Violet Class / Nursery and Reception
Welcome to Violet Class.
Autumn Term 1 2022-2023
We are learning the whole school 'Rainbow Pledges' and finding out how they can help us to learn and manage our behaviour and be the best we can be!
Amazing Me! Amazing You!
We have been learning about ourselves and how we are all special and unique. We have talked about who is in our families and created some family trees and enjoyed listening to the story of Stickman and his family.
We have also talked about our bodies and what we use different parts of our bodies for and we have explored different ways of moving using them. We really enjoyed cooking biscuit people!
We are finding out about how to keep healthy and be safe. Our role play area is a doctor's surgery and we have listened to the stories Oliver's Vegetables and Oliver's Milkshake and have created some artwork.
Wonder
We have been exploring and investigating Autumn. The children have learnt how the environment has changed since Summer. 
Our favourite story has been...
We learnt about how Guy Fawkes tried to blow up King James 1 in the Houses of Parliament a long time ago and that is why we celebrate Bonfire Night on 5th of November every year. The children made firework art, created posters about keeping safe around fireworks and bonfires and demonstrated what they had learnt through role play. They used lots of descriptive language to describe fireworks shape, size, colour and movements.
We celebrated Diwali through the story Rama and Sita, used books and the computer to help us learn facts and find information and made some beautiful rangoli patterns.
We shared the Christmas story and we all worked very hard to learn songs, rhymes and actions to put on our very best performances of 'The Magical Christmas Tree' to our families and friends in school.
Our Changing World
We have explored the winter environment using ours senses and materials in order to keep ourselves warm. We shared the text Oliver's Winter Wish, used our phonic knowledge and skills to write our own winter wishes and worked creatively to design and make snow globes.
We explored cold climates 'The Arctic and Antarctica' The children have been very engaged and now know lots of facts about polar animals and they can use a globe to point out where the north and south pole are.
We are learning how Chinese New Year is celebrated. Our mums and dads joined us for a Chinese New Year Stay and Play afternoon where we shared our knowledge, played in the Chinese Restaurant and practiced using chop sticks. We explored writing Chinese numbers and letters, making lanterns, dragons and rabbits (Year of the Rabbit)
Spring 2
'Hello Spring' is the text we used when learning about the topic 'Our Changing World.' We were able to get outside and use our senses to explore the season of 'Spring' and see how the environment has changed since 'Winter.'
The children were very curious and engaged to learn about life-cycles of chickens and frogs.
We shared the Easter Story and the children were able to watch the story acted out by the 'Open The Book' Team. The children helped to create an 'Easter Garden', made Easter cards, chocolate nests and created Easter Bonnets at home which they showed off in a parade around the church during our end of term Easter Service.
Autumn Term 1 2021-2022
After a successful 'Induction Fortnight' the children quickly formed positive relationships with the Early Years staff and their peers and settled into the routines of Dove Class.
Our theme for this half-term has been Amazing Me! Amazing You! The children have engaged with a variety of texts and activities to find out about themselves, their families, their senses where they live, their community and people who help us.
We have been learning about and embedding our whole school 'Rainbow Pledges' so we can 'Learn by Faith' and be the best we can be!
Autumn Term 2
We have had a very busy November exploring the season of Autumn. We enjoyed an ‘Autumn Walk’ around the school field using our senses to see what we could see, hear, smell and feel, tasting when we cooked apple crumble. The children developed their descriptive language by describing the different sizes and shapes of leaves and different textures. We explored some Nick Butterworth texts about ‘Percy the Park Keeper’ which linked with our Role-play Area. ‘Percy the Park Keeper’s Shed’
‘Fireworks’ went off with a bang as we found out about the story of ‘Guy Fawkes’ and worked with oil pastels, glitter and sequins to create ‘firework pictures.’
We learnt about the Hindu Festival of Light ‘Diwali’. We listened to the story of Rama and Sita and how Diwali is celebrated.
We are so proud of the children and the progress they are making with our new ‘Little Wandle’ phonics scheme and how they are applying their knowledge of letters and sounds and decoding in their reading and writing. The story of Christmas has been our main focus for the last few weeks of term and the children worked so hard to learn the songs and actions for our Nativity ‘Cheeky Cherubs’
They looked fabulous in their costumes and did themselves proud performing on stage!
They have made Christmas cards and decorations, enjoyed a visit from reindeer, enjoyed our Christmas party with traditional games such as pass-the-parcel, musical bumps, musical statues and musical chairs at the end of term!
Spring 1
Our theme this term has taken us to the top and bottom of the world. We have learnt about the animals and climates in the Arctic and Antarctica. We have made comparisons with the colder climates in the world and Winter in our own immediate environment.
We have explored different types of weather, the clothes and materials that we wear in them and how weather affects the environment and activities we do.
An experiment to learn how rain falls through the clouds.
We celebrated Chinese New Year by listening to the story 'The Great Race' where 12 animals cross the river and the winner was the first to have the New Year named after them. We learnt that it was the year of the Tiger, made Chinese Dragons and explored Chinese food and eating with chopsticks in our Chinese Restaurant role play area.
Spring 2
We had great fun celebrating World Book Week. We explored the texts 'The Day the Crayons Quit' and 'The Day the Crayons came Home' Illustrated by Oliver Jeffers. It was a fantastic experience for the children to share stories with Year 3 and 4 children everyday. The children shared their favourite stories and props in small groups, they used interesting story language to retell their favourite parts to their friends.
The children have been developing their musical skills and learning to play notes in time with the music on the glockenspiels. They love to listen to different pieces of music and can talk about how the music makes them feel, what instruments they can hear and what images the music creates in their minds.
We have started to learn about 'Spring' and listened to the story Hooray for Hoppy. We have been on a Spring walk using our senses to explore the signs of Spring all around us.
Summer 1
We have been learning about plants and flowers and how they grow. The children planted sunflower seeds, kept them on the windowsill so that they could have sunlight, watered them and watched them grow. They wrote instructions on how to plant a seed and care for it. They learnt about the artist Vincent Van Gogh; where he came from and looked at some of the art work that he produced. They then had a go a recreating his vase of sunflowers by using their observational skills to carefully paint their own individual sunflowers.
We celebrated The Queen's Platinum Jubilee with a celebration street lunch party and singing. We learnt about The Queen, watched her coronation, designed crowns and made flags.
Summer 2
The children loved journeying through the jungle learning about climates, facts about wild animals, recreating animal prints and listening and joining in with stories such as Rumble in the Jungle.
Mrs Amy Hurren - Class Teacher
Mrs Rebecca Valentine - Class Teacher