Welcome to Acorn Class
This page will be regularly updated with news and work from our Foundation Stage class. Take a look to see how our children have been learning through play and engagement with the environment around them.
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Acorns Show Off Their Character Muscles - This Week They Have Been Learning About 'Perseverance' |
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We have recently been learning about character muscles in Acorns and finding out how different parts of our personality help us to be really great learners at school. This week we have been thinking about 'Perseverance'. Mrs Jordan set us two challenging tasks and talked to us about how to keep going even if we thought we might want to give up. First we had to read our books independently for ten minutes. We then talked about how that had made us feel, including how good it was to succeed in the task. Later in the week, we tried making paper aeroplanes independently from some instructions. This was a real challenge but we stuck at it and kept trying again when it went wrong. We talked about the task before heading out to the playground to test whether or not our perseverance had paid off. Have a look at the pictures below to see our efforts.
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Dinosaur Explorers Inspiration Day |
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On Friday the Acorns took part in their inspiration day. They came to school dressed up as explorers to kick start their new topic. In the morning they followed a series of clues to find hidden dinosaur fossils and made good use of their binoculars and magnifying glasses to spot things on the trail. Back in class they found a slimy swamp and volcano waiting for them. After a while the volcano began to erupt and the children got really sticky exploring objects in the slime.Later they found some frozen dinosaur eggs and had to find way to melt them and get the dinosaur out. They also made some dinosaur skeleton picture and played with the dinosaur small world toys. It was a great day and we took the photos below to show you what we did. Take a look!
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Acorns Learn Mini Biking |
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This week the Acorns have been developing their physical coordination by taking part in balance bike lessons. The balance bike coach has been teaching them how to ride with control and coordination through a range of fun games. The children have practised manoeuvring around cones, travelling over humps in the road, stopping for traffic lights and have even had to watch their speed with a speed camera. At the end of the week they have all made progress on their biking skills and they all received a certificate in assembly. Well done Acorns! Have a look at the pictures below to see Acorns in action.
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The Rainbow Fish Work and Activities |
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This week in Acorns we have been completing work based on the book 'The Rainbow Fish'. In class we have been writing about underwater worlds, inventing our own stories based on the book and even building a cave for the wise octopus. It has been a really rainy week but we still got outside in our wellies for some activities and we also loved creating our own fish with paints. Have a look at the photos below to see how much fun we had learning this week!
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Our Wonderful World Writing |
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We have been busy in Class Acorn looking at our amazing world and the things that you can find all around us. We have been noticing all kinds of living things and writing about them using our awesome phonics skills. Have a look at the writing we have done and talk at home about the amazing things you notice around you.
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Owls Visit the Acorns |
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This week the Acorns have been learning about Owls and reading the story 'Owl Babies'. The classroom has been full of owl activities including owl paintings, a nocturnal cave for the children to explore and owl counting nests. On Monday, the children met some real owls in the hall and had a talk from Simon their handler about these nocturnal creatures. They learned about owl food, how they hunt, owl pellets, where they live and how they fly. Have a look at the pictures below to see how much the children have enjoyed their learning.
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Amazing Autumn |
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This week there has been an Autumn feeling in Class Acorn and the children have been busy exploring and finding out about this exciting season. The children went out for an Autumn walk to spot the sights and sounds of Autumn in the natural world. They collected a range of different coloured leaves and explored why some of them were crisp and some were soggy! Back in school the classroom has been covered in Autumn colours and the children have been making harvest scarecrows. They have also been busy learning harvest songs for our harvest assembly next week. Have a look at what we have been up to below.
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This week in Class Acorn... |
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This week we have been really busy in Class Acorn. First we have been sharing objects out with our friends to learn about dividing.
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Then we used some watercolours to create pictures. We experimented with how to make our colours lighter and darker.
Look how hard we were concentrating whilst being super artists!
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After that it was time to check up on our gardening area to see how the plants we had planted recently were getting on. We checked on the potatoes and strawberry patches, saw how quickly weeds had grown since last time we gardened and even planted a sweet pea plant that one of our class bought in.
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As usual we have also been busy practising our number work, reading our books and practising our amazing writing. We are always busy in Class Acorn.
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Growing Plants |
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This week in Class Acorn we have started learning about how living things grow. We have been planting seeds, learning about the life cycle of plants and went to visit Derry's Nursery to see how they grow plants to sell.
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To the right are some pictures from our trip to Derry's. The gardener talked to us about different plants and what they need to grow really well.
Back in class we ordered the life cycle of plants using pictures, dug in soil to complete some number work and wrote sentences to describe the plants we saw. |
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Building With The Three Little Pigs |
This week the Acorns have been building and constructing houses for the Three Little Pigs. They have been reading and learning the story in class and then have tried to design and build new houses for them to be as safe as possible from the Big Bad Wolf. On Monday afternoon Acorns had help with their parents to complete this task. The pictures below show how they all got on. Thank you to all the parents who came and helped in our building challenge.
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Oh help! Oh no! It's a . . . |
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This week in Acorns we have been completing learning linked to the story of the Gruffalo. We have been creating our own labelled pictures of the characters in the story, ordering numbers in the woodland setting and learning about the creatures found in the text. Best of all we had our parents in to learn with us on Thursday afternoon and really enjoyed showing off what we had done. Look at the pictures below to see more.
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Balance Bike Training |
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This week Class Acorn have been learning cycling skills with an expert instructor. They have been riding balance bikes to work on their gross motor skills and stability. The children have been completing a range of fun activities including gliding through cones, steering round a slalom course, going over ramps and delivering the post to practise their braking skills. Mrs Jordan said she had noticed such an improvement in the children's skills across the week. Hopefully this has given the children great confidence to get on a bike and we would love to see lots of you cycling to school with your parents soon. Have a look at the pictures and videos below to see what the Acorns have been up to.
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How To Be Healthy The Class Acorn Way |
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This week the Acorns have been learning how to keep healthy. They have been looking at food that is good for us, how exercise keeps us fit and even tried out some Yoga with an outside expert! Have a look at the learning we have been doing below including making healthy food faces and our very own exercise videos!
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Pirates Love Underpants |
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This week the Acorns have completed learning based on the book 'Pirates Love Underpants. Look at the photos below to find out what we have been doing!
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We made our own treasure maps to help the pirates find the treasure. We labelled all the important things using our phonics to sound out the words.
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We discovered buried treasure and used it in our maths work. We had to count the golden coins that we uncovered and then add some different amounts together. Look at our fabulous number sentences!
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We also completed lots of other pirate tasks such as writing to the pirates to tell them that we had found their treasure, making pirate hats and painting pirate pictures. We were so busy this week!
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Amazing Animals |
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This week in Class Acorn the animal expert came to share his animals with us. We were really brave and held lots of the animals. We also learned lots of fun and interesting facts about the creatures. Look at the pictures below to see what we have learned about.
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Jungle Grumble |
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This week the Acorns have been reading 'Jungle Grumble' by Julia Jarman and Lynne Chapman. All of the work they have completed has been linked to this book and can be seen in the pictures and videos below. Why not get your child to explain more about what they did?
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We completed lots of writing about our favourite jungle animals.
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We also so did some amazing art work. We painted our favourite animals and created moving creatures. |
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We even made jungle animal patterns and experimented with shapes. What a busy week! |
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First half term in Class Acorn |
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Below are some photos from our first half term in Class Acorn. We have all settled into school really well and have been doing amazing learning with Miss Mowday.
The children have been thinking about this half term's Christian value of Thankfulness and have recorded what they are thankful for in the video below.
What Class 1 have been learning this half-term.
Class 1 enjoyed learning the traditional tale of Goldilocks and the 3 bears. The children acted out the story in our role-play area and they described the characters and sequenced the story in their books. In maths we compared the sizes of the bears and sorted bears according to size. We also had fun making and decorating bear biscuits in 3 different sizes.
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The children really enjoyed learning about events in the past when they found out about Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot and also why we have Remembrance Day. We also found out about why and how Hindus celebrate Diwali.
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As part of our Understanding the World area of the curriculum we have been learning about Light and Dark. The children looked for sources of light in our school and out in the environment and took photographs with the ipad. They investigated various light sources in the dark tent.
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We learnt about nocturnal animals that come out at night and looked at the story of Owl Babies. The children made owls out of pine cones and collected leaves, twigs and moss from outside to make nests for their owls.
We turned our role-play into a magic cave and the children became wizards making up good and bad spells. They wrote lists of what they were going to put into their spells, collected twigs, stones, leaves etc from outside and then made up their spells using some magic powder and liquid to make their spell bubble and fizz.
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Click here to look at the first few days in Class 1.
Autumn/Harvest in Class 1
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Class 1 went for a walk looking for signs of Autumn. We did some bark rubbing and collected leaves which we took back to the classroom and used them for leaf printing and leaf rubbings for our display.
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The children have really enjoyed learning the Funnybones dance in their P.E lesson with Mrs Neal. They have been listening to Funnybones stories and made their own Funnybones skeletons.
Class 1 have done lots of work around the story of Handa's Surprise. We talked about the story being set in Africa and how it looked different from our country. We passed round all the fruits from the story to see how they felt and smelt and then we chopped them all up and all the children had the opportunity to taste all the fruits. Some were more adventurous than others whereas Jacob tried them all and found it very difficult to chose his favourite one!! We made a class tally chart and the children marked the fruit they liked the best and then used this to make their own tally charts.
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We learnt the story so that the children could act it out in the Harvest Assembly, which they did very well including the accompaniment of African drums! The children tried to sequence the story and match the correct animal with the correct fruit on a large story map and then used this to create their own story map. We also found out where all the fruits came from and discovered that they were all from very hot countries and that is why they don't grow in this country. We matched the fruit with it's country on a large map of the world and the children have used this to stick the fruits on their own map. We have also read Handa's Hen by the same author and the children enjoyed this book too.
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Inspiration Day to Warwick Castle
To start our new Foundation Stage and Key Stage One topic of 'Kings, Queens and Castles' , Class 1 and 2 visited Warwick Castle on 13th January.
Click on the file below to find out what Class 1 got up to!
Click on the file below to find out what Class 1 got up to!
| Warwick Castle |
