Friday 21st March

Some of this week’s learning adventures!

In English this week the children have been showing Miss Hughes their hand strength, pencil grip and letter formation by drawing pictures of their favourite parts of Jack and the Beanstalk. The children have then been writing small sentences to go with the picture they have drawn using their phonic knowledge.

In maths this week we have exploring doubles to ten and also odd and even numbers within ten! The children have been working so hard with their maths knowledge.

In outdoor learning we wanted to make our own footprints! We tried to set the activity up outside and oh my goodness the wind!!! So our outdoor learning became squelchy, squidgy indoor fun instead! We all took our shoes and socks off and stood in a tray of paint! We then walked down a long piece of paper to make our class footprints! This was so much fun and the vocabulary the children used to describe the feeling of the paint on their feet was spectacular!

In phonics this week we have finished learning all the level 3 phonemes. This week they were /ure/ and /er/ . The children have been progressing so well with their reading skills. For the next two weeks we review all of level 3 sounds before we assess the children’s knowledge and understanding. After Easter we begin level 4, where we explore adjacent consonants and polysyllabic words containing all of the level 2 and level 3 phonemes!

Another amazing week in Foundation class!

Have a wonderful weekend

The Foundation Team 

Friday 7th March

What a busy week we have had in Foundation! So much learning and so much fun!

In English this week we have been writing captions to match pictures from Jack and the Beanstalk. The children have been making huge amounts of progress with their writing and it has been lovely to see them use their sound mats and phonics knowledge to write small words.

In math’s this week we have been exploring 9 and 10. We have looked at combining two groups to make 9 and 10 and how we can represent these numbers too.

In outdoor learning this week, we made the most wonderful dinosaur skeletons from twigs and sticks. We continued to work on our teamwork, and we were in pairs collecting the right size a sticks to make the pictures!

On Tuesday afternoon, we explored why some families celebrate Pancake Day / Shrove Tuesday. Janet explained to the class that she would be giving up chocolate for Lent. We then had so much fun making and eating pancakes in class! They were yummy!

On Wednesday it was St Piran’s Day. In the morning, we had a wonderful singing assembly as a school and the children sang Cornish songs and our favourite ‘Looe My Home’ which is an adaptation on ‘Cornwall My Home’. In the afternoon some parents were able to come to our Crafternoon and it was amazing. The adults and children made bunting, St Piran’s flags, collaged flags, crimped playdough pasties and made Cornish patterns! It was lovely!   

Thursday was World Book Day, the children looked amazing in their costumes. Our activities for the day were all based on a book. We explored: Room on the Broom, Tiddler, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, Super Worm and The Rainbow Fish. Each table had the book and corresponding fun activities to go with it. The children made puppets, masks, fingerprinted, designed book covers and drew their favourite characters!

It’s been a super busy week but super amazing too!

Have a wonderful weekend

The Foundation Team

Friday 28th February

The first week back to school is over already! What a quick week!

The children have amazed us at how well they come back to school enthused and ready to learn!

Our big question this half term is: Who Made These Footprints?

This week we have been exploring the life of Amelia Earhart. The children explored how she brought her own plane at the age of 22 and called it the Canary- it was yellow! The children loved learning that Amelia was the first lady to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

The children have been creating planes from pasta, colouring in the canary plane, learning how to make paper airplanes and flying them outside, learning how to draw a plane step by step and so much more.

In English this week we started to read the story of Jack and the Beanstalk; we all loved this story! We read a few different versions and even watched a musical version too! The children learnt the story through role play and a story map and then used their own story maps to sequence and retell the story using amazing oracy skills!

In maths this week we have been combining two groups. The children have worked so hard and progressed so well with their early addition stories. We also continue to sing our 2-, 5- and 10-times table songs daily.

The children’s reading has been fantastic this week in phonics. We have been learning digraphs /or/ and /ur/.

In outdoor learning this week we had outlines of footprints and we collected daisy's, grass and leaves to fill the footprints in, we then went on a footprint hunt around the edge of the school field! 

Next week we look forward to pancake day, St Piran’s Crafternoon with the parents and World Book Day!

Have a wonderful weekend

The Foundation Team

Thursday 13th February

Wow, here we are again at another half term! What a wonderful Half term it has been, jammed packed with amazing learning and progress!

This week we have some very exciting things in class. To finish our big question: What Can I Explore Today? We had two very special visitors for us to explore in class.

Firstly Mrs. Gregory was kind enough to bring her little pug Hugo into school for a short visit. Mrs. Greogry told us all about Hugo and showed us how he uses his scratch box to keep his nails short and how she brushes his teeth. The children explored Hugo by asking so many brilliant questions!

We were then lucky enough that Miss Chapman was kind enough to bring in her bearded dragon to explore. Buzz was very comfortable hugging Harvey from Year 5 (who the dragon belonged to also). Harvey told us amazing facts about Buzz and the children asked so many brilliant questions again!

It was great exploring these wonderful animals as an end to our question. We are really looking forward to the next half terms question? Who made these footprints?

The lady from the Education Library Services visited us too this week, she read one of our favourite stories: Owl babies. She also brought along some owl teddies to act out the story, we loved it!

We have explored and learnt so much this half term and it is really showing in the children’s progress. We are halfway through the year already and we cannot wait to explore the next half and to continue seeing so much wonderful progression form all the children.

Have a wonderful half-term break and we look forward to seeing everyone back to school on Monday 24^th February.

The Foundation Team 

Friday 7th February 

This week the children have been practicing lots of letter formation, in English. We have followed the story of Christopher Nibble and used pictures to identify key words and initial sounds. We then used those initial sounds to write letters using the correct formation.

In maths we have been exploring 6,7, and 8. We have been exploring 1 more and 1 less and also the composition of these numbers. The children are getting really great at learning what parts make a number!

In phonics we have explored the sounds oa and igh. /igh/ is our first trigraph and the children did amazingly well at reading words with this phoneme in.

As we still have our big question of: What can I explore today? We were lucky enough to explore Mrs Gregory’s giant African land snails this week. We looked at them closely and felt their shells. Mrs Gregory taught us so much about them.

On Thursday we had our Speak out, Stay safe assembly session. We explored ways in which we could be hurt and who we can speak to if we are scared and worried.  We explored this using the NSPCC and ‘buddy’ the speech bubble!

Today was Times Table Rock Star Day! Although the children in Foundation do not need to be able to recite their tables we do learn our 2’s ,5’s and 10 times table through song and chant them in class daily. We did this with an extra whoosh today in our rock star clothes and it was great!

Next week is our last week before half term. Next Friday is an INSET day.

Have a wonderful weekend

The Foundation Team 

Friday 31st January

This week the children have been working so hard!

In English this week , we started a new story called: Christopher Nibble! Christopher is a guinea pig who loves eating dandelions BUT they run out!

The children have really enjoyed learning this story. They explored the structure of a story by learning the beginning, middle and end. They sequenced the pictures and wrote key words to match the pictures.

In maths this week we have been exploring 6,7 and 8! The children have used ten frames to represent these numbers and have been AMAZING! We have also continued to learn/sing/chant our 2’s, 5’s and 10 times tables.

In phonics we have explored two diagraphs this week: ai and ee. The children’s reading is progressing so well and during phonics lessons Miss Hughes is always so impressed.

The children have been exploring gardening and mini beasts this week. They have matched vegetables to Christopher Nibble’s garden, dotted, painted and coloured gardening pictures, made minibeast from pipe cleaners and so much more!

Today we were lucky enough to have a community visitor in class that explained all about Chinese New Year. Ava spoke to us about what the celebration means to her family and what they do to celebrate it. She then showed us how to make the most beautiful Chinese lanterns. As Eva came into see us all of our activities were based around Chinese New Year! It was so much fun.

Have a wonderful weekend

The Foundation Team 

Friday 25th January

This week has included the special visit from The Royal Cornwall Showground. They spoke to the children about lots of interesting farm facts and where our food comes from and then the children were able to join in with fantastic activities, they loved exploring and learning.

In English the children have been drawing a labelling parts of a penguin. The children have been using their initial sound and phonics knowledge and it has been amazing to see their progress.

In maths we have been exploring 1 less and the composition of 5. The children really are progressing so well.

In phonics we have learnt the digraphs sh/th( unvoiced like moth) th( voiced like ‘feather’ and ng/.

The children are really growing and progressing, and we are so proud of all they achieve.

Have a wonderful weekend

The Foundation Team 

End of week 2

This week we have continued to be explorers!  When we came to school on Monday some of our polar animals had been frozen! we had to work out how to free them and this was great fun. We used pipettes and warm water, and we soon got them out! We also explored painting ice outside it was so much fun! 

In outdoor learning we used a graded paint sheet and explored our natural area to see if we could match natural items to the sheet! 

In English this week Miss Hughes pretended to be a penguin whilst the children thought of brilliant questions to ask the 'penguin'. Once we had lots of questions, we then used different sources such as books, fact files, the internet and nature programs to answer our questions. The children thought of some amazing questions. 

In maths we have been exploring 'one more' the children have had great fun exploring this topic, especially when we played the bus game!! 

We have explored so much this week! 

Friday 10th January- Happy New Year! 

Happy New Year to everyone, and what a wonderful start back to school we have had!

The children seemed to have grown over the two weeks not at school and it reminds us just how quickly the Foundation year goes!

This half term’s big question is: What can we explore today?

Currently we are exploring polar regions, we have our very own Antarctica in class and the children have loved exploring it. The weather has kindly helped us with our exploration and we have been looking closely at all the ice in our playground. We even completed an experiment to see if we blow bubbles onto the ice will the bubble freeze!!

In English this week we have started to read the story The Emperor’s Egg. The children loved this book, and they learnt it well by using our class story map. We also watched a compilation of Happy Feet the film. The children made connections about what we read in our book. The children have used their oracy and sequencing skills to retell the story in their books.

As we discovered that daddy emperor penguins have a very important job in keeping the egg warm and safe on their feet for 2 months, so we decided to see if we could be an emperor penguin. We had a go at balancing an ‘egg’ on our feet and waddle- it was so tricky! Although Janet was a pro!

In math’s this week we have explored zero, subitise to 5 and count back from 5. Miss Hughes has challenged the children every day to a math’s activity and the children have beat her every day, they are the best mathematicians!

In phonics the children have started level 3 this week we explored phonemes j/v/w/and x. The children have come back to school with such enthusiasm for their phonics and have been so excited to learn level 3!  

The children have also: made arctic scenes, drawn penguins, tried to make igloos from Lego, played read and find, and so much more!

Have a wonderful weekend

The Foundation Team