Our class have really enjoyed our work around Stick Man over the past few weeks.  We have retold the story using a story map and added our own new page to the story using our fantastic ideas.  We have acted out the story, written letters to Stick Man, and even been lucky enough to have a visit from him to our classroom!  We have made our Stick Men and Stick Man masks in the creative area.  We have designed and built homes for Stick Man in the construction area and used made boats for Stick Man with the junk modelling.  In the maths area we have measured and ordered sticks.  We have also read a range of Julia Donaldson books and shared our favourites.

Here in EYFS we have a thematic based curriculum, based around the children’s environment and things that interest them.  Our EYFS team are constantly observing your children to find out what they enjoy, then we do our best to build this into our planning.  Some children recently started making boats, so we decided to do an adult led activity planning and making boats for Stick Man out of our junk modelling materials.  The children really used their imaginations, making masts, sails, engines and oars.  We think you’ll be impressed with the results!

In F2 we have been busy learning all about winter.  we have read non fiction books about winter, looked for signs of winter outdoor and even written our very own winter book.  We have been making playdough snowmen in our malleable area.  We have looked at photographs of snowflakes and made snowflake art using collage materials in our discovery area.  In our maths area we have been adding and taking away using snowballs and snowflakes.  In our creative area we have been colour mixing and making cold colour collages.  We are all trying hard to write every day.  We have made bird feeders, written our own shopping lists for them and written out our instructions.  We are enjoying bird watching in our outdoor area now!

2 had an amazing time performing Our First Nativity in December.  Lots of confident voices, beautiful singing and smiling faces!

In EYFS our new topic is Advent and Christmas.  We have been talking about Advent, making Advent wreaths and thinking about what we can do to prepare for this special time.  We have been thinking about how we can be more like Jesus during collective worship.

In our busy classroom we have been designing, making and wrapping presents in Santa’s workshop.  We have been building stables and the inns of Bethlehem in the construction area.  We have been making Christmas pictures using 2D shapes in the maths area and writing our numbers to 20.  In the writing area we are busy writing Christmas lists, letters to Santa and cards.   We have been reading nativity stories and are looking together at ‘Dear Santa’.  In our discovery area we are thinking about light and dark.  We have experimented with torches and described a range of Christmas objects.  We have been thinking about shadows and have been making our own hand shadow shows.  It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

We are finishing our autumn topic now and will begin to think about Advent and Christmas here in EYFS.  We have had so much fund and are reading and writing for a variety of purposes all the time!  In F2 we have made our own signs for our bakery and bought our shopping using pennies.  We have made playdough hedgehogs and written name labels for them.  We have designed and made our own houses for forest animals and done lots of writing about the Owl Babies.  We all wrote to Mummy Owl to give her ideas of how we can make a delicious soup for the little owls.  Slugs, snails and mice, yum!

As we have been learning about owls and reading non fiction books, Logan brought his bird book in to share with us all.  So in EYFS we are now bird spotters too!

In F2 we have been looking at the artwork of Andy Goldsworthy, then using autumn objects to create some transient art of our own.  As well as having creative fun, this activity has provided us with plenty of maths opportunities, sorting, making repeating patterns and counting.  We have had lots of lovely descriptive language too.  We love art, we are artists!

We have been thinking all about Autumn here in EYFS.  In F2 we have been looking carefully at the changes in our environment, as well as finding information from non-fiction books and the internet.  We are looking at the story of Owl Babies.  We have been acting it out and retelling the story using puppets.  We are writing more and more using our growing phonics and have been writing speech bubbles, for the owls in the story.  In maths we are learning our 3D shapes and our teens numbers, as well as estimating and counting groups of objects.  We have also had lots of fun making autumn colours, making leaf rubbings and making models of woodland animals and dens.

As part of exploring our senses, our class had a fruit tasting session.  We explored our likes and dislikes and came up with describing words for the different types of fruit.  The blueberries were definitely a big hit, the kiwi was a lot less popular!  We know that fruit and vegetables are healthy choices that help to keep our bodies strong.

F2 joined the whole school for “No Pens Wednesday” – no writing materials for a whole day!  This gave us a chance to really focus on our speaking and listening skills, which is always important focus in EYFS.  We sequenced our story of Elmer, using pictures to retell it.  We looked at farm pictures, sorting them and making observations.  We followed instructions and played turn taking games on our maths table.  We are working hard on recognising all our numbers to 10 and beyond.  we all missed our pens but had lots of fun.  

F2 loved our visit from the travelling farm.  We really enjoyed stroking and feeding all of the animals.  In class we have played animal guessing games, sang farm songs and read farm stories.  We have talked about which our favourite animals are and had a go at drawing and painting them.  We were very sad to wave goodbye to the alpaca!

We have been continuing to think about Elmer and coming up with some good describing words for him.   We have been thinking about how Elmer is special and thinking about the things that we are good at.  Plus we have started to get good at new things – we have started to learn to read!  We are getting good at pointing at each word as we use it and using pictures for clues.   In maths we have been counting to 20 and back again and writing numbers.  In our investigation area we have been thinking about the sense of seeing.  In our construction area we have been making homes for Elmer, and in our playdough area we have been making our favourite animals.
      

Last week Elmer the Elephant crept into our classroom, leaving us a letter and a story to share.  We have been talking about the story of Elmer and thinking about how he is different and special.  We have read Elmer books and listened to them in our listening area.  We have ordered the story and used our feelings fans to think about how the characters are feeling.  We have worked together to create some fantastic Elmer pictures and paintings.