Learning the phoneme a

We learnt the phoneme a on Tuesday when Kit and Sam taught us about their favourite fruit snack apples. Children helped Mrs Freeman pick some apples from the school orchard (although the harvest this year is not a good as other years). We used some of the windfall apples to create an apple rolling station and an apple shop outside. We also explored apples using magnifying glasses and the microscope.

Learning the phoneme s

We had a great day learning our first phoneme s. Kit and Sam introduced us to the phoneme; we explored sunflowers, sand, scissors and much more!

p is for pets

On Friday we learnt all about the letter p. We have learned what it looks like, what it sounds like and how we write it. We also put on plays with the puppets and made potions.
We loved meeting our school pet guinea pigs Biscuit and Fudge as well as talking about the pets in our lives.

Tractor visit

The tiger who came to Class R at Hodnet School sent us a very special delivery. A tractor, driven by Gareth, delivering two loaves of tiger bread. We loved looking at the tractor and asking Gareth lots of questions. A huge thank you to Gareth, one of our class parents, for giving us his time.

The Tiger who came to Tea at Hodnet School

The tiger who came to tea and Class R at Hodnet School! We could not believe the cheekiness of whoever had been into our classroom- drinking all of the milk, eating all of the snack, emptying all of Mrs Johnson’s tea pots and leaving their paw prints all over the floor.
While we thought about who this could have been, we got busy with our letter and sound of the day ‘t’. We learned to recognise both the lower and upper case letters and practised writing the lower case t using our rhyme: down the teaspoon and under the teacup then across the top.

We made Mrs Johnson happy again by creating her lots of different flavoured teas. We were fascinated to observe the change in colour of the water and while we knew we were not allowed to drink Mrs Johnson’s tea (unlike the tiger) we were able to smell the different flavours. Mrs Johnson and Mrs Freeman observed some fantastic sharing, teamwork and discussions.

We also explored stories in the tent using torches, formed the letter t in sand and glitter and transported the objects via train to the wooden house.

Settling into school life

Our new Reception class are settling into school life wonderfully; enjoying the yummy school dinners, joining in with collective celebrations and stories in whole school assemblies, walking around our school in a respectful and safe manner, being ready to learn and being kind to our friends. They are already showcasing our school values: being ready, being safe and being respectful.

Our first Woodland Wednesday session

Children were challenged to collect one piece of forest treasure to share with the bears ensuring that they explored safely within our woodland parameters and cared for our woodland while exploring and collecting.

We were then surprised to find a note from the bears in their basket asking if we could help them to prepare for their celebration. We used the bears’ menu ideas to make woodland creations and used our forest treasures to make crowns for them.

We had some super discussions around textures and colours and most importantly, we worked as a team.

Well done to everyone today for such a wonderful first Woodland Wednesday.

Healthy Heroes workshop

On Friday morning we really enjoyed our Healthy Heroes workshop delivered by members of the school nursing team. What an active day we had!

Mini beasts in the woodland

This morning we received a voice note from the forest fairies telling us that the woodland minibeasts were waking up. They want to help keep them safe and so explained to us that they needed to know where they could be found in the woodland.

To get us thinking about where minibeast habitats might be, we started with a game of hungry birds and woolly worms. We each had two woolly worms- one brightly coloured and one darker. We chose a place in the woodland area that would make our ‘worm’ camouflaged. We then swapped areas with the other team and hunted for their woolly worms. Which do you think we found first? Yes, the brightly coloured ones!

We then talked about why some minibeasts are camouflaged within their habitat and why others are not and are more brightly coloured. We talked about safe and kind minibeast hunting and then off we set! Look at what we discovered. We made sure that we returned our minibeasts to where we found them.