Christmas is coming!

Early Years have been getting ready for our Christmas production with lots of rehearsals. We have been showing off our best dance moves and learning words to a lot of different songs. Some children have even had lines to practise! This week we are doing our dress rehearsals so we can practise getting changed in and out of our costumes - hopefully our practise with getting dressed for PE will come in handy. Here is a sneak preview of a few of our costumes ready to go...

As well as practising for our Nativity, we have had a cheeky elf turn up at the start of December. The children decided for a name for the elf - they had to write their suggestions down for the elf to choose overnight. This week we will be writing to Santa to let him know what name we have chosen - we have lots of envelopes ready so we can post the letters to the North Pole. 

As well as thinking about how we celebrate the holidays, we are thinking about how other people celebrate things and looking at different countries around the world. We have been looking at how the weather is different in other countries at this time of year compared to our icy weather!

We are very excited for the rest of the half term as we have lots of fun things planned to do - remember to keep practising your reading, writing and counting at home too :) 

Year 2

In a Land of Magic

We have had a fantastic and busy start to Year 2. This half term we have been learning about traditional tales and alternative versions of them. We have read the Wolf's Story and have done lots of role play acting out how the wolf has been misunderstood and isn't so bad after all.

We have also been working hard in history, learning about the different Queens that have ruled England and had an exciting visit to Windsor Castle.

 

It was really exiting as we got to dress up and learnt how to become a knight.

Year 1

Dinosaurs

We have had a fantastic start to Year 1 with our exciting topic about dinosaurs.  This week we had an egg hunt and found dinosaur eggs hidden in our school grounds!  We are looking forward to finding out what happens to them next.

We have looked closely at fossils and have practised our sketching skills.  Also we have made colourful dinosaur collages and paper sculptures.

 

We loved listening to the story 'The Dinosaurs are Having A Party' and one morning we came into school to find that the dinosaurs had had a party in our classrooms. We have written our own party invitations and thank you letters for the presents the dinosaurs left behind.

Early Years

We have been reading lots of different stories over the past couple of weeks but we have done lots of work on Billy Goats Gruff & Goldilocks and the Three Bears. 

We have been learning lots of different letters and numbers in Early Years. Now we have to spend time practising how to write them down. We have practised drawing in sand, glitter, with chalk... We have also enjoyed using the interactive whiteboards to draw and write.  We have been using a sandtimer to help us take turns and know when it is time for somebody else to have a go. 

In Early Years we spend a lot of time developing our gross and fine motor skills. We are working a lot on making our hands stronger which will help us when we are learning to write. There are lots of chances for us to use different resources such as hole-punches, paintbrushes and different pens. 

Year 4 Begins....

It has been an exciting week in Year 4 this week as our brand new cohort of pupils have settled in brilliantly. It has been great to see all our pupils looking incredibly smart as they have walked into school in the morning!


Already this week, we have begun exploring place value in maths lessons, learning all about the thousands column on the place value chart. English lessons have seen the exploration of Baba Yaga- a Russian folktale which has included acting out the story in small groups.

We are excited to start swimming lessons which begin on Monday next week!

Three Little Pigs

This week we have been looking at the story of the Three Little Pigs. The children had words from the story sent home over the weekend to look at with their families. Over the week we will read different versions of the story and talk about the choices that the wolf and the pigs made in the story. We have been talking lots about how to be a good friend!

Lots of children have used the art resources to recreate the houses that the pigs built. 

In our role-play areas we have created different shops. Maple Class had a DIY shop for the pigs to come and buy equipment and materials to help them build their houses. We had straw, sticks and bricks for sale. The children made signs for the shop so we knew what was for sale. We have been practising taking turns with our friends when we are using the till in the shop and we have been using sand-timers to help us know when it is time to swap places.

Outside we have been having fun with the hula-hoops - it has been tricky but we have tried hard to be determined to learn how to do different tricks with the hula-hoops as well as trying to keep them spinning around our waists! The children have explored mark-making outside as well as indoors. Lots of children have even been trying to write their names outside too!

All of the children completed a self-portrait using paint in their first week at school. Soon these will be stuck up in our shared area that links the three classrooms so everyone will be able to see the hard work that the children have been doing.

A great start to life at Alderwood!

Staff at the school have been really impressed with how our Early Years children have already started to settle down into life at Alderwood School.

Last week the Early Years team were lucky enough to visit some of the children in their own homes where we learnt a lot about things the children were looking forward to. 

On their first day back they came in with somebody from home to help the settle in but most of the children went straight off independently!

We are looking forward to watching the children become even more independent and become great learners!