Autumn 1 The Enchanted Woodland

Week Commencing 4th September 2023

We had our first week in Lavender class. We  had fun getting to know all of our new friends and teachers. We enjoyed reading a book called 'Here we are' by Oliver Jeffers. We also did lots of counting and sorting in maths and we started to learn how to form our letter shapes correctly.

In art and design, we had a go at using clay to make tree boggart faces. In science, we went on a nature walk around the school grounds. We saw so many different things such as apple and plum trees, butterflies, frogs, spiders, dragonflies and many more things. In science, we also learned about different types of birds and how to identify trees by looking carefully at their leaves. 

Week Commencing 11th September 2023

This week, we learned all about recounts. We thought about our stunning start nature walk from last week and then how we could write this down. We learned about how to sequence events and also how to use words such as first, next, then, after that and finally. In maths, we learned about counting out a group from a larger group of objects. We also learned about representing numbers in different ways and how to spell number words. In science, we explored how to identify and classify different animals. We sorted them by which ones live in the woods, which live in houses and which can live in both. We also had a special focus on woodland animals and wrote lists of questions to find out all about them. In art and design, we explored colour mixing and used these skills to help us to paint pictures of woodland animals. In DT, we learned about food and sorted foods into animal source or plant source. We discovered that some foods like pepperoni pizzas are made out of animal sources and plant sources.

Week Commencing 18th September 2023

This week, we read a book called ‘Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?” We spotted the repetitive pattern in the book and had fun joining in with it. We then made up some new animals for the story and had a go at writing some more parts to go with the pattern. In maths, we learned to count on and back from different numbers within 10. We also learned to find one more, one less and count backwards. In science, we learned about deciduous and evergreen trees and had a go at sorting leaves. We learned all about autumn and seasonal change. We looked at different objects and learned how to sort things that are living, dead and have never been alive. We also did a pinecone science experiment to see what happened to them in cold water and hot water.

Week Commencing 25th September 2023

This week, we read lots of non-fiction books all about the forest. We explored how to write labels, lists and captions. We then made a little classroom display with all of our autumn objects. In maths, we learned how to use the words fewer, more, less than, greater than, equals and the same. We then learned how to use the more than, less than and equals symbols to compare numbers such as 5>2, 1<3, 4=4. In science, we did an experiment with cress seeds. We explore what they needed to make them grow by placing some of them in the sun and some in the dark and then giving some water and some no water. We watched what happened over the week. We also learned about the parts of a flower such as stem, leaf, roots, petals etc. In DT, we learned all about how to chop, peel, cut and grate. We had to learn how to use the equipment safely. In art and design, we learned about the artist Andy Goldsworthy and how he makes transient art using things that he finds outside such as leaves, rocks, sticks etc. We wrote fact files about Andy Goldsworthy and then had a go at making our own transient art using nature objects.

Week Commencing 2^rd October 2023

This week, we had a poetry week to help celebrate national poetry day. We read lots of Julia Donaldson books such as the Gruffalo and learned all about rhyming words. In maths, we learned all about ordering numbers and objects and how to use a number line. In science, we planted a mystery thing. We added soil, water and put it in the sunshine. We then predicted what we thought it would grow into. In geography, we learned all about maps and had a go at making up our own forest maps. In DT, we learned about healthy and less healthy choices. We then used this information to draw designs for our own fruit and vegetable kebabs. We also learned about design criteria.

Week Commencing 9^th October 2023

This week, we read a book called ‘Wolf Won’t Bite’ by Emily Gravett. We spotted the repeated parts of the story and had fun joining in with them. We thought about the main characters and how we could describe them and their feelings. We then thought about our own sentences that we could add to the book using the same ‘I can’ sentence starters. In maths, we started to learn all about addition and subtraction. We learned about parts and wholes and how you need the parts to make up the whole. We then moved onto using the addition symbol. In science, we had a look at our beans that we planted next week to see what had changed. Some of them had started to grow and some had not grown yet. We also thought about what animals live in our school grounds such as ants and spiders. After this, we compared plants and animals to see what was similar and different. In art and design, we used natural materials to make autumn artwork ready for our fantastic finish next week. On Tuesday, we celebrated world mental health day and thought about all of the things that we could do to improve our mental health such as exercise, singing, dancing, drawing etc.

Week Commencing 16^th October 2023