Christmas!

We have had a fantastic week this week. We put on our play 'The Bossy King' at the beginning of the week. The children performed brilliantly and a big 'Thank You' to the parents for providing such great costumes. See the web site for pictures.
On Wednesday we had a Christmas dinner. We all made our own hats and the whole school sat down to Christmas dinner with all the trimmings-delicious!
On Friday afternoon we had a theatre group come to visit us and they put on the pantomime of 'Snow white and the Seven Dwarfs'. Lots of fun was had by all.
Next week we have our Christmas party and then we will be on our Christmas break. Happy Christmas!

Lots of practice!

We have been practicing hard for our play this week. The children have worked really hard to learn their words and the songs sound fantastic. We are very excited to put the play on for everyone next week.
Next week is Christmas jumper day for charity so please remember to come into school wearing your Christmas jumper and with a donation.
Thank you to all of you who have sent in your stars and a donation for Great Ormand Street Hospital we have made a lovely Christmas display with them.

Christmas Tree!

This week we have been practising hard for our Christmas play. We have sent words home if your child has some to learn so please practise hard! Costumes are due in next week. The children are loving the songs and were very excited about beginning to use the stage.
We have revised our 2D shape maths as many children were unable to name all the shapes and describe them. Perhaps you could practise looking for shapes and naming them on your way to and from school?
We have also been revising our phase 2 tricky words and some children have got these to take home and learn in their book bags this week.
Today we each put a decoration on our lovely big school Christmas tree. See the website for pictures.
The next three weeks are very busy so please keep checking the whiteboard outside, the web site and the newsletters.

Rosie's Walk

We read the story of Rosie's Walk this week. We all practiced using positional language and had a go at writing some words like up, on, in. Some of the children attempted to write a sentence.
This week we have been making decorations to sell at the fair. We hope to see lots of you at the fair on Saturday and you can then buy the decoration to decorate your Christmas tree.
On Wednesday afternoon we went down to our Woodlands area (formerly Forest School). We all enjoyed exploring the muddy kitchen and we looked for leaves to match and discover the names of the different trees. We all made a group hedgehog collage.
We are now preparing for our Christmas play. We all know the part that we have got and have taken a letter home with information as to which costume we need. We have started learning the songs and our home learning is to design a cover for our programme.

Doing The washing!

We had a very interesting week this week finding out about how people did their washing in the olden days. We had some very interesting ideas in our home learning about how we would do our washing if we didn't have a washing machine such as washing our clothes in the bath.
We had a visit from the museum to show us how the Victorians did their washing. The children got into the spirit of things by dressing up as Victorians for the day. Please look at our website to see some pictures.
We read the story of 'Mrs Mopple's Washing Line' and all the children had a go at writing about it. The children are getting better at writing the sounds that they can hear in words. For our maths we continued on with our learning about more and less by taking the washing on and off the line and counting as we did so. Perhaps you could also practise this at home?
Today we have been supporting Children in Need day by dressing up in spots and stripes and bringing our teddies in. We have collected lots of money.

Nursery Rhymes

We have had a fantastic week this week singing lots of nursery rhymes. The children brought in some really lovely home learning and the children were all able to sing their rhyme to the rest of the class.
The children have made paintings of their favourite nursery rhyme and some children have made models. Today some of the children chose to make some spiders in Learning Through Play. They were all wonderful and all different. The children were able to carefully count the legs to make sure that there were eight.
In literacy we had a focus on rhyme and we had a go at writing some rhyming words. We played with the rhyme of Humpty Dumpty and gave it some different endings. In Maths we did some data handling and we found out which nursery rhyme was our favourite. We used the language of more/less/fewer. Perhaps you could continue this on at home.
This week's home learning is to think about what we would do if we didn't have a washing machine. perhaps you could speak to some of your older family to find out what they did.

Autumn Time!

We have had a fantastic few weeks settling in and making new friends and learning new things. We particularly enjoyed our Teddy Bear week when we brought our teddies in and we all did some super writing about them. We read lots of teddy bear stories and had a picnic with our teddies at the end of the week.
This week we have been learning about Autumn and finding out about the Hindu festival of Diwali. We have listened to music by Vivaldi 'The four Seasons' and we have done some dancing. We learned a lovely new song about Autumn and many of the children were singing it as they were raking leaves and sweeping outside.
We read a lovely book called the 'Leaf Man' and some children followed this up with some amazing art work. Lulu's piece was chosen to go into an exhibition at the Harpenden Town Hall.
Next week is 'Nursery Rhyme week' and we will be doing various Nursery Rhyme activities. Home learning this week is to sing nursery rhymes with your child and to draw a picture and label it. We are looking forward to seeing these.

Our First Post

Welcome to the Willow class Blog. We will be writing our Blog at the end of every week. We will look at the comments on the Blog once a week so don't worry if your comments are not verified straight away. We will be commenting on our learning and we will also remind you of Home Learning and any extra reminders. We have had an exciting term so far and the children have settled really well into school and are enjoying their learning.

Superworm!

This week we have been finding out all about worms. We had great fun digging in the plot looking for worms and then we made a wormery so that we can observe the way worms live. We found out that worms have 5 hearts!
We have read the story of 'Superworm' by Julia Donaldson and we all did some writing. Some of us made up our own super hero character and used wow words to describe them.
We had a problem solving day on Friday and the children really concentrated on the problem which was to look for patterns and to see how many different caterpillars they could make using four colours. We had a fun workshop with the 'Game on' coaches where we all had a go at a variety of PE activities such as shot put. On Tuesday afternoon we found some dry weather and did our sports day activities with Lime class. Look out for photos on our web site and in our class book at open evening.

Healthy Living

This week we had a Healthy Living week. We had a visit from the school nurses when we found out all about looking after our teeth and keeping our hands clean. We talked about how we can keep our teeth healthy and we learned how to wash our hands.
We all had a go at making a strawberry and banana smoothie. We talked about eating healthily. We all had a try at drinking the smoothie and most children really enjoyed it. Perhaps you could have a try at making different smooties at home.
We had a visit from a fire engine and the fire men talked to us about fire safety and what we should do if there is a fire. He told the children that if they don't have a fire alarm a fireman could come to the house and fit one for free. Mrs Fairclough tried on the uniform and then we all had a try sitting in the fire engine.
We were very sad that we had to cancel our sports day, but we are hoping to run the activities within a school day at a later date.

Green Day

We had a lovely week last week. We had three little froglets in our tank when we got back from the holidays and we walked down to the pond and released them there. We are hoping that they will grow into adults so we can have tadpoles in our pond in the future.
We continued with our Lifecycles theme by finding out more about the lifecycle of a butterfly. We talked about symmetry in Maths and we made symmetrical butterfly paintings.
On Friday we had a trip to the zoo. We had a Lifecycles workshop where we were able to handle some artefacts and also stroke a snake. The man was very impressed with our knowledge. We were very lucky at the zoo as an elephant had been born that day and we were able to see it in the field with it's family. We had a really lovely day.
This week it was Green Day. We all came into school dressed in green and made donations to the hedgehog hospital. We had all the lights and computers switched off for the day and we had packed lunch at lunch time. At the end of the day we raised out new green flag. We all made a kite and had a lovely time flying them on the field. Did anyone fly their kite at home? Perhaps you could go to the park with your kite on the weekend. Please bring in pictures if you do!
Our sharing assembly was very successful. We had some lovely comments from the teachers and a wonderful letter from Maple class in Year 2 which said that we 'all spoke really clearly and your singing was marvellous.' I'm sure all the parents agree that the children did a fantastic job. 

May Time!

Wow! Wasn't our dance amazing! We have put some pictures on the web site. We were so lucky to have a lovely warm sunny morning for our dancing and the children did so well with the singing.
This week we have been gardening. We have planted out sunflowers, beans, tomatoes and marigolds. Everything is beginning to grow and the children are very excited. We now have a froglet in our tank!
It will be good to see that our plants have grown over the holidays. We wish you all a relaxing and enjoyable break and look forward to hearing all your news when you get back!

Jack and The Beanstalk

We have had an enjoyable week reading the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. The children have done some amazing writing. Some children have managed to retell the story in their own words and have made some fantastic books. We talked about 'wow' words and used words to describe the giant and Jack. Some children included wow words in their writing. Our beans are beginning to grow in the classroom and in our green house outside. Hopefully we will have beans to eat when we come back in September!
This week we have been learning about weight. We have used Maths language to describe weight and we have also used the compare bears and the Numicon to explore number and weight. Next week we will be weighing different items using grams.
next week we will be dancing on Thursday and Friday. Our dance is really coming on well and the children are looking forward to showing it and celebrating May day. Our home work is to find out about May Day, draw a picture and write a sentence.

Time

We have been learning about time in Maths this week. We looked at pictures and sequenced them and talked about what time we did those thinks such as when we go to bed. We have explored clocks and we have talked about the hands. We read the story of 'The Bad tempered ladybird' and we put our clocks to the correct time. We have used sand timers to explore how much we can do in a minute. For example jumping up and down, singing a song etc. Perhaps you could continue to explore some of these themes at home.
We have learned about how to plant a bean and we have all planted our own. We talked about what plants need to grow and we wrote about how to plant a seed using 'bossy' words. We will watch them to see if they grow.
In computing we have looked at the 2create 'super story' programme. Several children have had a go at writing their own books and we have had some great results.
Our home learning this week is to explore weighing as we will be learning about weight in Maths next week.

Feathers!

Our chicks grew very quickly this week and have already got feathers. We have continued to observe them all of this week and we all felt sad when they had to go home to the farm. We have had an exciting and informative week.
We had a lovely session at forest schools. The children did three activities; pond dipping, muddy kitchen and making Andy Goldsworthy pictures with natural found materials. We were lucky enough to find three newts in the pond. The children made some fantastic natural pictures which included faces and a three dimensional tripod.
We have continued to learn about subtraction and some of us have been practicing it in Learning Through Play.
Our home Learning this week is to play games outside. The weather is expected to be nice so we are looking forward to finding out what you have all done!

Chicks!

We have had an exciting week this week as we had some eggs arrive at school in an incubator and we have watched them hatch. We now have 5 fluffy chicks. We have all done some fantastic writing about the lifecycle of a hen and some of the children have also written their own books about hens and chicks. Some children have also made lifecycle hats.
We now also have some tadpoles in the classroom and we will be able to watch them slowly change into frogs over the next few weeks. Next week we will be going down to forest schools and we will be doing some pond dipping. I wonder what we will find?
We have been learning about subtraction this week. The children explored number rhymes at home and we have been singing them in the classroom. We have practiced working out subtraction problems using a variety of manipulatives.
This weekend our home learning is to draw a picture for the Redbourn In Bloom poster competition. We hope to see some great entries. Have a lovely long weekend!

Welcome Back!

We have all come back excited to share our news of the things we did in the holidays. Lucy, William and Ava borrowed our holiday bears and took them away on holiday. Ava took her bear to Mexico 'I did the bungee jump on my own...he watched it out on the balcony'. Lucy took her bear to 'my Granddad's. I went to the beach as well.' William took his bear to Tenerife. 'I swam in the swimming pool and went to the beach.' We all painted some lovely pictures of the things that we did and we have all done some fantastic writing!
We have been dancing to practise for our May Day celebrations. We all have a partner to do the dance with. We have chosen Isabella and Sam to be our May King and Queen.
Our Home Learning this week to sing songs and rhymes to practice our subtraction. We look forward to singing these next week.

End of term!

We have had a shorter week this week as we all enjoyed a long Easter weekend. The children were keen to talk about what they had done over the weekend and we have had an enjoyable week leading up to the end of term.
In maths we have been learning about capacity. We used language such as full, empty, half full, overflowing, more and less to describe what we could see. The children were also encouraged to compare containers and to estimate quantities. We looked at the measures on the side of measuring containers and talked about that too. Some of the children recalled using measures when cooking so this would be a useful maths activity to do in the holidays. Bath times also lend themselves to exploring capacity.
On Thursday we had an RE day where we compared The Christian celebration of Easter with the Hindu celebration of Holi. We did a range of activities including making palm leaves, writing books and making colourful splatter paintings with chalk and paint. The whole school came together at the end of the day to share all our learning.
Remember to do the Easter Challenge as your Home learning activity and we wish you all an enjoyable and relaxing break.

Easter!

We have had a lovely week this week preparing for Easter and finding out about Easter. We found out about the story of Easter and we all had some hot cross buns to taste. I think all the children will now be able to talk about why we celebrate Easter. We all made Easter baskets this week and then the Easter Bunny came to visit us and we had an Easter egg hunt.
We had a visit to Forest School this week where we did a 'We're going on a Bear Hunt' drama, made homes for the small world wild animals and made dens using fabric sheets and sticks that we found. We also made pretend fires and the children pretended to light them by rubbing sticks together. Jacqueline remembered that she had seen how fire is made on her 'Peter Pan' DVD.
We have a long weekend to enjoy with our families and we are all back at school on Tuesday. Please remember that school finishes at 1.30 pm next Friday.

Willow Class assembly

We have had a busy week this week. We had our problem solving maths day on Tuesday. We had a problem to solve which was about sharing. We had four sandwiches to share between three teddies and we had to decide what to do with the last sandwich. We had an interesting variety of ways to share the last sandwich with some children chopping it into three and others chopping it into more pieces and sharing it out. Sharing out is a good activity to practice doing at home as this can encourage the beginnings of division and multiplication.
Our sharing assembly took place on Friday. Thank you to all the parents who attended the assembly and I think you will all agree that the children did a brilliant job. We all have some work to do to be as good as Rio on the hula hoop! It was also sports relief on Friday and we all ran around both playgrounds three times. We were all very proud to have kept up and completed the run and thank you to everyone who has contributed to this very important cause.
This weekend we have not sent the home learning books home as we would like you to complete a sharing assembly sheet with your child instead.

Road safety

We have had a very busy week this week. On Monday we all went for a walk around the village. We looked at the houses and buildings, we looked for numbers and words and we used directional language. As we crossed the road we learned about how to be safe. We have learned a song to help us to be safe on the roads.
Later on in the week we had a road safety workshop. Hannah came from Hertfordshire county Council to talk to our parents and carers and the children about being safe on the roads. We sang our song and we all had a go at crossing the road safely with a grown up.
We have been finding out about the artist Stephen Wiltshire. We looked at his amazing drawings on the internet and we have had a try at carefully drawing pictures of our houses and some of the buildings we saw on our walk.
This week we have also been learning about money. We have named and sorted the coins and have talked about their colours and shapes. we have got a hairdresser shop in our role-play and a toy shop in our maths area and we have been playing shops and using the money.
Next week we will be thinking about Easter and we will be practising for our sharing assembly which will be on the 18th March.

Book Week!

This week has been Book Week and we have had a fantastic week. We have read lots of books and we decided to have a Julia Donaldson focus and lots of children brought their books in. Eden brought in the book 'Paper Dolls' and that gave us the idea of making our own paper doll chains.
We had a session called 'take one picture' and we chose a picture from 'The Gorilla' by Anthony Brown. The children did some amazing follow up activities including using their imagination to write about what might happen next, painting some illustrations and making clay gorillas.
On Thursday we had a session with the Year 3 children in the junior school. We had a session called 'Take one book' and we chose 'Where the Wild Things Are'. We read the story with Year 3 and then we did some follow up activities in our classrooms. We have made an amazing collage, some puppets, and some books. At the end of the day we shared our work with Year 3 and watched their drama.
We use books as a starting point for our maths and did some interesting problem solving and practiced talking about numbers more and less.
Our dress up day was a great success and we enjoyed reading some of the stories that the children brought in. We have put some photos on the website. The teachers dressed up as 'Where's Wally'. Can you find them?
Next week we are thinking about road safety, directional language and money. We will be going on a trip around the village and we will be having a road safety work shop on Thursday morning. The parents are invited to the assembly at 9.20 am.

Our Bodies

This week we have been thinking about our bodies. We have learned about our skeletons and our bones. Some children wrote books about the skeleton and some children made careful drawings using black paper and white chalks.
We have thought a lot about keeping ourselves healthy this week. We found out why it is important to get lots of sleep and how we must go straight to bed at bedtime. I wonder if any of the parents have noticed a difference at bedtime at home?
We have learned about eating healthy food and eating a variety of foods. The children all made a plate of healthy food at welcome time and some children were able to draw their foods and label them.
In maths we have learned about doubling. Some of the children have enjoyed using our addition machine to work out doubling number sentences. May be you could also practice this at home?
Next week is book week. We will be doing activities with the Junior children and we are having a visitor called Professor Mango Pango who will be making poetry fun for us. On Friday you may dress up as a book character and please would you bring a story book and a cushion in for our whole school read?

Chinese New Year

This week it was Chinese New Year and we found out about how Chinese people celebrate. 'We were learning about chopsticks. You have to learn how to use them. Chinese people use them to eat dinner.' Rio. 'We use knives and forks and they use chopsticks.' Ciara. 'We made hand print dragons' Max. ' we went in a big dragon (mask when we were dancing)' Jamie. 'We did a dragon dance' Lucy. 'I was born on the year of the tiger' Ethan.


We carried on with the theme of 'The Elves and the Shoemaker' by making shoes for our toys. We sewed the fabric together just like the Elves did. 'You need to pull the needle all the way through.' Leo. 'You need to hold the end otherwise the thread will come undone.' Ethan. 'You might hurt yourself with the needle if you are not careful.' Sophia. The children really took their time and did some careful sewing and it took a long time so we will need to finish off after half term.


For the half term holidays we are asking parents to fill out a 'Star Moments' sheet to let us know of something special your child has done when they have persevered and tried hard to achieve something. This might be a model they have made, their swimming, reading or writing, dressing or undressing etc.

The Elves and The Shoemaker

When we asked the children about the topic 'InsideOut' they talked about their clothes turning inside out and the seams . We have use the story of 'The Elves and the Shoemaker' as a starting point of a mini topic on sewing. The children have really enjoyed this story and they all did some super writing following it and some of their own books in learning through play. We have had a shoe shop in our role-play and we have had some fantastic play in there. The children have been measuring each other's feet and using money to pay for the shoes. Next week we are hoping to have a go at making shoes for our toys.

We had our number day today and the children were very excited to look at each other's numbers. We did an ordering activity and we did some addition using our number shirts and our fingers. We hope we have made lots of money for the NSPCC.

We read a story by Jill Murphy early in the week and the children were all keen to have a Jill Murphy week. Many of the children remembered to bring a book in for us to read. Which is your favourite?Our home learning for this weekend is to look at some books and choose your favourite to draw a picture and write about. Please remember to do your own work and I look forward to seeing some lovely pictures and writing. 

Bubbles!

On Monday we had a very exciting bubbles workshop. We were asked lots of questions and then investigated to find out. 'The Mummies came to help and we made bubbles. Bubbles always pop when you put sharp things in.' Ava. When you put your finger in the bubble mixture and put it into a big bubble it drips into the bubble.' Eden. 'I learned how to blow bubbles. One side is smooth and one side is rough. The rough side worked best.' GG. Perhaps you could explore bubbles further in your bath?
'We learn to hold our our pens correctly and write our letters correctly' Ciara. 'We were writing about how to change our outdoors'. Kaitlyn's idea is to have a big slide mountain. She drew a picture and wrote a sentence.
We explored ice this week. 'It was melting a little' Sophia. ' When it's in your hand it melts.' Rio. ' When you put the ice in your hand too long it drops (water) on your hand because it gets warmer.' Sam.
This weekend is the RSPB 'Big Bird Watch'. They want to find out the types of birds that we have in our garden. We are hoping as many of you as possible will join in with this. I am looking forward to finding out what kinds of birds you have in your garden.

Inside out!

Our topic this term is 'Inside out' and the children were interested to find out more about snakes. We read books about snakes and saw a video of a snake shedding its skin. We were hoping that Mrs Mc Carthy would be able to bring her snake in, but it was too cold for it. When the weather warms up we will be able to see a real snake. During the week one of the children brought in a snake skin for everyone to see.
We looked at the patterns on snake skins and had a go at drawing our own. Some of the children made their own pictures and wrote their own facts about snakes. Mrs Byrne was very impressed with the writing that some of the children produced, particularly some of the boys.
We have been learning about addition this week and have learned about using a variety of manipulatives to find totals. We had a go at writing our own number sentences. The home learning this week is to explore and practice addition at home. Most of the children were also reversing their numbers so they could also practice this as part of their homework.

Welcome Back!

Apologies for the break and welcome to our new blog. We have now had two weeks back following the Christmas break and the children have all come back rested and ready to learn.
We had a very busy week this week. We have been learning about 3D shapes and the children have brought things in from home to talk name and describe with their friends at our talking table. I hope that they will continue to look around for 3D shapes in the environment while they are with their families so that they can consolidate their learning.
We had a very enjoyable afternoon at Forest Schools even though it was rather cold. We read the story of the Stick Man and then they all had a go at making their own stick man using natural found resources. I would like to thank all the parents who kindly took the suits home to wash.
All the children have done a piece of writing this week supported by the teachers and we were very pleased with the results. many of the children are now beginning to attempt to write a sentence and are applying their phonics well.
Willow class is now having a nurture afternoon on Friday that we are calling our 'Caring and Sharing' afternoon. They play games and share a healthy snack while encouraging turn taking, sharing and polite behaviour.
I hope to hear from you soon!

Willow Class Blog

Welcome to our new class blog. Willow Class look forward to sharing their learning with you all.

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