Welcome to Oak Class!

Reception

Term 5 

Weeks 1 to 4

In An English Country Garden

This week in Oak Class

Friday 12th April 2024

It was lovely to welcome the children back to school this week and they have all come back full of enthusiasm. 

From next week, Oak Class will be making visits to Westgreen Care Home to spend time with some of the residents and share what we have been learning in school with them. If you are able to help with walking the children to and from school to Westgreen on a Wednesday afternoon, please let Ms Ingram know. 

Friday 8th March 2024

It has been an exciting week in Oak Class, with the celebration of World Book Day, International Woman's Day and a special visitor. We were very lucky to have local author and illustrator Eve Coy visit us on Monday. She read some of her books and talked about her love of drawing before giving the chance for the children to draw their own splodge characters. 

For World Book Day the children had the opportunity to work within their House Teams when looking at a variety of picture books, all with the theme of diversity. The children always enjoy the opportunity to work with their older teammates. There was also time for them to read and share their favourite books. 

Another exciting opportunity presented itself when the Year 5 and 6 children had a visit from the staff and children of KLB's Science department, with the children who chose to getting the chance to have a look at a heart. We were facinated by this body part that we never normally get the opportunity to see, with the children discussing the part it plays in keeping us alive and healthy. 

Friday 1st March 2024

It has been a busy first two weeks to the term and there have been some strange events taking place in Oak Class. Last week, to Ms Ingram's dismay, we were visited by a porridge thief, who ate all of Ms Ingram's breakfast! The children decided we needed to find out who was to blame, with the children setting up another bowl of porridge the following day in the hope that it would draw the culprit out. While their suggestion that we should install CCTV cameras in the classroom was a very good one, unfortunately, due to budgetary constraints, we had to ask Mrs Kirby to hide in the classroom with the iPad ready to take a picture if returned. And their plan worked! After close inspection of the evidence, and a letter from Baby Bear, we concluded it must have been Goldilocks. 

The children have been busy learning the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears; making story maps, describing the characters, painting pictures, learning a song, cooking and eating porridge and also watching the CBBC Goldilocks and the Three Bears Ballet. The children have been looking at Woodland environments, the animals that they may find living there and sorting diurnal and nocturnal animals. 

In phonics you may have noticed when looking at the phonic packs, that we have had to introduce an increased number of new codes this week. This is in order for us to 'unlock' more of the reading scheme books we use for home reading. The children have responded extremely well to this challenge.  

There has been a focus on more than, fewer than and equals to/same as in maths this week, along with learning our doubles to double 5 as an automatic recall.

Week beginning 5th February 2024

It has been another magical week in Oak Class! The children have really enjoyed this week's story 'Room on the Broom', with them writing about their favourite characters, what the animals found for the witch and planning the animals they would have in their own stories. 

On Tuesday, we had the first of our cricket coaching sessions, with the children full of enthusiasm. The demonstrated lots of confidence when taking part in this new activity and good collaboration when working in teams. We are really looking forward to this continuing next term. 

Confidence was also demonstrated again on Friday when the Oak Class Poetry Competition finalists performed before a packed church. We are immensely proud of them - well done! 

With Chinese New Year taking place this Saturday, this week the children have been learning about how this is celebrated and the story behind the animals of the Chinese zodiac. With this year being the year of the dragon, we have made dragon puppets and dragon paper chains. We also learnt a song about Chinese New Year, and a phrase that Cantonese speaker use to wish people a happy new year - Gung hay fat choy. 

It may have been a short half term, with only 5 weeks since we came back to school, however the children have been working incredibly hard. They have, once again, been displaying our schools 7C's;

• Commitment; showing commitment to their learning every day
• Challenge; the way they have challenged themselves in their work
• Creativity; in their ideas and artwork
• Curiosity; showing curiosity in the things w have been learning about this term and asking many questions,
• Confidence; showing confidence and joining in with the many new learning experiences, activities and in applying their knowledge and skills this term,
• Citizenship; being kind and helpful towards each other, the adults in school and the wider school, community,
• Collaboration; working together and being a great team. 

We are very pleased with all their hard work and progress this term and are very proud of their amazing attitude towards their learning. Well done Oak Class! Have a lovely week off, get some rest and get ready for another busy, exciting and fun filled term. 

Ms Ingram

Week beginning 22nd January 2024

This week Oak Class finished their Frozen topic by reserching facts about penguins. We chose our favourite penguin facts to write about. We then moved onto our new Talk For Writing story 'The Magic Porridge Pot', starting our own story maps to help us retell the story. 

In maths we have been focusing on the pairs of numbers that add up to make 5 and how we could record these using pictures, items and equations. 

Week beginning 15th January 2024

This week Oak Class has continued to look at the story 'Poles Apart'. The children have labbeled a picture of a penguin and also learnt about the life cycle of penguins.

In addition to learning more about penguins and polar bears, we have been learning at contrasting environments. We looked at the habitats and animals that are found in three countries that are on or near to the equator; the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil, Kenya and China. 

In maths this week we have been concentrating on '1 more' when ordering numbers to 10 and using the vocabulary of 'bigger than' and 'smaller than'. 

Our new codes this week have been sounds that we have already come across 'ff' and 'ss'. The children have learnt that athough they make the same sound as when there is a single letter, in the English language, they are never found at the beginning of a word; always in in the middle or the end of a word. We have also had an additional revision focus on the 'th' code. 

Week beginning 8th January 2024

Happy New Year! It was lovely to welcome back the children on Monday and they were all very eager to share what they had been up to during the holiday. 

This week we started the first of two topics we will be covering this term; Frozen! This is a child initiated topic, with the children telling me earlier in the year that they would like to learn about the animals that live in cold places. 

We read the book Poles Apart and learned that penguins live in the South Pole and Polar Bears in the North Pole... until the Pilchard-Brown family take a wrong turn and so a big adventure begins. The children have worked hard to sequence the events in the story and writing the names of the countries the Pilchard-Brown family and their new friend Mr White visit on their way back home. We have also been looking at maps and a globe to identify where the North Pole, South Pole and the equator can be found, marking them on their own world maps. 

In computing we have been looking at following instructions. Ms Ingram gave the children simple instructions for how to draw a penguin. We think they look great! 

Week beginning 4th December 2023

This week the children have worked really hard with their Nativity play with the children from Key Stage 2 getting a sneak preview during our dress rehearsal on Friday. The children have worked so hard and if they are half as good as they were during rehearsals, you are in for a really big treat. Bring some tissue - they are super cute and there have been a few tears shed by staff already! 

We have also been learning about the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah. The children's hanukkiahs, also known as menorahs, hand painting can be seen in the class window. 

The classroom has also been decorated for Christmas this week, with the children decorating the class tree. They have decided the theme for the role play area, which we have turned into Santa's Workshop. They were very quick to get busy designing, making and wrapping gifts. They have also been writing lists, gift tags and cards. 

Week beginning 27th November 2023

The children had a wonderful time during Science Week. They have been investigating melting and freezing while also learning about climate change and the effects on the life of polar bears. We have looked at ways we can help the environment and reduce our effect on the Earth such as recycling and turing off lights and electrical item when not in use. We also had a demonstration and workshop with a Scientist Forensic Frank. The children got to make their own slime, watch a fizzy pop fountain and make elephant toothpaste. On Friday morning the whole school worked in their House Teams to make Christmas and Winter decorations to make the school look festive. The festive theme carried on to the afternoon when we had lots of fun at the Everyman Theatre watching Mother Goose. 

Week beginning 20th November 2023

With the school all taking part in Road Safety week, Oak Class have been learning how we can keep ourselves safe when out and about. The children have particularly enjoyed watching the Road Safety Hedgehog adverts that you may remember from your own childhood. In an aim to 'be bright, be seen' the children made their own reflective tags for their school bags, along with taking part in the school Road Safety poster competition. 

As part of our Celebrations topic we have started to look at the Muslim celebration of Ramadan. As part of this we have been looking at acts of kindness and are doing to be having a daily act of kindness challenge. We have also been creating paper Ramadan lanterns and painted some beautiful mosque at sunset pictures. We will be looking at Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr in more depth during March and April next year. 

Week beginning 13th November 2023

This week we have started a new topic, 'Celebrations'. Over the next 6 weeks we will be looking at different faiths and some of their important celebrations. 

We started our topic looking at the Hindu faith and how and why they celebrate Diwali. The children have really enjoyed making rongoli patterns and diva pots using clay. We also drew around our friends hands before decorating our hand outlines with mehndi patterns. 

In phonics this we we looked at the 'th' code and have now entered a consolidation phase before we move onto the second No Nonsense book. 

Nativity perporations are well under way and the children have been amazing at learning the songs and narations so very quickly. 

Week beginning 6th November 2023

It was lovely to welcome the children return to school on Tuesday. They had lots of news to share with us and their friends about the fun they had been having during their week off. 

As ever, we have had a busy week. We have continued our topic 'Leaves Are Falling' this week, learning more about The Gunpowder Plot and Guy Fawkes. The children made some beautiful firework pictures and collages, using the class iPads to photograph these themselves. There was great excitment on Thursday when the children made chocolate sparklers which I hope they enjoyed eating when they got home. 

This week we have also been learning about Rememberance Day and why people wear poppies at this time of year. You can see our poppy display in one of the class windows. 

We were very proud of the way the children interacted and behaved during our dementia training on Wednesday. During the afternoon they took part in role play as a way of helping them get a better understanding of dementia including the symptoms and problems people suffering from dementia and their families may face.

As I know some of you are aware, we are experiencing  issues with the Tapestry login. The office are aware and we hope to have this rectified soon. 

Week beginning 23rd October 2023

What a fantastic way to end the children's first term in school! Mrs Kirby and I have spent the week marvelling at how increadable the children have been, and how much they have learnt and grown in the past 8 weeks. Well done to all of Oak Class - you are all stars. 

The week started with an amazing performance from Oak Class during our Harvest Festival. The children showed so much confidence when retelling the story 'The Enormous Carrot'. 

In phonics this week the children learnt the new codes 'ck' and 'e'. We also looked at the tricky words 'to' and 'into'. We have included the first sheet of tricky words in the phonics folders this week, for the children to practice with at home. Remember, the Yeti's (tricky words) can't be sounded out; we just have to remember them. 

In maths this week we have been looking at the comparison of quantities and focusing on using the language 'more than' and 'fewer than'. On Wednesday we were joined by Mrs Knight and Mrs Kemp who popped in to see what we do in our maths lessons in Oak Class. Once again, the children were just fabulous, with their enthusiasm clear to see. 

Linking to our story 'Pumpkin Soup' the children created a list of friendship rules to help Cat, Duck and Squirrel get on better and work as a team. These rules also came in useful when we made some pumpkin soup in class. In addition to the pumpkin soup we also created a 'Spooky Soup Kitchen' in class, with the children following and writing some rather disgusting looking recipes. The 'spooky' theme continued with the creation of the 'Spooky Dark Den'. The children put their names on a list to ensure everybody got a turn to sit in the den and look at the light show. 

For our second Forest School visit we looked at the story of Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot, the theme we will be continuing for our first week back after the holiday. Some of the children helped to make a Guy which we put onto our campfire. The children also made potions with things they were able to find and had lots of fun making a bridge to go over the very deep puddle we found. 

We have finished what has been a very busy half term with the KSA Break the Rules Day. The children have really seemed to enjoy the chance to get up to mischief!

Well done Oak Class. Enjoy your half term holiday.

Week beginning 16th October 2023

This week Oak Class had their first Forest School session of the year. Mrs Copeland shared a wonderful book called 'Invertebrates Are Cool!' and after hearing the story the children spent time hunting for insects. To take the chill off the bracing day, we had a camp fire. 

We have had a change of topic this week, 'Leaves Are Falling, and with that we have a new story; 'Pumpkin Soup'. The roleplay area has now become Squirrel, Cat and Duck's cabin and the children have been enjoying acting out being the characters from the story. We have been learning about Autumn and the children worked hard to create some Autumn and pumpkin art work for the displays, including looking at the work of the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. 

We have continued learning about toys from the past and were very lucky this week when Miss Pearson allowed us to look at and play with some of her old toys. 

This week the new codes in our Phonics learning have been 'c' and 'k'. The children have also been learning the tricky 'Yeti' words 'no' and 'go'. 

Week beginning 9th October 2023

This week Oak Class have been thinking about how wonderful our world is. We have looked at some of the natural wonders of our planet Earth, including some of the incredable animals and plants that we share our world with. The children found the venus flytrap and pitcher plants particuarly interesting, along with the Dragon's Blood tree and the Darth Vader flower! 

Our new codes this week have been 'p' and 'n'. They have been working really hard with their oral blending skills and with using the magnetic letters to make words. The children have also been learning to read the first of the 'tricky' Yeti words 'I' and 'the'. 

We will now usually be adding phonics sheets and changing reading books on a Thursday. This will allow the children to become more familiar with the weeks new codes prior to them coming home. 

Please remember, Oak Class will be having their first Forest School session on Monday 16th October. 

Week beginning 2nd October 2023

This week Oak Class used our story map for The Enormous Turnip to help them create their own class story... The Enormous Carrot. 

We have continued to learn more new 'code'; this week focusing on 't' and 'i'. Along with the code the children learnt last week, they have been able to start making some words using magnetic letters  - well done! 

Week beginning 25th September 2023

This week the children have been really enjoying playing on our new role play area, acting out The Enormous Turnip. We have been thinking about what we know about turnips and describing them. In phonics the children have been introduced to our first two 'codes'; 's' and 'a'. 

Throughout the week the children have been working very hard in maths with our subitising; being able to say how many is in a set without needing to count.

Well done Oak; you have been working so hard this week!

Week beginning 18th September 2023

This week we have been learning about different ways we keep our bodies clean and healthy. We enjoyed doing some science experiments and passing the grems. The big teeth were also fun and we have been looking at foods that are healthy and not so healthy for our teeth. 

Week Beginning 11th September 2023

Oak Class were in school full time this week and we have been very proud of how hard they have worked and how well they have coped with the longer days - well done Oak Class!

This week we have been looking at what makes our families, and us as individuals, special. The children have created open the flap pictures of their houses, with a picture of their family inside. As part of our work about ourselves, we started looking at different parts of our bodies. Oliver helped us by laying on a big sheet of paper while Ms Ingram drew around him before we labelled different parts of the body. We also labelled parts of our faces.  

Week beginning 4th September 2023

The Oak Class team, along with the whole school community, were really excited to welcome the new children and their families this week. The children have settled very quickly and are already getting familiar with the class and school routines. What a fantastic start the new Reception children have made this week!  

Oak Class Archive 

A look back at some of our exciting work and adventures from previous years.

A look back at some of our Lockdown Learning

During the lockdown 2020 summer term our topic was 'Old MacDonald had a Farm' and while we were not able to visit a farm, we learned all about some the animals we might find.  We looked at the life cycles of different animals and found out about what plants need to grow.

The children had fun using the stories 'What the Ladybird Heard' and 'The Scarecrow's Wedding' by Julia Donaldson. Take a look at their wonderful work below.  More pictures of the children's work can be found in the previous weeks' planning sections.