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Spring Term 1

Week 6. 6th-10th February 2023
Well done for reaching the end of the first half term of the new year. We are hoping the weather will begin to improve and we can spend more time outside and get some planting done to brighten up the outdoor area.
The children have enjoyed learning about boats over the last few weeks and have used their learning to design and make model boats of their own. They had to think about using waterproof materials and items that float. They tested their boats with varying degrees of success and learned as much from the boats that sank as they did from the ones that stayed afloat. Look out on Tapestry for individual photos of children with their boat creations.
On Tuesday we had our 'safer internet day' as a school and Willow class focused on the importance of switching off technology sometimes and doing something different such as, reading a book or playing outside. They enjoyed the story about Webster spider, hopefully they can tell you all about it.
We are looking forward to our new topic of 'Weather' in the next half term. We will also be focusing on writing so any mark making and fine motor skills practise, such as cutting, colouring, using tweezers to pick things up (not to pluck eyebrows) and playdough over the holidays will really help with this.
Have a lovely holiday, we look forward to seeing you on the 20th February.
 
Week 5.  30th January- 3rd February 2023 
What an exciting week we've had practising and performing our very first class assembly! It was lovely to have so many mums, dads and grandparents in our audience to see the children speaking clearly, singing ,acting, playing instruments and sharing their art work. 
In music this week the children enjoyed playing instruments to accompany row, row, row your boat. 
They then took it in turns to play along to the beat with a friend. 
By following instructions carefully, the children drew their own emergency vehicles and coloured them in with care.
The children have been investigating different types of boats as part of our design and technology and are looking forward to designing and making their own boats next week. Practising their scissor skills, the children have cut out and created some beautiful yachts.
The new 'phonics school' is proving to be very popular and is helping to reinforce their phonic knowledge and blending skills. We have spotted some potential teachers in the making!
Week 4 23rd-27th January

Another busy week when we were lucky enough to have a live pantomime showing Beauty and the Beast. The children loved joining in with all the audience participation of singing, actions and warning when the baddy was coming. 

We enjoyed the story of Superworm and worked on spotting rhyming words by matching objects and then writing the words. We have also been practising our measuring and scissor skills when putting worms in size order …. don’t worry, they weren’t real! 

In DT we are preparing to make boats so this week we have been investigating which materials are good for floating , and which will definitely sink…we won't be making our boats out of playdough it's safe to say !

We have started to think about what to share in our class assembly next week and hope to see as many mums, dads and grandparents as possible in the audience on Thursday. See you then!

Week 3 16th-20th January
What an exciting time we have had in Willow class this week, what with snow, ice and science experiments ! 
The children enjoyed testing different materials to find out if they were waterproof so that we can start to think about building some boats in D.T. The children were surprised to find out that cling film was waterproof and  were brave enough to test it above their heads.
In P.E we have been practising making different gymnastic shapes such as pencil shapes and tucked shapes with our bodies. The children also enjoyed playing the traffic light game.
In maths we have been comparing different items to see which is heavier and which is lighter using balance scales to check our predictions.
We were very excited to see snow and ice this week , the children had a great time running around in the snow and playing snowballs (carefully monitored by the adults). They were interested to see how to break the ice on the top of a bucket of water which led to a useful discussion about safety and staying away from frozen ponds and lakes. The children made very  positive contributions to the discussion.
We are looking forward to the pantomime next week and hope you have a lovely weekend.
Week 2 9th-13th January
Willow class have started talking about superheroes and their qualities. We decided what made a good superhero and have interviewed members of staff to find out if we have any superheroes in school. We have also made playdough superheroes. 
In music we had great fun playing musical instruments to accompany the nursery rhyme Hickory Dickory Dock. We have also been keeping a steady rhythm through clapping games and playing the agogo.
Next week we shall be learning all about 'real life superheroes' in our community, perhaps you could look out for some over the weekend.
Week 1 3rd-6th January
Welcome back. We hope you had a lovely Christmas and a good start to 2023. We have been spending the first week back getting to know the routines of the class again and talking about our Christmas, the children have been really keen to talk about their Christmas presents and have  painted and written a sentence about them.
We will be starting our Spring reading groups on Monday 10th January so children will only be bringing home 'sharing' books this week.