Koala class Blog (YR)

Welcome to our new blog for 2023-24!  We hope to share all the wonderful things we are learning about in Reception.

Image by Geraldine Dukes on Unsplash

Our Class teachers are Mr J. Brewer and Mrs G. Hughes (alternate Mondays).  Our teaching assistant is Ms L. Grieve/Ms A. Adlam.

YR Curriculum Overview 2023-24  YR Writing Curriculum 2023-24  

School Reading Spine 2023-24 

• Friday 19 July 2024 19th July 2024 We had great fun at the end of the week with our disco music, lolly and water play. There are just a few photos from this as I tended to be under attack for most of the afternoon! The children have also enjoyed reading the story 'The Pirates Next Door' and learning about pirates. Next week sees the final three days of their time in Reception. It has been lovely seeing the progress every child has made throughout the year, the smiles and laughter, along with the fun had on each school trip. Thank you for the support you have given.
• Friday 12 July 2024 12th July 2024 A funny old week with so many off. Hopefully everybody is feeling better now and that we can have a full house again for our final full week of the year. For those that missed the New Orleans Band, I have added a couple of videos. For all those that were present, it was a great experience and enjoyed by all.
• Friday 5 July 2024 5th July 2024 This week we have enjoyed reading 'The Lighthouse Keeper's Lunch'., making our own delicious sandwiches and keeping an eye out for those pesky seagulls! The children have been counting to 100 in our maths sessions, building models with friends, making sea creatures and also some textured seaside art. On Thursday the children had their own vote for some end of term treats with them being very excited when Mrs Budge read out the results in assembly on Friday.
• Friday 28 June 2024 28th June 2024 We concluded the week with our sponsored colour run. The children had great fun and ran countless laps of the trim trail. Earlier in the week they showed off their ever improving writing skills with some writing about the seaside and our trip. In maths, we have looked at doubles and also odd and even numbers. The children can also state the hidden amount from one of two parts of a given total.
• Thursday 20 June 2024 Thursday 20th June 2024 We had a fabulous time at Boscombe today, the sun was shining and all had great fun! It was so lovely to hear the children say what a great day it was and also members of the public commenting on how much laughter and smiles there were. Thank you so much to our parent helpers, you were ace!
• Friday 14 June 2024 14th June 2024 A busy week! The children have enjoyed writing about Hefty Hugh and Lanky Len, who have appeared once again, this time in the story 'What the Ladybird Heard at the Seaside'. They have also listened to the story, 'Sully the Seahorse', where the moral of the story was about trying your best and that we are all unique and special in our own way. In our maths sessions, the children have been explaining trickier repeating patterns and spotting the rule. We have also talked about our families, how each family is different and the special people within them.
• Friday 7 June 2024 7th June 2024 We ended the week with some special guests! The children really enjoyed spending some time with their grandparents, completing some art activities and showing off their self portraits which looked great in the frames.
• Friday 24 May 2024 24th May 2024 We finished Term 5 with our Sports Day activities which were enjoyed by all. It was lovely to see many people supporting the children in our new format. The last week of term was also full of children working hard to complete their artwork ready to be framed for the Grandparent Art Afternoon. I'll save these photos for the next blog...don't want to spoil the surprise!
• Friday 17 May 2024 17th May 2024 The children this week have been Mad About Minibeasts! They loved this book and especially our time in the sensory garden where they were in their element observing what they found. It was especially great to hear the excitement and interesting conversations they were having with each other. We have also welcomed some butterflies into class and had many visitors to the class to see these beautiful creatures.
• Friday 10 May 2024 10th May 2024 The children enjoyed the story of 'Dear Zoo' and writing their own 'Who am I?' quizzes. We have looked at animals who live in a cold environment, thinking about 'cold' colours when completing our penguin artwork. To warm up they have enjoyed the fine weather and made good use of our outdoor resources. The children have also kept a close eye on our caterpillars. They have now been transferred to the net container and we hope to see some butterflies in the near future!
• Friday 3 May 2024 3rd May 2024 Another busy week during which we have been reading the story of The Tiger Who Came to Tea. In maths we have been thinking about the 'five and a bit' structure matching amounts of either 6, 7, 8 or 9 on the screen to the number of fingers shown. The children have also used balance scales finding out which object was the heaviest by using cubes to measure with. I have also been sharing my experiences of being in a jungle and we have discussed which animals live in the jungle.
• Wednesday 24 April 2024 24th April 2024 Our third coach trip of the year took us to the Bristol Zoo Project, observing a variety of animals of different shapes and sizes.
• Friday 19 April 2024 19th April 2024 Welcome back! During Term 5, the children will be learning all about 'Amazing Animals'. We have been reading the story 'What the Ladybird Heard', whilst in PSED we looked at the story 'Rosie Revere, Engineer'. This was about a girl who found things challenging, so felt like giving up. With words of encouragement, she didn't and it has been lovely to see the children taking this on board to encourage their friends when they have been taking on challenges. The children have also been delving into the 'Poetry Basket', learning a poem about pigs!
• Thursday 28 March 2024 28th March 2024 Bath City Farm trip followed by meeting the Easter bunny!
• Friday 22 March 2024 22nd March 2024 Another week flies by and the children are already looking forward to Easter. It was lovely to see so many parents during the week and for all the lovely comments. We have a parent event this coming Wednesday which will have a phonics focus. Hope to see you then!
• Friday 15 March 2024 15th March 2024 We ended the week with some Red Nose Day fun in the hall with a variety of activities. The children have also had great discussions explaining what they could see on Explorify and reasoning what they thought the object was. In our English sessions we looked at the story of Evil Pea and the Beanstalk, superheroes and talked and have written about our new 'powers' that 4 and 5 year old children have, compared to when they were babies. In maths, we have been sorting objects, looked at odd and even numbers and continued to practise counting up to 20 and back to zero.
• Friday 8 March 2024 8th March 2024 The children have really enjoyed the week, especially World Book day where they modelled their different outfits and explained what word they had come as. They were eager to write their word out and stick it on. The words included royalty, spotty, chef, camouflage, strong, strength, marmalade, road and scary. The children were also very busy making a few treats for Mother's Day and have been monitoring the growth of their sunflowers. Fingers crossed some more will pop up over the weekend!
• Friday 1 March 2024 1st March 2024 It has been another busy week in Koala Class. The children have observed different plants. These include the seeds they planted last week and some daffodils, producing some lovely artwork. They have also explored the skill of rubbings. These were a bit tricky at first, trying to keep the paper in place, but they loved the outcomes. We ended the week by sowing sunflower seeds and harvesting our crop, using this to make sandwiches.
• Friday 23 February 2024 23rd February 2024 For Term 4 our topic is 'Let's Grow'! We have looked at the story 'The Tiny Seed', been out on a walk around the school looking for signs of spring, planted some seeds and made flowers. In our English sessions we have read 'Jack and the Beanstalk', acting out the story, ready to have us retell it in our writing this coming week.
• Wednesday 7 February 2024 7th February 2024 Despite all the bugs floating around, the children loved their visit into space! They really enjoyed the immersive planetarium show and later had fun making their astronaut pudding! In our maths sessions we have continued to practise our counting skills gaining confidence on a daily basis and also becoming increasingly able to spot mistakes. It was lovely to see so many of you at our parent event on Monday, we hope you had a good time.
• Friday 26 January 2024 26th January 2024 We have had a super week at school with lots of great leaning. With 6 months until the next Olympic Games, Koala class have continued to show off their gym skills. They have been trying out different shapes on the apparatus and also using these shapes whilst jumping. The children have also continued their journey into space, looking at the moon landings, rocket launches and reading different space themed stories. They have also made aliens that have moving parts. Although they found using split pins tricky, they persevered to meet the challenge.
• Friday 19 January 2024 19th January 2024 Another very busy week. The children have completed a variety of tasks including some fabulous aliens for our new display. They have also been learning how to perform different gym positions and improving their balance. In maths,we have continued to look at how five is composed along with making our own triangles using sticks found in the sensory garden. It was great to see how knowledgeable the children were regarding their own safety when we talked about what was safe to put into our bodies and how medicines could be both safe and dangerous depending on the situation. We finished the week thinking about our own route to school, recording three features that we pass by on this journey.
• Friday 12 January 2024 12th January 2024 It was lovely to see everyone back at school, enjoying a rather busy first week of 2024. On Monday, the children met Mrs Hughes, who will now be with the children every fortnight for the rest of the school year. We have started our new topic '5,4,3,2,1, Blast Off!', been on a 'naughty bus' hunt around the school, mapped out our bedrooms, mixed paints to make them lighter and darker, ordered numbers, talked about shapes and how they similar and different, read lots of stories, found ice and started new Read, Write, Inc groups.
• Wednesday 13 December 2023 13th December 2023 The children have been working hard over a short period of time to learn lots of songs and actions to perform to friends and family. We hope you enjoyed the performance!
• Friday 1 December 2023 1st December 2023 This week we have had a couple of visitors to our class. A fox, who has been licking his lips when the children have been making gingerbread men and also a kindness elf. The children have decided to name our elf 'Marshmallow' and have sprinkled magic dust over her and look forward to seeing what she gets up to over the next couple of weeks. The children have also enjoyed snuggling up in front of our log fire to keep warm and love the new Christmas lights around the room.
• Thursday 23 November 2023 23rd November 2023 Today we visited Moors Valley and had great fun walking around the woods. The children also enjoyed the play trail, challenging themselves with some tricky tasks and it was also lovely to see how they helped and encouraged each other.
• Friday 17 November 2023 17th November 2023 This week in maths we continued to consolidate our knowledge of more than, fewer than and equal to when comparing groups. We have also looked again at how amounts can be made up of multiple smaller amounts. In PE, we had time to work together to solve some maths problems when calculating amounts with friends placing set amounts of people, feet, hands etc onto Pudsey Bears circular spots. The children have also been working hard on letter formation. Each letter has a given phrase to aid formation and a list of these phrases will be sent out next week. The children know the importance of holding the pencil correctly, tucking their chair in, pressing their feet on the floor and placing their spare hand on the paper.
• Friday 10 November 2023 10th November 2023 This week the class have been learning about why people wear poppies. We have talked about what has happened in the past and what is happening around the world today. The children have made their own 'poppy' artwork which was on display for some old friends to see when they visited the school for our first 'open day'.
• Friday 3 November 2023 3rd November 2023 Term 2 has started with a bang! The children have been looking forward to firework night with some artwork and through dance movement. They have also had great fun making some multi coloured toast, making patterns and mixing colours. We have now completed all our single letter 'set 1' sounds and will spend time this term repeating some of these sounds in new groups, along with blending these together to read and spell simple words.
• Wednesday 18 October 2023 18th October 2023 Thank you to those that came to our parent event. We hope you had a nice time and enjoyed the activities. During this final short week, the children spent time learning about their skeletons and bodies. They have also shown they are budding doctors of the future!
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