An early Goodbye - see you next year (home again, again, again).

Well, what a strange and sad way to end what has been a lovely summer term in Hedgehog Class. Having to suddenly say 'goodbye' to all of the children on Tuesday lunch time was not the way I wanted to end the year. 

However, luckily we had our Teddy Bear's Picnic in the morning and the children, and their teddies, had a lovely time! The children enjoyed sandwiches they'd made and a ginger biscuit they'd decorated and the rain managed to hold back for a little while. 

Despite the huge disruption that has occurred this academic year, we have had a wonderful time in Hedgehog class over the past term and a bit. Our Mantle story about Queen Matilda and her castle has been very interesting and the children have been fantastic knights. Yesterday they made themselves a Noble Steed which they brought home to show you. Attaching the heads to the dowelling was done in a bit of a rush because I wanted the children to take them home, so apologies if they need a bit of adjusting! The children worked so hard on their horses and were all very proud of them. 

We were supposed to ride our Noble Steeds into a final battle to save the castle... but the end of the story will have to be left to your child's imagination.

I will miss Hedgehog Class over the next few weeks, especially the Year 1s who are going into Squirrel Class! I am looking forward to our Reception children becoming Year 1 Hedgehogs. 

Parents - a huge, huge thank you to you for your support this year. It has been another strange and difficult year to be parents, children and teachers but you have worked with me to continue your children's education in spite of everything. Thank you. 

Thank you also for all the kind cards and best wishes I received for my wedding - they were lovely!

You will be receiving your child's end of year report soon with some ideas to keep learning ticking over for the summer. 

I will be working from home until Wednesday 21st July. If you would like to get in touch with me, please email the school office who will forward your email. Unfortunately I was unable to sort out the reading  books you were kindly sending back for me, but I am about to update Rising Stars with books for your children to read. 

Have a good summer holiday, and I will look forward to seeing you all in September!

Mrs Simpson

Week Ending 25th June

 

Despite the incredibly unseasonal weather this week, the sun shone on Hedgehogs for Wednesday afternoon's Forest School session.

The children were very interested in minibeasts all afternoon-  we turned over many a log and tree stump to see what was living below.

Aside from Forest School, the children's main project this week was to write their Legends of the Dragon, based on the incredible triptychs they created last week. The children were so keen to write and did a wonderful job; so much so that I'll be turning their legends into a book for the classroom.

In other learning this week:

Phonics:

Reception children revisited oi and ow, and focussed on spelling words with these sounds in.  If you'd like to practice these, you can play some games of Boggle. You could set a timer and see how many words your child can build in 5 or 10 minutes, or have a race to see who can build the most words in that time.  I'd recommend having them written out on cards so that your child can move them around (rather than 'in a row' as traditional Boggle is, I tend just to give the children cards and they can put them in any order they like). 

Year 1 children looked at the ow/ou alternatives. They started a word search which we did not have time to finish - if you'd like to finish it for homework you can find it here. 

The spelling list for next week's challenge is here. 

Maths:

Maths has been all about money this week! We spent a lovely morning on Thursday setting up a lollypop and ice cream shop. The aim was for children to recognise the different coins. This is a really good one to practice at home either by setting up a shop yourself or by taking your child to an ice cream van, or similar, to use money in a real context. 

Have a very good week end and I will see you next week!

From Miss Nash.

Week Ending 18th June

 

What a warm week it's been! The children in Hedgehog Class have taken advantage of the weather and we have been outdoors and under the trees a lot. 

In our story, some dragons have been discovered under the hill where the castle has been built. We are currently in the process of deciding what to do with them. 

We had a particularly lovely Forest School session this week, including some children making and trying cleaver (sticky weed) juice and others learning how to build a fire. 

In other learning:

Phonics and Spelling:

Reception children have been revisiting 'ar' and 'or'. You can practise this using these silly sentences. Read the sentences and draw a picture to match. 

Year 1 children have been learning that the 'ea' grapheme can sound like an 'ee' (as in cream and dream) or an 'e' (as in head and spread). 

Next week's spelling challenge words are here. 

Maths:

The children have been weighing items using bucket scales. They've been using the words heavy, light, heavier, lighter, heaviest and lightest to compare items. Year 1 started to weigh items using cubes. 

The best way to practice weighing at home is by baking! Of course, this is using more formal measures but it's great for children to measure out ingredients carefully and weigh them in grams. 

Have a good weekend and I will see you next week!

Miss Nash :0) 

Week Ending 11th June

 

We have (finally) had a very sunny week in Hedgehog class. It's good to be back for the final half term of the year and the children have been happy and enthusiastic all week. 

In our mantle story, the Queen had chosen a location for the castle. We created it in a tuff spot, talking about geographical features and why they are needed for castle living. we also added some animals - this led to an interesting discussion about which animals would have been around, and in England, 1000 years ago. Following the discussion, we removed the lion from the woodland the the orca whales from the river!

The following day, it was finally time to build the castle! We learnt about castle features and the children worked together to create the castle. Later, Year 1 and some keen Reception children labelled a picture of the castle using the correct words for each part. On Thursday, all of the children wrote a report about the castle for Queen Matilda. 

In other learning:

Phonics

Reception children continue to work through the phase 3 digraphs. We recapped 'igh', 'oa' and 'ur/ir'.

To practice these you could play pictionary. You draw the picture, your child writes the word. Before you start, write down 'igh' 'oa' and 'ir' and remind your child of the sound they make. Some suggested words:

night
light
moat
boat
goat
bird
girl

Year 1 children have been learning spellings with the u_e and ew patterns. They will be tested on these next Friday during the spelling challenge. As always, please work on the spellings that suit your child - whichever spellings they find to be a good level of challenge. You can find the words here. 

Maths

Reception and Year 1 children have all been learning about volume and capacity this week using terms such as 'more' 'less' 'full' 'empty' 'nearly full' 'nearly empty' 'half full' 'half empty'. Year 1 have also been measuring capacity.

This can be practised in any way you like around the house - talking about cups of drink, buckets of sand, half-eaten yogurts...

If you'd like to play a game, the children enjoyed this game.


Have a good weekend  :0)

Miss Nash

The End of Half Term: Week Ending 28th May

And there goes the first half of the summer term!

The past six weeks have gone by very quickly and Hedgehog Class has been very happy. I always enjoy the smiley greetings the children give me each morning, and adults around the school keep commenting on what a happy smiley bunch they are at the moment. It's lovely.

This week, several things happened in our story. 

The villagers/travellers were travelling down a woodland path...

The children spent a very productive and creative 45 minutes working on this path. They used a range of resources and methods, working well in small groups and pairs. 

Next, they travelled down the path talking about what they were doing - some where sneaking, others were strolling and others were skipping!

Unfortunately, they met a large, grumpy troll on the way. They had to decide how to get past it. After some discussions, most children chose to duck, sneak and hide in the bushes. A few children decided to talk to the troll. This was tense, but they managed to get past by feeding the troll food from their bags. 

The next day Queen Matilda needed their help to find out what lay beyond the woodland path. The children travelled north, south, east and west to explore the geographical features. The Queen explained that, to build a castle, she needed a location with a hill, fresh water, pastures and a woodland. The children created maps showing what they had found:

They presented their findings to the Queen, who said she would consider where the best location for a castle might be. 

I hope you all have a very good half term. I am not setting any homework because the children, and you, deserve a break from it! However, please do keep reading to and with your child. They should have come home with several books in their bags, and I have also put more books on each child's Rising Stars account. 

See you after half term!

From Miss Nash

Week ending 21st May: a wild, wet and windy week.

 Despite the weather, we made it to the end of the week with every child still on the ground. At one point we thought about getting the parachute out during Forest School, but we decided that could end with Hedgehog Class flying away across Milton Keynes. So we didn't.

Our mantle story.

In our story, the villagers finally set out with Queen Matilda on their quest to help her to establish a new kingdom. Unfortunately, it was soon discovered that a stranger was in our midst. The queen was concerned that she could not recognise who was one of her new knights, and who was not. She told the villagers about knights' coats of arms, which meant that the children's main project this week has been creating their own shields with our own coats of arms on them, complete with an animal to represent them. 

Maths:

Reception children finished work on one more and one less. They also recapped number bonds to 6. 

To practice number bonds to 6, you can play this game (you may have seen it before). 

Year 1 children continued work on fractions. They are learning that to make half they need two equal groups and to find quarters they need four equal groups.

To practice this, complete this sheet. Your child will need objects to do this - first count out the correct number of objects, then share into halves or quarters, then complete the sheet. A good tip is to find a piece of paper, fold it into halves or quarters, then share out the objects between them. For an extra challenge, they could write a matching sentence using the 1/2 or 1/4 symbols, such as  1/2 of 8 is 4. 

Phonics and Spellings:

Reception children continue to recap phase three digraphs. You can practice them using flashcards here. 

They have also been looking at cvcc words - words with a consonant blend at the end such as bump, help best, vest. You can practice these by playing this game. 

Year 1 children have moved onto spelling lists with i_e and o_e in. Please practice these for the spelling challenge next week. Here they are!

Week ending Friday 14th May

 

We have had another very good week in Hedgehog Class. Our mantle story is moving on and the children are very interested in what might happen next.

They were in their village, being rat catchers, spinsters, millers and so on, when they noticed a stranger on the village green. She was tired and her clothes were scruffy, but she had a battered crown on her head!

She explained that she was a Queen, but that she had lost her kingdom. The children were keen to help her - they brought her food and water, cut her hair (thank goodness we had some barbers in our village) and took care of her. Then she invited them to become her new order of knights! She wanted them to go with her on a quest to establish a new kingdom. 

The children discussed this - some were keen to leave, others weren't sure they wanted to leave their beautiful village of Wheat Hill. Eventually they held a vote. It was decided they would all go with the Queen.

We spent a session making 'medieval' bags from paper, string, tape and glue. The children added items they might need for the journey (looking at images to compare now and then). At dawn the next day, they rose from their beds and went to meet the Queen. 

However... she wasn't there! It seems she panicked - she left a letter saying she was worried that the villagers might betray her, like her other knights did. She asked them to promise to look after her. The villagers were disappointed that she wasn't there, but were keen to write some promises so that the Queen would know she could trust them. The Year 1 children did their writing on Thursday, and the Reception children did theirs on Friday - they attached their promises to the village sign for the Queen to find. 

On Monday, we will find out what happens next in our story.

Phonics this week:

Reception children recapped 'or' and looked at 'ur' and 'ir'.  

You could practise this by completing the or word maze, and if you get on well with that, move on to the ur and ir word maze. 

Year 1 children looked at a_e and e_e. They will have a spelling challenge next Friday. They have asked to have their own spelling challenge books, so the spelling challenges will begin to be individual rather than team-based from this point on. 

The words for next week's challenge are here. Please encourage your child to learn the ones higher up on the list. If they are very confident spellers, learn the others too!

Maths this week:

Reception have continued to work on 'one more' and 'one less' up to twenty. We played a game which you could play at home. The instructions are here. 

Year 1 have begun some work on fractions. We focussed on half of an object, picture or amount. This is a great one to practice around the house, halving food, paper shapes, playdough objects and so on. The children have learnt that a half is one of two equal groups. The key word is 'equal'. 

Have a good weekend and I will see you on Monday!

Miss Nash