Acorn Class
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Blog 2024 - 2025
Spring 2
We have had an exciting half term, and have been delighted to see the progress that the children have made.
In phonics the children have been consolidating their learning in order to be able to spell words to use in their independent writing. There has been lots of repetition of word building and word reading, and we have used pictures as a stimulus to encourage their writing, so for example, they may now be confident to write “the black cat”. We have spent some time discussing sentence starters such as “the” or “it is a” to help scaffold their independent writing. The children have made fantastic progress in their handwriting and this will now be a stronger focus in the summer term. The children are beginning to feel proud of their writing and extend their imagination which is lovely to see.
We have loved reading this term. Many of the children are becoming more confident readers and starting to use intonation and expression when reading which is lovely to hear. The children are still enjoying using the book corner to read quietly or explore unknown books, and have also been fascinated by the growing and gardening books on our interest table.
The topic this term has been ‘Traditional Tales’ and the children have enjoyed joining in with “once upon a time” and “they lived happily ever after”. They have enjoyed playing in the fairy-tale shop and acting out our stories of the week. They particularly enjoyed Jack and the Beanstalk and have been building models which reach “the giant in the sky”.
In maths we have been looking at 9, and 10, doubles and odd and even numbers. The children have continued to show interest in our refocused maths area where they have opportunities to explore new learning, such as using the part part whole model for numbers 9 and 10, as well as revisiting prior learning, such as measuring objects and using previous vocabulary such as longer, longest, shorter, shortest. The children have enjoyed strolling around the classroom in hi vis jackets with a clipboard and ruler measuring anything that they can find! It has been lovely to watch.
We have enjoyed more activities out in the garden this half term too, such as reading in the story shed, making cards at the table, building obstacle courses and dressing up in the home corner shed.
Continued changes in the classroom have inspired the children in their play, and we have seen more examples of the children taking their learning into their exploring time and knowing and remembering more as a result! What a wonderful half term we have had and we look forward to the start of the Summer term when we return.
Spring 1
This half term has seen all of Acorn class make huge strides in their learning. Lots of progress has been made in all areas which is so exciting to see.
In phonics the children have been introduced to digraphs and have started to explore when 2 letters make 1 sound. So far learning about sh, ch, ng, wh, th, qu and ee. Adding these to all the other sounds they have already learnt makes over 30 sounds! Letter formation has been a focus with lots of time spent practicing using a range of materials from playdough, pens, chalks to sand. The children are beginning to recognise their progress and are showing pride in their achievements.
Reading is a big focus and developing the passion to be a reader and the adventures that books can take you on. Lots of great reading has been happening including sharing books with other classes, weekly library visits, book of the week focuses, daily reads and paired reading. Removing some of the books and changing the book corner has inspired children to use the space, and our topic on animals has been a driving force for all the children to want to look at the non-fiction books on our interest table exploring animals and their habitats.
Lots of interest for our topic this half term which has been great! The children have been passionate about animals and learning more about them. We have done lots of work around animals and their habitats, exploring different homes. We have looked at ‘animal superpowers’ and lots of fascinating facts, everyone, including staff have learnt so much. Did you know that sloths are great swimmers and have been around for 65 million years! One creature that got a lot of talk time this half term was the dung beetle, who knew they would be so popular! Think anything that involves poo is going to keep the children entertained.
In maths we started the half term looking at mass and capacity which encouraged lots of talk, problem solving and mathematical language. Refocusing our maths area has seen an abundance of effective learning and interest. The children have been keen to estimate how many objects in would take to fill a certain container. They have experimented with filling the scales to make them as heavy as possible and filling the buckets to see which items are heavier. This was learning they took to other areas, including the construction and outside.
Making changes in the classroom has seen a boost in effective self-directed play this half term, which has been wonderful to see. Lots of talking and using their imagination. Collaborative play and working together, sharing and taking turns. We have more ideas for the environment and look forward to supporting more development in Spring 2.
Autumn 2
What a busy half term it has been! We cannot believe that the children have now completed their first full term in Reception. We have enjoyed a visit from Swanage Library, a Remembrance Day service, Science Day, the whole school Church Service at St George’s Church, a visit from The Swanage School who performed The Sleeping Beauty, and finally our wonderful Nativity. It has been wonderful getting to know your children, and we are very excited about what the Spring term will bring!
In Maths this half term, the children focused on numbers 1-5. They have learnt number formation, one more and one less, sharing, composition and …. They have explored number outside in the garden playing games, using props to tell stories, though songs and interactively on the whiteboard.
We have got out and about as much as possible. Talking about the changing seasons from pumpkin carving to leaf rubbings, apple picking, putting our allotment to bed, chalking on the playground and enjoying outside classroom day.
We have continued with Sounds Write, in phonics and we now know a sound for every letter in the alphabet. We have been doing lots of word building and word reading, and we are thrilled with the progress the children are making with their reading books. We have continued to work on forming our letters correctly, and we will be doing more handwriting next term. We have continued to think about strengthening our hands and arms with lots of outdoor play, big writing on huge sheets of paper, and chalking outside.
In RE we have learned about the Nativity story, ready for our fantastic performances of Prickly Hay! We all enjoyed practising and learning our words. All of the children did a fantastic job, and we were so proud of them all! We enjoyed our trips to the Church to practise and started to identify features of the Church that we recognised.
We have thought about ‘Joyful Journeys!’ in our topic work, exploring the story of ‘The Jolly Christmas Postman’ which led us to make a Christmas Post Office role play area. We also explored ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’ and learnt some bear hunt yoga moves! We’ve thought about the journeys our letters and Christmas cards go on and different forms of transport.
We simply cannot believe how quickly the time has flown; it has been a long half term but a very joyful one! We wish you a happy and relaxing break over the Christmas holidays and we look forward to seeing you in the Spring term, when our new topic will be ‘Amazing Animals’!
Autumn 1
We have had such a fabulous first half term in Acorn Class , the children arrived full of confidence! We are so proud of each and every one of them for settling into school so well, making friends, enjoying their learning, and joining our very special school family. It has gone so quickly and we’ve enjoyed the Harvest Festival in Church surrounded by our community and performing so beautifully, our House Sports afternoon and visitors from the Dog’s Trust.
We started off by settling in, reading The Colour Monster goes to school, engaging in story times, learning our school rules, and being introduced to our school routines. We learned how to play safely in the playground, enjoy snack and lunch time, and walk safely during visits to the nature trail and our allotment! We have explored our outdoor area, where we’ve loved building with blocks and making obstacle courses with tyres, crates and giant bricks.
We have started Sounds Write in phonics and we can do lots of word building as well as well as recognising some phoneme- grapheme correspondences. We are beginning to form some letters correctly, and our handwriting will be a focus next half term. We have enjoyed lots of big movements this half term, playing, climbing, building, and working on the allotment to build up strength in our core, arms and hands ready for writing.
In our ‘It’s me you see!’ topic we have learnt about each of our families, who we live with, and where we live. We’ve found out about when our birthdays are, celebrated some birthdays already, and discovered that all our families might be different but they are all special!
In Maths we have explored matching, sorting and comparing, measure, patterns and it’s me 1, 2, 3! We have been counting blocks, building towers, making sets and groups, matching patterns, continuing repeating patterns, singing counting songs, playing musical instruments and completing ‘how many?’ tasks as well as ‘one more than’ activities.
The children have really enjoyed trips to the allotment looking for signs of Autumn and collecting leaves to do leaf rubbing. They also enjoyed learning about God during RE lessons and visiting Church to perform our Harvest Festival.
It has been such a pleasure getting to know the children this half term, hearing about their families and watching the children become part of our school family, it was wonderful to hear from the lunchtime supervisors how well they settled at lunchtime, and we saw how quickly they integrated into the games on the playground with the rest of the children. The time has flown and we look forward to welcoming the children back after half term, for the run up to Christmas. Have a wonderful break!
2023 - 2024
Summer 2
This half term has been an exciting end to the school year for Acorn class. They have enjoyed a trip to Brownsea Island where they spotted red squirrels, tried pond dipping and observed from a bird hide. When the sun has decided to shine the class have enjoyed visiting the allotment to check on our plants and see what has been growing, the children have reflected on what we have learnt through Understanding the World where we have focused on growth and what plants need to thrive. This has linked with our learning in PSHE, following our SCARF scheme where we have talked about seasons, life stages for plants, animals and humans, getting bigger, where do babies come from? And me and my body.
In phonics they have consolidated CVCC and CCVCC words and used bridging lessons to introduce the different spelling of the same sound for example c, k, and ck. Books of the week they have enjoyed include Lighthouse Keepers Mystery and Commotion in the Ocean, all books have linked with our sun, sand and sea topic this half term. The children have also enjoyed following along with our chapter books on adventures with Pat the sea otter and Suzy the French cat who got lost in a hot air balloon! In maths the children have been manipulating shapes, repeating patterns and looking at things from different angles and visualising and building maps. They have revisited doubles, number bonds to 5 and 10, odds and evens and counting in 10’s.
Other highlights include RE looking at similarities and differences between churches and mosques, where they really enjoyed comparing the church on Brownsea Island to our church in Langton. Tennis coaching and PE lessons with Mr Kelly, lots of ball skills, team work and fun has been had. Sports fun spilled over into sports day where every member of the class gave it their all and worked really hard to earn points for their house. Recently we had a fantastic French day where everyone was keen to sample some French food including cheese and brioche. The children had a go at some French counting, learned more about the upcoming Olympics and some recreated landmarks including the Eiffel Tower and the Arc De Triumph. They were also very excited to have a visit from Zoo Lab, where the got up close and personal with some creepy crawlies including a rose tarantula, corn snake and desert rat!
A fantastic way to finish a brilliant year! Thank you, Acorn class, for all the learning, laughs and memories. Happy Summer!
Acorn Class Summer Term 2 2024
Summer 1
What a very busy half term we have had in Acorn class! We started the half term with our topic Let’s Grow, with our book of the week The Tiny Seed. We introduced our garden centre role play area and updated our outside area to include lots of plant pots, trowels and compost for the children to explore. We have really enjoyed planting seeds, tending our allotment and watching our beans and sunflowers grow as part of this topic. We particularly enjoyed reading Handa’s Surprise, and The Little Red Hen and the Grains of Wheat and Oliver’s Vegetables too.
We have been working hard in Maths finishing our unit on To 20 and beyond, thinking about how many now, one more and one less. We moved on to manipulating shapes, making patterns and experimenting with blocks, 2D shapes, tangrams and Numicon.
In Literacy we have been continuing with our dictation and building on our attempts at independent writing. We introduced sound mats to support the children when writing, and we have given them lots of opportunities to write for purpose, one of our favourites being writing labels to put on the allotment! Playdoh fun remains popular as it continues to help our fine motor skills develop, which will help with handwriting – and it’s lots of fun! We’ve been doing lots of reading - to one another, to our teachers and to different year groups – we have loved showing off how well we can now read!
We loved having Harold the Giraffe visit us on our Scarf Day, helping us to keep healthy and safe and we’ve enjoyed finding out more this term about healthy eating, being active and building resilience. We have been able to play outside on the field, visit the Nature Trail and the allotment and we loved taking over all the playground equipment on outside classroom day, as well as playing huge games of noughts and crosses using chalks on the ground! Maple dancing was great fun, and although we were a bit daunted in the beginning, we worked really hard and the final performance was fantastic! We were very proud of ourselves.
Acorn Class Summer Term 1 2024
Spring 2
What a very busy half term we have had in Acorn class, it has been lovely welcoming Miss Bower, and the children have all enjoyed having two teachers! We started the half term with our topic Traditional Tales, thinking about what features traditional tales often include and how they have changed over the years. We have continued this topic work through our Books of the Week including ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’, ‘The Three Little Pigs, ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’ and ‘Goldilocks’. The children enjoyed exploring maths and writing opportunities linked to these stories. Our Role Play area was reconstructed as a Traditional Tales shop, which the children have enjoyed.
We have loved being out and about this half term. We’ve been on a Spring walk to check on the progress of our allotment, as well as our trip to the farm at Tincleton. The children loved seeing the cows and their calves and going on a ‘Bear Hunt’ walk through the woods, exploring the different habitats that we have in Purbeck. We all loved the trip to the cinema to see ‘Trolls Band Together’ at the Mowlem, and we loved going on the minibus!
We have also particularly enjoyed the whole school events on World Book Day and RE Journey Day, which meant we could work alongside children from other classes. This has also meant moving around the school, completing work in different classrooms with different teachers – great preparation for the years ahead!
In Maths we have been working hard on ‘Building 9 and 10’. We have used all sorts of manipulatives to get to know these numbers, including ten frames, dice, counters, lego, and small animals. We have thought about counting forwards and backwards to 10, composition of 10, bonds to 10, doubles and odd and even numbers.
This term we have added in dictation to our phonics lessons, and we have continued to expand our phonic knowledge using flashcards, word building, interactive white board games, sound swap and seek the sound. We have also started work on independent sentence writing, as well as captions for our pictures. We are still working on our handwriting, taking opportunities to write Mother’s Day, thank you and Easter cards to help practise. We are still working on strengthening our small fingers so there has been lots of ‘squiggling’ as well, which the children have really enjoyed.
As part of Expressive Art and Design, we have made links with our Understanding the World curriculum, and thought about the celebrations of Mother’s Day and Easter, completing art work and craft that linked to these celebrations. We also explored music, preparing for our Easter service and our rousing rendition of ‘Spring Chicken’ – all of the children did us proud!
We have thought about Rights and Respect this half term in PSED, and how we look after special people and our classroom, as well as our homes. We have thought about how we look after our world in class worships as well as making links to Sustrans Walk and Wheel 2024. The children have also enjoyed learning about Easter in RE where we planted our Easter garden, and participating in the RE Journey Day where they explored planting sunflowers, making happy and sad music and decorating Ukrainian Easter eggs, thinking about what is happening in our wider world.
We continue to be immensely proud of all of the children and the progress they are making, we are looking forward to our new topic ‘Let’s grow!’ in the summer term, and heading ‘To 20 and beyond!’ in Maths. What a lot of exciting things to look forward to!
Spring 1
What a very busy half term we have had in Acorn class! We started the half term with our topic Amazing Animals, beginning by learning about the artist Henry Rousseau and making our own Tiger pictures using colour and collage. We have continued this topic work through our Books of the Week including ‘Commotion in the Ocean’, ‘Superworm’ and ‘What the Ladybird heard’. We also enjoyed going on the RSPB birdwatch around our local area, where we took the opportunity to check on our allotment. The children wondered what the bulbs were doing, as they still appeared to be ‘sleeping’, so we have ‘faith and hope’ that they will flower in the Spring. As part of this topic, we restructured our Role Play area which became a Veterinary Surgery, which the children have loved exploring.
In Maths we have been working hard on subitising our numbers, 6, 7, and 8. We have used dominoes, blocks, numicon, dice and counters to explore what these numbers look like, what we see and how we see it. Using these questions we have begun to think about doubles and odd and even numbers.
We have continued to expand our phonic knowledge using flashcards, word building, interactive white board games, sound swap and seek the sound. We have completed some fantastic English work, thinking about New Year resolutions, our favourite animals and recounting our trip to Salisbury Cathedral. We have worked hard on our handwriting and practised our pencil grip using the ‘crocodile snap’ song. We are still working on strengthening our small fingers so there has been lots of play doh fun as well!
We particularly enjoyed our trip to Salisbury Cathedral, the coach trip was exciting, and lots of children could tell us various places that they had visited before. We also had great fun singing and pointing our farm animals that we saw along the way! We also enjoyed welcoming our visitors from Wessex Water this half term, and loved becoming Water Warriors and learning how we could do our bit to save water and help the environment. We have been lucky to be able to get outside on the field , the Nature Trail and the allotment, especially as part of Number Day when we went on an outdoor Maths trail!
As part of our Expressive Art and Design curriculum, we have had great fun making cardboard worlds, constructing props for our finger puppets and drawing and colouring animals, Numberblocks and making posters for Safer Internet Day. We have also begun making glove puppets where we have thought really carefully about what we want out puppets to look like, and we loved making pancakes!
In PSED, we have thought really hard this half term about how we want to keep ourselves safe in the home, online, and out and about. The children have made fantastic connections using this learning when cooking and on Safer Internet Day. The children have also enjoyed learning about different celebrations in RE and particularly enjoyed learning about the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah and lighting the menorah and eating latkes. Some of the children represented the school when talking to the SIAMS visitors, and they did fantastically well explaining what they had been learning in RE.
It is hard to believe that we are now halfway through the children’s first year at School. We are so proud of all of the children, how they have settled, and the progress that they are making. We are looking forward to welcoming Miss Bower back to Acorn Class after half term and starting our new topic, Traditional Tales. Have a wonderful half term!
Acorn Class Spring Term 1 2024
Autumn 2
What a busy half term Acorn class have had! They have so enjoyed the different areas of learning, and having the opportunity to participate in Forest School over the last few weeks. We started the term with ‘The Jolly Christmas Postman’ and introduced our role play Post Office area which immediately sparked their imaginations. They have since been busy posting letters, cutting out stamps, writing petitions, making Christmas cards, and decorating and writing in jotters. They were thrilled to learn about the Dubber Christmas Cover competition and worked hard on their entries. They learnt about Guy Fawkes Night and bonfire safety and made some very sensible suggestions about keeping safe.
Next up came a visit from the Science Dome which captivated their attention and they used lots of language skills and vocabulary building talking about what they had seen. Our following book was ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’, and they particularly loved the Yoga adventure which accompanied this story. They also made some beautiful stained glass poppies as part of our Remembrance activities. The children all participated so maturely in anti-bullying week and Children in Need efforts which coincided with discussing different families and homes in PSED, and thinking about what makes us different and what makes us the same. The children loved discussing what makes them unique!
What a lot of fun we had going to Arne! That was a busy week, as there was also Outdoor Classroom Day where we spent time digging and planting on our allotment. We had glorious weather and lots of help from our school governors, we can’t wait until the Spring to see what happens to our bulbs! We also started our preparations for Christmas, by making Christmas Tree decorations for the Christmas Tree Fair at the Church, and the children enjoyed decorating their stars. This of course tied in with the Nativity story in RE, which we loved exploring.
The book Monty’s Journey was a lovely part of our Joyful Journeys topic, and we discussed the similarities to Stick Man which is our final book of the week this term. As part of this topic we also visited Corfe Castle Railway Museum which was a fantastic experience, and lots of fun! Our Christmas preparations continued with mittens and jars, ready for the end of the school year and a memento from their first term at school. Christmas cards and preparations for the Nativity took up lots of our penultimate week and the children worked hard on their performances.
Incredibly this term, we also managed to fit in Sounds Write, units 4, 5, and 6 introducing lots more new sounds as well as shared reading in class and we focused on writing our name and letter formation too. In Maths we spent some time on four sided shapes, triangles and circles, and consolidating numbers 1 – 5.
Our final flourish was of course our Nativity and Christmas service at the Church which was a beautiful event. The children performed brilliantly and we were so proud of them all. We wish Acorn class a wonderful Christmas holiday and hope you have a relaxing, magical time.
Autumn 1
What an amazing first half term Acorn Class have had! We are so proud of each and every one of them for settling into school so well, making friends, enjoying their learning, and joining our very special school family. The weeks have flown by, we have been so busy! Highlights have been our Harvest Festival in Church, surrounded by our community and performing so beautifully, as well as the sponsored walk, where those with the smallest of legs in our school showed determination and resilience and loved every minute of the challenge!
We started off by settling in, reading The Colour Monster goes to school, engaging in story times, learning our school rules, and being introduced to our school routines. We learned how to play safely in the playground, enjoy snack and lunch time, walk safely during visits to the Church, the nature trail and the local area! We explored our outdoor area, we loved playing with targets, playing in the sand pit, using the story shed and building obstacle courses in the garden.
We started Sounds Write on our second day and now we can do lots of word building as well as well as recognising some phoneme- grapheme correspondences. We are beginning to form some letters correctly, and our handwriting will be a focus next term. We have enjoyed lots of fine motor activities this term such as sewing, threading, peg boards, play dough and jigsaws to build up strength in our hands ready for writing.
In our ‘It’s me you see!’ topic we have learnt about each of our families, who we live with, and where we live. We have looked at maps, and marked all our homes on a map of the local area. We have talked about our pets, our favourite animals, and our favourite foods and colours. We’ve found out about when our birthdays are, celebrated some birthdays already, and discovered that all our families might be different but they are connected by love!
In Maths we have explored, matching, sorting and comparing, measure, patterns and it’s me 1, 2, 3! We have been counting blocks, building towers, making sets and groups, matching patterns, continuing repeating patterns, playing musical instruments and completing ‘how many?’ activities as well as ‘one more than’ activities.
The children have really enjoyed getting out and about in our local area, looking for signs of Autumn and participating in the sponsored walk. They also enjoyed our trips to Church, to get to know the Church during RE lessons and to perform our Harvest Festival.
The children have loved all the opportunities to play games; on the field at lunchtime, on the adventure play in our playground, and in PE lessons. In PE they have explored big movements and moving with control as well as jumping!
We have witnessed personal, social and emotional development over the term, talking about what makes us special, who helps us, and our feelings. The staff have been blown away by the kindness and compassion Acorn class have shown, and the maturity with which they have approached the start of their school journey, it has been such a pleasure getting to know them this term. We hope they have a wonderful break and look forward to the new half term and the start of all things Christmas!
Acorn Class Autumn Term 1 2023
