Spring Term 1 2023

Welcome back everyone! We hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and we would like to wish you all a Happy New Year! This half-term we are very excited to meet our new starters, to learn about different cultures and to explore the signs of winter. Please ensure that your child is dressed for the weather! We would love to hear about your child’s learning at home too, through Tapestry and proud clouds.

 

 

This half term the children really enjoyed the Jump in Jumpers Day sponsored event. Please click the link below for more information.

EYFS Outdoor Area

 

Worship

 

The children now have a great understanding of the Holy Family, Bible, Candle and Crucifix which we display on our Worship Table. We look at these during our daily worship.

 

 

Pope Benedict XVI

During our Worship sessions this week, the children have been learning about the amazing things that the late Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI did, including looking after the poor. We have included him in our prayers and have been saying the Eternal Rest prayer together.

 

 

Epiphany

During today’s Worship, the children learned about the word Epiphany. They discovered that today is a special date for many Christians as we celebrate how a star led the three Wise Men to visit the baby Jesus. The children then sang the ‘Three Wise Men’ song that they performed during their Nativity.

 

 

Meeting Father Stephen

We were delighted to meet Father Stephen this week. He told us a little bit about himself and that he will be here whilst Father Andrew is away. The children told him all about their learning and their favourite television programmes. We then finished with a prayer. We look forward to seeing Father Stephen again soon.

 

 

RE

 

Getting to know Jesus

This half term we will learning more about Jesus as an adult, the kindness he showed and the miracles that happened.

 

During our first RE session, the children met Tom the bear who was feeling sad when he got to school because he had left his ball at home. The children were asked what they could do to make Tom feel better.

Ettie “Huggle him.”

Orla “Give him a kiss.”

Charlie “Play with him, with toys.”

Lennon “Play blocks with him.”

Harmony “Play some music.”

Myla-Grace “Stroke his head.”

Oscar “He can play with horses.”

We discovered that we can show our love to Jesus by helping to care for others. The children then came up with their own suggestions on what they felt that they could do to show their love to Jesus.

Harriet “Make Jesus a card.”

Charlie “You can give toys to your friends.”

Libby “Cuddle Mummy and Daddy.”

Sophie “Give Myla a hug.”

Sam “Give hugs.”

Aliza “Play puppets.”

Orla “Help them with something when they don’t know which activity to do.”

It was great to see children helping their friends later on in the day. They helped one another to zip up coats, put shoes on and turn the taps on when washing their hands. Lots of great ways to show their love to Jesus!

 

 

Wedding at Cana

Today we learned about the day that Jesus and his mother Mary went to their friends Wedding. We heard about how the guests ran out of wine to drink and that people went to Jesus for help. Jesus asked for 6 jugs of water to be made up and when the guests tasted it, it was wine! Sophie said that this was magic! We discovered that it was a miracle. We tried to replicate this as we poured water into 6 cups and it then turned red. The children were amazed! Sophie and Orla told us it was a miracle!

 

 

Different Faiths

The children have been learning that there are different cultures, religions and faiths to their own. During a circle time session, the children were shown pictures of St Josephs Church in Wetherby and were asked if they recognised it.

Lennon “Church, the one we go to.”

Myla-Grace “Where we get baptised.”

Sophie “St Josephs Church. We pray for Jesus. I go to Church a lot.”

Orla “It helps us learn about Jesus.”

The children were then shown a picture of Leeds Makkah Mosque, nobody recognised it. They discovered that it is a place of Worship where Muslims go to pray to Allah, known as a Mosque. However as Catholics, we go to Church and pray to God.

We then looked at photographs of Muslims inside the Mosque and noticed that they do not sit on pews like we do but kneel on the floor. The children also noticed that Muslims have different coloured skin. Harriet “It’s brown.” Sophie “We are peach and white.”

 

 

Literacy

 

Our class texts and rhymes

In FS1 we have a special book and rhyme which is linked to our current theme. This changes every two weeks but can still be accessed by the children at any time. Here are our key texts and rhymes this half term.

 

 

Dame Floella Benjamin is also our key author this term. Here are some of the facts that we have learned about her.

 

 

Words of the week

This half the term the children will be learning all about the following words. We will add to this every two weeks as we begin our new topic.  We encourage the children to listen out for the words in our class text and to use them themselves in different contexts.

 

 

Our favourite books

We have been discussing our favourite books this week.

Lennon “My favourite book is Old McDonald at my house because I have one at my house and it has buttons and when you press the button it makes a noise.”

Charlie D “Super Mario because I have it at home, it’s about good guys and bad guys.”

Luana “My favourite one is One Snowy Night at home.” Who is the author? “Nick Butterworth. There’s a park as well there.”

Oscar “I like dinosaur books, it’s called the green one.”

Harriet “My favourite book is rainbow fairy books. I like fairies.”

Harmony “I like Rapunzel books. I like her dress.”

Orla “I like Stickman because everyone thinks he is a stick so it’s really funny.”

 

 

Maths

 

The Number ‘5’

We are starting the half term by learning all about the number five. The children will be drawing five animals, making five play dough ducks and be looking for the number five in their environment.

 

 

The children also learned about one less than 5 through our rhyme of the week ‘Five Little Ducks’.

 

 

The Number ‘6’

The children have learned all about the number 6 too! They have placed six candles in their play dough cakes, matched the correct numeral to the amount of castles and chosen six pieces of food for their banquet in the role play castle.

 

 

2D shapes

The children have been learning about the properties of 2D shapes and today they attempted to create shapes using their bodies. The children have been working on recognising circles, squares, rectangles, triangles and semi-circles, as well as count their vertices and sides.

 

 

Heavy and Light

The children have had lots of fun exploring our balance scales and using words like ‘heavier’, ‘lighter’ and ‘balanced’.

 

 

Phonics

 

Letter Sounds

This half term we will begin to teach the children a different letter sound a week. Please find below a very useful video which will support the correct pronunciation of each sound.

Oxford Owl Phonics- How to pronounce pure sounds

 

 

Pre-cursive writing

Some of the children have expressed an interest in writing their own name and other letters. We encourage the children to use pre-cursive writing when forming their letters. Please find a fantastic PowerPoint presentation below, created by Twinkl, with demonstrations on how to form the letters of the alphabet, that you child can copy at home.

Letter Formation

 

Sorting by initial sound

During this half term, the children will be learning about the sounds ‘m’, ‘s’, ‘i’, ‘a’, ‘t’ and ‘n’. They will be thinking of words that start with a specific sound, trying to identify the initial sound in a word they have been given and trying to recognise the sound when it is written down as a letter. Their first task was to sort a variety of objects and pictures that began with a ‘s’ or a ‘m’ to the correct letter. They really enjoyed this activity and often chose to complete it during their choosing time.

 

 

They also made some ‘silly soup’ which they could only add ingredients to that started with an ‘a’.

 

 

Musical Instruments

The children have really enjoyed getting to know the names of some of our musical instruments and playing different listening games with them.

 

 

 

Physical development

 

PE with Mrs Powell

Our new starters have loved their first PE session this week. The children have been exploring moving in different ways, such as by jumping, jogging and side stepping. We then practised turn taking relay games as the children ran, jumped, ‘drove’ and ‘flew’ to the cone and back before tagging the next person. The children showed fantastic listening and skills during the session.

 

We have also really enjoyed our gymnastics lessons. The children moved and balanced in different ways.

 

 

Leeds Rhinos 

We are delighted to have Georgie from Leeds Rhinos with us this half term. We cannot wait to learn more games and skills over the coming weeks.

 

 

Fine Manipulative Skills

Here is a selection of some of the fine manipulative activities that have been taking place this half term, including threading, cutting, dough and Lego building.

 

 

Healthy Choices

The children have been learning about different ways that they can keep themselves healthy, such as through brushing their teeth, eating healthy snacks and by exercising.

 

 

 

Personal, Social and Emotional Development

 

Mental Health Week

During Mental Health Week we talked about how we do not always feel happy and that is ok. We found out that there are things that we can do to make ourselves and others feel better such as saying kind words. Every morning we had a different activity that we shared with the children that could improve their wellbeing such as yoga, dance, walking outside, reading and exercise. 

 

 

Feeling Worried

After reading the story ‘Winston was worried’, the children explored what the word worried meant further. They showed worried expressions, listened to different scenarios where somebody may feel worried and then came up with their own.

Amelia “Worry miss Mummy.”

Orla “I don’t like scary things, frightened, worry.”

Charlie “When I walk on icicles when walking with Mummy, I might slip and hurt myself.”

Sophie “I worry about if there is a big climb and I worried I might fall and get hurt.”

Greta “When I go to bed, I’m really worried when I have a really bad dream.”

Lennon “When I go out on my sleigh when it’s snowing I am going to get worried about going down hill really fast and getting hurt.”

The children discovered that it is ok to feel worried and that there are things they can do to feel better, such as talking to an adult or giving Monty the worry monster a hug.

 

 

Water Safety

Today we joined FS2 to watch a live video from Yorkshire Water regarding how to stay safe by the river and sea. The children learned that there are different flags at the seaside to let you know when it is safe to swim, that frozen rivers are dangerous, as well as fast flowing rivers. The children spotted lots of dangers on a picture of a river scene, such as children playing football close to the river, children jumping off a bridge and children swimming by a waterfall, as well as many more. Please do remind children of the dangers of water and see how much they can remember!

 

Expressive Arts and Design

 

Drawing and making animals from dough

During our vets and pets topic, the children drew and then created their own dough pets. They thought carefully about the shapes that they would need, the amount of legs and the resources that they could use as they created multi-media creations.

 

 

Building in Construction

The children have been learning about how they can use blocks to create different structures, starting with dog kennels. They stacked blocks horizontally and vertically, ensuring a gap was left for the dog to get in and out of. They then explored how to balance a roof on the top to create a shelter for the dog. Each kennel was so different and unique, we think the children did a fantastic job!

 

 

They then challenged themselves further by creating bridges whilst learning about London. Some children chose to create Tower Bridge whilst others designed their own.

 

 

Creating bags for Floella

The children were challenged with creating something that Floella could carry her clothes in as she made her journey from Trinidad to London. The children thought about different joining methods, the handle and decorations.

 

 

The children also made their own shields during our castles topic. They thought about the colours that they would like to use, the shapes that they had chosen and the textures that they had.

 

 

Taking on a role

The children have lots of opportunities to take on a role in Foundation 1. Our small world provision, role play area and puppet show are enhanced every two weeks alongside out key text. To end the half term we have been learning about castles, here are some photographs of the children taking on a role, sharing their ideas and telling their own stories.

 

 

Understanding the World

 

Winter

We have been busy learning about winter this half term. The children have discussed how they put coats, gloves, hats and scarves on to keep them warm. They have visited the woodland and talked about the bare trees, brown leaves on the ground and snowdrops peeping through. 

 

 

Learning about the world

The children are really enjoying learning about similarities and differences through our class text ‘Coming to England’ by Dame Floella Benjamin. They have discovered how different the weather and food is in Trinidad compared to England and how far away they are from each other on a map. They have talked about how Floella has different coloured skin and drawn pictures of her beside a picture of them. They have also learned more about the sights of London as they have looked at maps and through books. The children were fascinated with our globe, trying to match shapes to those that they could see on our wall map. Sophie told us that the world feels flat because it is so big and Ettie told everyone that the world is a sphere. This then led onto the children learning about their own heritage. The children talked through their family trees that they had created at home and we looked for some of the countries that their family had lived in. We found Italy, Ireland and Columbia to name a few!

 

 

Chinese New Year

The children have really enjoyed learning about the celebrations that take part during Chinese New Year. We found China on a map, watched clips of dragon dancing and the parades. Please find a video with more information below.

 

 

 

Roles and responsibilities

This half term, these children have kindly offered to support the class further with the following roles. We are so proud of all of the children for their increasing independence, responsibility and can do attitude.

 

 

Our visit from a vet

We had some very special visitors before Christmas who have inspired our first topic this half term. Kate the vet and her dog Evie visited the school and told us all about what it is like to be a vet, she allowed the children to see real X-rays of pets, hear Evie’s heartbeat, dress up as a vet and bandage some soft toys. The children had a fantastic time and now start the half term with a vets role play area, filled with donations from Kate. They have made medicine for the animals, taken on the role of a vet and written their own care plans.

 

 

Snow, ice and the cold weather

This week we have experienced some cold weather and the children have been wrapping up warm to explore our outdoor provision. After finding some ice, the children worked together to create their own ice by leaving some water and toys outside overnight. We also looked at which of the objects had sunk to the bottom and which had stayed floating on the top of the water. The next day the water had frozen and had become cold and hard. We left the ice out again overnight to find ice and water the following day. The children realised that it had melted and had lots of fun playing with what was left of their experiment!

 

 

Making Crispy Cakes

The children have enjoyed taking part in some simple baking. We were all very excited to make chocolate crispy cakes! We discussed healthy eating and that it was OK to eat sweet treats in moderation and not for breakfast, lunch and tea! We investigated the state of the chocolate in it’s two forms – solid and liquid and made predictions about what would happen when we heated it! We practised fine motor skills of stirring and spooning the crispy mixture into the cupcake case. Then we watched the chocolate set again and go hard!

“I think it will go like lava” – Oscar

“It’s going to melt – like ice!” – Charlie

“It’s going to go all runny” – Aoife

 

Castles and Canons

The children have learned about lots of amazing things during our castles topic, such as knights, moats, drawbridges, canons, baileys and portcullises. We were amazed to see a real cannonball that this superstar brought in too. She told us that the cannonball was found in her attic and was believed to have been aimed at Spofforth Castle. The children loved holding it, describing it and hearing all about its discovery.

 

 

Enhancing our outdoor area

Please click the button below to see our latest enhancements. We would like to thank everybody that has donated their money, resources or time to this project.

 

EYFS Outdoor Area