appropriate language of ‘before’ and ‘after’ to describe positions on a number track, identified whether numbers are before or after 5 on the number track, begun to understand and follow the rules for a simple track game. 

​Year 1 children have worked out the missing part of an addition story and equation if the other two parts are known, worked out the missing part of a subtraction story and equation if the other two parts are known and learnt to explain that addition and subtraction are inverse operations. Year 1’s Mastering Number sessions focused on developing a deep understanding of expressions and equations.

We all ended the week identifying 3D shapes and describing their basic properties and spotting everyday 3D shapes in our environment!

​In One Life, we spoke about how we are all different and that we are all equal. 

​In Science, we carried out our end of unit investigation! The question we investigated was “Which is the best material to make the bridge and to hold Zog?”. The materials we used in our investigation were; metal (aluminium foil), paper, cotton and wood. Our Year 1 children worked in small groups, made predictions, recorded results and wrote a conclusion about which material was most suitable! Our Reception worked together to complete the investigation. We concluded that the wood was the best material because it was the strongest.

In History, we thought about how Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole has contributed to society. We know that Florence Nightingale taught other nurses and doctors about the importance of hygiene in hospitals. Florence Nightingale opened a training school and trained other nurses which improved the care patients received in hospitals. We know these significant individuals worked hard to care for the ill and injured soldiers in difficult conditions. We know that we remember them in lots of different ways; statues, monuments, museums and hospitals named after them.

Team EO have enjoyed making the most of the sunny weather this week! We have been developing our speaking skills and imaginative skills in the small world area and pirate ship, using mathematical language relating to capacity such as 'full', 'empty', 'half-full' and 'nearly empty' in the water area, developing our gross motor skills with the balls, climbing frame and loose parts by making obstacle courses. Here we are learning in our outdoor provision:

On Welly Walk, we had a lovely time exploring the nature reserve.
​We enjoyed spotting signs of Spring such as daffodils and spotted minibeast such as woodlice. We carefully handled the woodlice and said that it tickled our hands!

Lots of us worked together to make a den! This needed lots of team work skills including taking turns to talk, listening carefully to others and taking on board our friends ideas. There was also lots of problem solving to work out how to and where to connect the tarpaulin sheets, how to secure them into the ground whilst keeping themselves safe. 
One Sunshine had an amazing idea to use sticks as 'pegs' to hold the tarpaulin into the ground!

The Sunshines demonstrated resilience and perseverance when their ideas didn't work out the first time and had lots of fun!

We ended our lovely afternoon on Welly Walk with story time in the shelter - the book was voted for by the children at our story voting station in the classroom. Each day 2 books are put out for children to vote for, children vote for the story they would like to listen to as they come in in a morning and the story with the most votes is read at the end of each day. There is lots of mathematical language involved in this such as 'more than' and 'less than' and helps children to develop an understanding of numbers.

This week we have been learning about what it is like under the sea! We started the week listening to the story ‘Commotion in the Ocean’. We have learned the names of different sea creatures and the Makaton signs for; crab, dolphin, fish, seahorse, whale and shark! Our Reception children have learnt some interesting facts about sea creatures’ habitats and diet! In our Talk through Stories we have listened to and learnt favourite phrases from ‘Tiddler’ – we are amazing at joining in with the story. Our provision activities have included; painting under the sea scenes, making paper plate creatures, practising our scissor skills to make sea creatures and writing captions to match pictures!

Here are some photos of us enjoying our stories and accessing our different learning activities!

​In Literacy, Year 1 children started our new unit of writing based on the text driver “Mr Wolf’s Week” by Colin Hawkins. Our text that we are working on is a diary which we are going to share with our peers to inform them what we have done on each day of the week! This week we have been practising using the conjunction ‘and’, writing words in past tense in sentences and spelling the days of the week correctly. Our Reception children continue to access appropriate RWI groups and are making lovely progress with their reading!

​In Maths, Reception children recapped the numbers 6 to 9 using the ‘5 and a bit’ structure, recapped that 10 can be composed of 5 and 5 and identified when 10 is shown using structured arrangements of objects. We have matched numerals to quantities, explored ways in which 10 can be composed of 2 parts, represented the composition of 10 using dice frames and finger patterns, used structured arrangements to find missing parts of 10 and solved problems involving the composition of 10. We ended the week learning about cubes, spheres, cylinders and cones.

Year 1 children have represented ‘first, the, now’ stories with subtraction equations, represented different types of stories with subtraction calculations and made our own addition and subtraction stories, writing equations to match.
​In Mastering Number, Year 1 children have compared the numbers 10 to 15, reasoning about the size of the numbers using their knowledge that these numbers are composed of ‘10 and a bit’. We have recapped our understanding of the linear number system and practised identifying numbers using clues about their relative position in the number system, using the language of ‘before’, ‘after’ and ‘between’.

​In Science, we have studied the work of the significant individual John Dunlop. We learnt that John Dunlop invented something that impacted and changed travel for the better. We learnt that John Dunlop saw his son struggling to ride a bike because bike had hard tyres. John Dunlop wanted to make bike rides smoother. He invented a new type of tyre which used air inside. We learnt that this is called the pneumatic tyre.

 On Tuesday our Year 1 children went to Team AC to work with the poet Conrad Burdekin. Conrad told us a story about him and his brothers getting ice cream when they were younger. He then told us a poem about ice cream, which we learnt the actions to. We thought and shared lots of different emotions and used some of the emotions we had thought of to create our own poem.

On Thursday, we had a wonderful time on Welly Walk exploring the nature reserve for signs of Spring! We found; green leaves, blossom, daffodils and a ladybird! Afterwards we had fun playing on to stepping stones and some of us worked together start building a ‘teepee tent’ using the long branches!

​In One Life, we have continued to learn about compassion and listened to the story ‘We Are One’.

​On Thursday, we had the exciting Science workshop where we; learnt about the properties of water and paper, made predictions what would happen to the paper once set of fire, experimented by adding drops of water to baby powder using pipettes, then observed the changes of the material and we mixed glue and corn-starch with an activator to make our own slime.

​This week we have been learning about the arctic. We know that penguins are found in Antarctica not the Arctic. We know that the Arctic is in the far North and that the North Pole is in the Arctic. We learnt the names of different Arctic animals such as; Polar Bear, Arctic Hare, Arctic Fox, Snowy Owl, Reindeer, Seal, Walrus and Husky. Our provision activities have included; using water colours to paint Arctic landscapes, creating igloos, writing about what we can see in the Arctic and in the funky fingers area we have been making patterns using loose parts on a snowflake! We have also explored ice cubes in a tuff tray – we have observed what has happened and used different tools to break the ice!

​Our Reception children continue to work hard in their appropriate RWI groups. They have also blown me away with their independent writing “I can see…” sentences about the Arctic. Our Y1 children have practised spelling the days of the week and they have written a short narrative about what their wild thing got up to! They worked hard to include the suffix ‘ed’ in their writing and conjunction ‘and’. 

​In Maths our Reception children have recapped that there are 5 fingers on 1 hand, consolidated our use of finger patterns to represent the composition of 5, used their fingers to represent the composition of 5 and identified a missing part of 5. We have identified when a set of objects shows 5/not 5, identified that 6 can be composed of 5 and 1 and 7 can be composed of 5 and 2 and represented the numbers 6-9 on fingers as ‘5 and a bit’. Reception ended the week continuing to make and extend AAB/ABB patterns. 

​Our Year 1 children have made addition and subtraction stories and wrote equations to match and represented ‘first, then, now’ stories with addition equations. In Mastering Number, our Year 1 children have begun to explore how the numbers 11-15 can be composed of ’10 and a bit’ using different representations.

In One Life, we learnt that compassion means ‘suffering together’, we listened to the kindness song and we listened to the story ‘Kindness Grows’. We know that we need to build compassion for others starting with kindness.
​
In Science, we have carried out this half-terms’ enquiry focus – observation over time. We have observed daily how an apple that has been cut changes. 

In History we have compared the lives of Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole. One way we said that they were similar as they were both determined women who travelled to the Crimea to help during the war. One way we said they were different was Mary used plants and herbs to treat soldiers whereas Florence did not. 
Here we are sorting statements in our Venn diagram:

 On Thursday, we had lots of fun celebrating World Book Day!
In Team EO we had Little Red Riding Hood, Little Miss Sunshine, Where's Wally, Willy Wonka, an Oompa Loompa, Matilda, Snow White, princesses and superheroes!
Here we are in our wonderful costumes!

The adults in Team EO join in the fun too! 
We had; The Highway Rat, Burglar Bill, Evil Pea and EvilTato!

​We listened carefully to stories by lots of different grown-ups and held a circle time to share which book character we were.

In the afternoon we teamed up with Team JD who came down to our classroom and read stories to us - we were so engaged and we listened attentively. A massive thank you to Team JD we loved sharing stories with you!

This week our learning has been based around ‘Wild Animals’. We started the week carefully listening to the story ‘Rumble in the Jungle’. We said that wild animals wouldn’t make good pets and may be quite dangerous! On Tuesday, we listened to the story ‘Dear Zoo’ following on from this we made a class ‘Dear Zoo’ book! Each child worked hard to draw a picture of their chosen wild animal, used there Fred Fingers to write the name of the animal and what was wrong with it! Our provision learning activities have included; using the wild animals and small world resources to make a zoo, sorting two groups of animals into their habitat (farm and jungle), voting for our favourite wild animal, painting pictures of animals from the story and creating junk modelled animals! In our funky fingers area, we have been focusing on scissor skills as we have been cutting out spiral animals and their features before sticking the features in the correct place!

Our Talk through Story of the week was “Where the Wild Things Are” – the children listened attentively to the story, answered questions about the story, joined in with favourite phrases and took on the role of the Wild Things to do freeze-frame expressions!

Can you work out which photo we are showing;

• shocked
• terrifying
  
• upset?
  

​Reception have been working very hard in their appropriate RWI groups. In Literacy, our Year 1 children have continued to practise adding the suffix ‘ed’ to given words and we have practised building and writing sentences in the past tense using the suffix ‘ed’. We have also practised saying the names of letters and forming capital letters correctly. 

​In Maths, for our Year 1 children it has been assessment week. The Year 1’s worked hard to complete an arithmetic and reasoning paper to show staff how amazing they are! Year 1 children have also learnt how to find the missing addend in an equation and to make addition and subtraction stories and wrote equations to match.

Here we are using our addition mats to work out and show the missing addend!

​Our Reception children have visualised, made and describe spatial arrangements of 6, practised subitising to 6, listened to rhythmic patterns of up to 5 sounds and identified the quantity, recognised Numberblocks and related double patterns on their fingers without counting and subitised doubles amounts shown on 10-frames. Reception children ended the week making AAB/ABB patterns. 

In our afternoon Mastering Number sessions our Year 1 children have focused on subtraction within 10.

In History, we have continued to learn about the life of Mary Seacole and our Year 1’s have created fact files about her.

In Science, we have begun to compare and group materials based on their properties. We started by remembering what words we have previously used to describe materials such as hard, soft, dull, bendy, rigid, waterproof, absorbent, transparent and opaque.
Then we were each given an object. We could identify the material the object was made from and we had to say whether the material was 'bendy' or 'rigid'. 

​In One Life, we have begun to learn what compassion is and we have begun to know that self-compassion is important for our mental health. We listened to the story “It’s Okay”.

In PE, we continued to work on our football skills! This week we practised using the side of our foot to pass the ball ensuring we were looking at the target and using the sole of our foot to stop the ball.