Welcome to Discoverers class! 

Our teachers are Miss Lambton, Mrs Smith and Miss Duffin. 

In our class, we make sure we:

-use kind hands

-share with our friends

-challenge ourselves

-have fun! 

Please keep an eye on our page as we will regularly update it with pictures of our learning... 

Summer 2 Week 1

Welcome back everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful rest of over half term. This half term, our new topic is called 'Animals of the Plains.' We will be learning about the different animals, talking about the plains and comparing the African plains to the UK. If you are still working from home, I have attached the first weeks planning for you to have a go at, at home. We will be doing very similar activities at school! 

Lockdown w/b 27/4/20

Following on with our Gardeners World topic, I have created a video for you to listen to of the story about a little seed. Listen carefully to what the seed does and how it starts its journey in becoming a beautiful new plant! This weeks activities are based around the story. You will find the video on our VRC. 

Lockdown w/b 20/4/20

Hello everybody! I hope you all had a lovely Easter and have enjoyed the weather over the past couple of weeks. I have put together a week of activities for you to work your way through. Our topic this half term is 'Gardeners World' and therefore we will be looking at how we grow seeds and then look after them. 

Week 3

This week, we have been spotting the signs of Spring. We went on a spring walk around the school grounds to find certain plants and signs that were on our checklist. We talked about new buds growing on trees, small seedlings popping through, different flowers and listening to the birds! 

In maths, we have been looking at what a repeating pattern is and making our own repeating patterns, learning about what 'doubling' means and how we solve these problems and we also learnt about the word 'estimate' and how we can use this to help us with our maths.

During our session with Ms O'Toole, we have been reading the story of 'Room on a Broom' and adding in instruments to help us tell the story. Each of the Discoverers has a part in the story where they say words and use their instrument to make the sound. 

Week 2

This week, we have been looking at how we can be healthy and what a balanced diet looks like. We were looking at the story of the Gruffalo and the Discoverers wanted to make him a healthy snack. After a discussion, they came up with the idea of making a sandwich with a healthy filling. We talked about different fillings and which ones were healthy and which ones weren't. The children then sequenced the pictures of how to make the sandwich and followed these when they were making theirs. We then wrote instructions on how to make the sandwich. 

In PE, the children were using their hand-eye coordination to hit the ball with their pretend racket (their hand!). They were working in pairs and helping each other. 

Spring 2 Week 1

Welcome back! This half term, we will be looking at 'The rhyming world of Julia Donaldson'. We have been looking at the story of The Gruffalo and finding words that rhyme together. We have been working on finding one more and one less of a given number using numicon to help us. We have really enjoyed our new vets role play where we are looking after the animals, writing forms and spelling the animals names. The children decided they wanted to make boats. They each made a boat using the junk modelling and we went outside to test them in the water tray. We talked about how we would make it a 'fair test' by giving each boat the same amount of time in the water. Most boats floated for 1 minute without sinking! We talked about why the boats sunk and what we would do next to improve our boats. 

It was Ash Wednesday and we took a trip to the church for a service. The children had the opportunity to get the ash cross drawn on their forehead by Rev Jane. When we came back to school, we had a class collective worship where we talked about doing something 'good' or 'kind' during lent, rather than giving something up! 

Week 6

This week, we have been working with numicon to consolidate our learning when adding numbers together. Finley from Explorers made a computer game using the Scratch programme. It focused on adding numbers to 10. He came down and showed us how to use it and we used numicon to help us solve the questions! 

We have enjoyed looking at everyone's homework projects, sharing our work and asking questions. Zach bought in some space food for us to try! We enjoyed peaches and talked about the textures. 

Week 5

This week, the children have really enjoyed learning and acting out different stories Jesus told. We looked at The Lost Sheep and The Good Samaritan and talked about what Jesus is trying to teach us. We sequenced and retold the stories. We have continued to create our planetariums, looking carefully at the colours of the different planets. We are using our mixing skills to create these colours. In maths, we were using numicon to add different numbers together and to build numbers, finding the correct amount. 

Week 4

Party week! The Discoverers were invited to Zale's birthday party on Venus! We were asked to bring a special 'party picnic' and to make party hats. We all wrote a list of party food that we would like in our picnic and made hats where we had to use our fine motor skills to cut along the line. When it came to the party, we all sat in the space shuttle, counted down from 10 and blasted off to Venus where we found out lots of facts about the planet! When we came back to Earth, we were able to write about the facts we found out.

We also enjoyed an 'alien bath'! We dipped our feet into a tray of 'wet', 'slippery', 'yucky' and 'cold' beads where we talked about different words to describe the feeling and how it made us feel. 

Week 3

We have been using number lines to find one more and one less of a number.  We have also been using number lines to help us add numbers together! The Discoverers were making repeating patterns using different items of fruit and also enjoyed sorting different objects into piles. 

Outside, the Discoverers enjoyed creating obstacle courses using the planks of wood and walking along these using their balancing skills. 

Week 2

This week, we have been looking at using different skills and techniques to put paint onto paper to create space themed pictures and painting a picture of the moon! We have used different textures (sponges and tooth brushes) to dab and flick paint onto the paper to create different affects. We also looked at mixing different colours to create new colours. We made different shades of grey to create the moon by adding different amounts of black and white paint. 

Spring 1 Week 1

Our new topic is all about Space and the Discoverers have really enjoyed their first week back! We have been learning some of the planet names, enjoying our new space station role play, adding moon rocks and finding the total amount, made our own Moon sand and helped weigh out different ingredients to make playdough! 

We enjoyed the story 'How to Catch a Star' and came up with our own ideas on how we would catch a star. We then made models and wrote about our ideas. 

Week 6

This week, we have been learning about the properties of 3D shapes. we have been using our 2D knowledge to find these shaped faces on the 3D shapes. Buddy the elf left us some presents for us to weigh and order based on their weight. We have also continued to look at the Nativity story and we ordered and sequenced the pictures. Every Discoverer then had a chance to retell the story using their pictures to help them. With Ms O'Toole, we have made collages, using the skills we have been taught, of the people in the nativity (Mary, Joseph, Jesus, Kings, sheep and camels). 

We have learned lots of new sounds in our phonics and we used our sounds to write a letter to Santa and we all got our own replies!! We look forward to seeing what Buddy leaves for us next week... 

Week 5

This week, we have continued to talk about the Christmas story and how Christians get ready for Christmas. We walked to the church to ask Reverend Jane how the church gets ready for Christmas. We were very surprised to find out the church is bare at this time of year, with no decorations at all! The only thing you'll find in a church is the advent wreath. 

We also began to decorate our classroom by putting up the Christmas tree and making paper chains. Each day, Buddy the elf has left us different challenges to do! This week we have had to help him order numbers to 20, count different items and write the number and use different art resources to create pictures. 

Week 4

This week, the Discoverers have been learning about Winter. We started the week with a discussion about what winter is and how we know it is winter. We talked about the different signs we may come across. We then went on an Adventure to the park to spot signs of winter! We saw bare trees, brown leaves, holly, lots of leaves on the floor and we also talked about the clothing we were wearing - warm coats and wellies! We have then used our phonic knowledge to write about what we saw. 

The Discoverers have continued to spot different 2D shapes and talking about their corners and how we know which shape is what! 

Week 3

Buddy the elf set us a challenge! He asked if we could find different objects around the room that were the same length as 7 cubes. The Discoverers worked with some of the Adventurers to find and compare these objects. We then talked about objects that were smaller and bigger and put these in order! We also worked as a team to build a den, joining different sticks to build the frame. We talked about welcoming new babies into the world, looking at different pictures and using our phonics to write what we could see. 

Week 2

Discoverers really enjoyed their trip to the Mandir Temple in London this week! They have listened to different Hindu stories - focusing on the story of Rama and Sita. We talked about the Diwali festival and looked at how Hindu's decorate their houses for this festival. We made Rangoli patterns and decorated our home corner with lights to welcome Rama and Sita home. 

Autumn 2 Week 1

This half term, we are learning about different festivals and celebrations that happen around the world. This week, we have focused on Bonfire Night and why this is celebrated. The children enjoyed mixing colours to create a 'bonfire' picture and looked carefully at the colours that are made when fireworks go off. We made our own rockets using different 2D shapes and have started to talk about their properties. Discoverers have been working hard on recognising and ordering numbers to 10 and 20. 

Week 6

This week, Discoverers have really enjoyed taking on the role of being a teacher. The children had their own registers and were happily ticking off each others names! They were using the whiteboard to practice their sounds and while being in role of a teacher, they were helping Miss Lambton form her letters correctly! The children have been working as a team to build various dens around the school grounds, using different equipment. They enjoyed turning the bikes into 'leaf collectors', collecting up the leaves and putting them into the compost bin. 

Discoverers have been working hard on blending sounds to read words and have had a go at writing their own words! 

Week 5

This week, Discoverers baked a sticky chocolate cake which they thoroughly enjoyed! We have also been working on our gross motor skills, building up strength in our upper body to help with our handwriting. We have also learnt the rules to Hungry Hippos and Ker-Plunk. We had to take turns with our friends and learn how to set up a new game. 

Week 4

Discoverers Class were asked to decorate a window in the church for our Harvest celebration on Monday. Each child chose a fruit or vegetable that they were thankful for. Together, we wrote a prayer to say thank you. 

Each child lit a candle in the church for someone special. 

Week 3

We have started learning our phonics, recognising  numbers and have started our handwriting practice! 

For handwriting, we are following the Kinetic Letters programme and we build up the children's strength by getting them to lie on their tummies to strengthen their shoulder girdle!