Squirrels

Easter

We enjoyed taking part in our school Easter Bonnet Parade even if the weather didn't allow us outside. The Squirrels have been busy making salt dough eggs, pasta patterns and printing our own eggs.

Finding number bonds to 10

We have been exploring different ways to make ten in Squirrels class. Using numicon, cubes, patterns and our fingers we found lots of ways to make number bonds to ten.

Observational drawing

Observational drawing of daffodils made the Squirrels look carefully at what shapes they can see and copy. They did a great job of drawing the petals, stem and the crinkled trumpet. We also used a drawing programme on the computer to create beautiful daffodils.

Life cycles and creativity

The Squirrels love books so World Book day was a fun for us all. We retold stories, listened to stories by a local author and were even read to by the witch from Room on a broom! We have also been busy making diagrams that show the life cycle of the caterpillar. We hope you enjoyed seeing our creative artwork on our Mother's day cards.

World Book Day 2024

The staff and children have enjoyed celebrating World Book Day by dressing up as their favourite characters.

We all took part in a whole school storytelling session where children choose which book they would like to hear. Room on a broom, Supertato, kitchen disco and Oi Frog were amongst the most popular choices.

The children enthusiastically talked about their favourite books, and created bookmarks that promote their love of reading.

A wonderful book inspired lunch was prepared by Ruth, Serena and Lisa in the kitchen. The children especially enjoyed their chocolate ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’ biscuits!!

Thank you to everyone who took part in our World Book Day, and thank you Mrs Stevens for organising such a wonderful day!!

Exploring how long and short things are.

The Squirrels class have been busy measuring and comparing the lengths of different towers. We talked about the words short, shorter and shortest, long, longer, and longest. We really enjoyed drawing around our friends and talking about how tall we are.

Spider web suncatcher

"Aaaarrgghh Spider!" the funny story about a spider who wants to be the family pet was enjoyed by all the Squirrels class. We also went on a spider hunt and then made web suncatchers making our first four days back very busy.

Bear cub toast

Making bear cub toast needed the Squirrels to practise their spreading and chopping skills. They then created the ears, nose and eyes with fruit. We all enjoyed eating our creations.

Porridge tasting

Goldilocks and the three bears has been a popular story this week in Squirrels class. We even tasted porridge just like Goldilocks!

Some of us liked the plain porridge, some of us liked the salty porridge and some of us liked the sweet porridge. Yum, yum.

Who is your favourite character?

Squirrels class have been sharing the story Polar Bear, Polar Bear, what do you hear? We then picked our favourite character and made a mask. We painted, carefully cut and decorated our animal masks. We made flamingos, peacocks, lions, leopards and boa constrictors.

Polar Bear, Polar Bear where is the snow?

Squirrels class were disappointed that the little bit of snow that fell this week didn't last long so Mrs Stevens made them some play snow! We have been reading the story Polar Bear, Polar Bear what do you hear? We used the small world to explore what life might be like for Polar Bears in the Arctic landscape and enjoyed retelling the story.

Fred talk in Squirrels

The children in Squirrels class have a frog friend called Fred. 

Fred can only say sounds so he needs our help to say the sounds and read words.

All of the children enjoy looking at our phonics board to find out what sound we will be learning today.

We love helping Fred to read.

Stanley's stick challenges

Stanley's stick challenges have encouraged the Squirrels to become more resilient. We explored which objects would float or sink, and wrote our names in the sand with sticks. We counted sticks then matched them to number cards and used our imaginations to create exciting things like magic wands.

Stage Coach Stickman Workshop

Last week Squirrels class took part in a fabulous workshop kindly hosted by Stagecoach, retelling the Stickman story using actions, props and songs. We loved joining in and remembered the whole story.

Clay Stickman

The Squirrels have been rolling, bending, squeezing and shaping clay to create their own Stickman model. We thought about how the clay felt. It was smooth, cold, sticky and wet when we touched it in our hands. We are patiently waiting for it to dry and go hard. Let's hope we don't loose any stick arms or legs!

Stickman Challenges

These Stickman Challenges have kept the Squirrels class busy this week. We took part in an obstacle course using Stickman's journey. We wrote postcards to Stickman's family and built sandcastles that were stable. We had a go at creating our own Stickman model from sticks we had collected and thought about who might use a nest.

A map of Stickman's journey

Squirrels class have enjoyed reading and sharing the Stickman story written by Julia Donaldson. We then thought about Stickman's journey to create a map using drawings and labels.

Who is your favourite character from the Little Red Hen story?

The Squirrels class have been talking about which character is their favourite from the Little Red Hen story.
We used pencils, pens, paint, and chalks to create our pictures.

A visit from Morrisons Community Champion to talk about bread.

Year R were excited to have a special visitor this week. Claire the community champion from Morrisons visited our school and talked to us about the bread they make in our local Totton store. She kindly brought in different types of bread for us all to taste. Morrisons also donated a pumpkin and a selection of squashes that we will enjoy exploring.

Making bread

Who will help me make the bread? asked the Little Red Hen.

We will! said the Squirrels class

We measured, we mixed, we kneaded, and we shaped our bread rolls with great care. Thank you to the school cook, Serena and her team, for baking the rolls for us. We then took our rolls home to taste them.

Observing change ... from bread to toast

We have been retelling the story of the Little Red Hen in Squirrels class and adding actions. The Little Red Hen kindly left us some of the bread she had made for us to explore. We talked about what it looked like, felt like and how we could change it. Miss Williams showed us how to make toast and then we enjoyed eating it.

Welly Walk

The children in squirrels class have enjoyed exploring the school grounds on their welly walk. We listened carefully to the sounds around us and enjoyed smelling the lavender growing in the year R garden. We found the pond and a secret garden that we will come back to share a story on a dry day.

Our class charter 

Every child made a handprint to show they are willing to try to keep the rules of our class charter.

We will try our best to be kind to each other, listen and share our equipment.

We will also use our handprints to take turns being the class 'helping hand' completing useful jobs around the classroom such as taking the register tray.

Squirrels class 2023 - 2024

Busy hands in squirrels class!

Over the past few weeks since we started school we have been exploring the classroom and the outside area. We have been building, making, creating and most of all having fun.

Learning Blog

Week Beginning 10/07/23

After spending a day with their new class and teachers the children have enjoyed thinking about what they are looking forward to doing in Year 1. 

Week Beginning 03/07/23

As the children will be meeting their new teacher this week, they have been working really hard to write a letter to them! They thought carefully about the key facts they would like to share with their new teachers. 

Week Beginning 26/06/23

This week we have been talking about our memories in Year R. The children had a go at drawing their favourite memory in Squirrels and wrote a sentence to describe their picture. Well done Squirrels! 

Week Beginning 19/06/23

This week we have been exploring what the word 'remembering' means. During a circle time, we talked about someone special to us and if we could remember why they are special. The children talked about how they can't always remember everyone but it is easy to remember a special person! The children then had a go at drawing their special person and writing why they are special to them and what they remember doing with them. 

Week Beginning 12/06/23

This week we have been exploring the story Incredible You! During our writing time, we had a go at writing facts about ourselves that make us incredible and unique. 

Week Beginning 05/06/23

This week we have been looking at the story Handa's surprise. We explored and tasted a variety of exotic fruit including: dragon fruit, pomegranate, melon, mango, permission, papaya and much more! Thank you to our wonderful parents who have kindly donated these amazing fruits. 

Week Beginning  22/05/23

This week we have been exploring different countries: France, Italy and India. We have learnt all about different music, art and food specific to these countries.  

We enjoyed tasting croissants in connection to France, mango in connection to India and pizza in connection to Italy. Our favorite was pizza!! 

Week Beginning 15/05/23

The children have been working hard with their paintings of sunflowers. They took their time and thought about the tiny details. 

Longdown Farm

We had so much fun on Friday at Longdown farm! We got to enjoy bottle feeding the kid goats, collecting eggs, holding chicks, stroking guinea pigs and plate feeding the large goats. 

Week beginning 24/04/23

This week we have been super mathematicians! We learn how to half a number by sharing into two equal groups. Then we talked about odd and even numbers and spotted that an odd number cannot be shared into two equal groups as there is always one left over! Miss Pooley was really proud that we started to make the link between doubling and halving. If you know double 2 is 4 then you know half of 4 is 2! 

Week Beginning 17/04/23

This week the children have been doubling in Maths! They used a doubling machine to explore the concept: doubling is twice as many. Can you ask your child to tell you some doubles they have learnt this week? 

Week Beginning 27/03/23

The children thoroughly enjoyed taking part in the Easter Bonnet parade! Thank you for all your support at home and what wonderful bonnets the children created. 

Week Beginning 20/03/23

The children have been exploring all the different subtraction facts within 5. They enjoyed using our 'sand' hand to help them work out the answers!

Week  Beginning 13/03/23

The eggs have arrived - we are so excited to see what happens as the eggs hatch into chicks! 

We learnt all about how to look after the eggs in the incubator and how it is important we are quiet and careful around them. We talked about the life cycle of a chick: egg, chick, adult chicken. 

Week Beginning 06/03/23

We are very excited that we have our own baby caterpillars in Squirrels we are going to watch how they become a butterfly. 

This week we have been exploring the life cycle of a butterfly and learning about the different stages: egg, larva/caterpillar, pupa/chrysalis, adult butterfly. 

We had a go at drawing the different stages on a leaf.

Week Beginning 27/02/23

We have learnt about the life cycle of a plant. We looked carefully at a daffodil and talked about the different parts. We then used this knowledge to help us draw a picture of a daffodil. Once we finished, we evaluated our drawing, making sure we had all the correct parts. 

Week Beginning 21/02/23

This week in Maths we have been looking at counting beyond 10 and building numbers between 10- 20. The children also had a go at counting on from 10. 

Week Beginning 06/02/23

The children have been exploring changes over time and talking about different examples of change such as a baby growing into an adult, caterpillar into a butterfly, seed into a flower.

Week Beginning 30/01/23

Goldilocks has been to visit the Squirrels classroom! As she upset the bears by eating their porridge, she thought she would make some porridge for the Squirrel's children. 

The children got to taste porridge with salt, jam and sugar! We decided we didn't like the one with salt in. 

Week Beginning  23/01/23

As the children enjoyed learning all about the Arctic last week, we explored the habitats for different animals living in Africa, the Arctic and the United Kingdom (UK). We talked about how a habitat is an environment where animals live. We also talked about the weather in each place such as Africa being hot and dry. The children explored how a polar bear needs lots of fur because it is very cold. 

Week Beginning 16/01/23

This week we have loved being frost finders! We enjoyed going outside to explore the ice and cold weather. We can now understand why polar bears need thick fur to keep them warm in the arctic. It was fascinating watching as the ice melted once we brought it inside.   

Week Beginning 09/01/23

In Maths this week, we have been exploring addition by adding two groups together. We used numicon to help us with our calculations. 

Week Beginning 02/02/23

The children in Squirrels this week have enjoyed exploring a variety of artistic skills: collaging, rubbing, printing and creating a wax wash. 

Week Beginning 12/12/22

The children really enjoyed having their Christmas dinner with their friends today. 

Week Beginning 05/12/22

The children thoroughly enjoyed the christmas fayre and all the wonderful activities.
They especially enjoyed visiting Santa!
We would like to say a huge thank you to our wonderful Friends of Hazel Wood for making this morning so special for us. 

Week Beginninng 28.11.22

We loved sharing all about how we like to celebrate our own birthday! This led us to talk about different ways that birth can be celebrated.  We discussed what a celebration might look like and why we might celebrate the birth of a new born baby. As a group we discussed what we might need to celebrate a new born baby such as, visitors, flowers, gifts and cards. We had a go at making our own card to celebrate a new arrival.

Week Beginning 21/11/22 

Stick Man needed our help again! He needed us to build a home for him! The children had a range of materials to construct with and worked as a team. They discussed any problems as a team and how they might be solved. 

Week Beginning 14/11/22

The children enjoyed using the joining skills they learnt last week to make their own stick men. I am sure they will enjoy showing you when they bring them home!

Collaging Autumnal Objects 

The children enjoyed arranging their own pictures using autumnal objects that they collected over half term.

Stick Man Map 

The children really enjoyed creating their own story map for stick man. We also discussed the purpose of a map. Stick Man was very grateful!   
 

Pumpkin Exploring!

We would like to say a massive thank you to the Year R parents for Squirrels pumpkin donations. The children had a lot of fun exploring what was inside of them and carving different faces. Thank you very much! 

Week Beginning 19/10/22

The children thoroughly enjoyed making bread. They worked as a team to mix, knead and shape their bread rolls. The children also loved when Morrisons came to visit where they got to try a variety of breads. 

Week Beginning 10/10/22

We are really lucky in Year R that we have a fantastic outside area!

The children have thoroughly enjoyed exploring their learning garden. We have been talking all about the season Autumn so they have had fun spotting different signs of Autumn. 

Week Beginning 03/10/22

The children thoroughly enjoyed learning all about making butter. We placed cream in a jar and shook it really hard. After a while the cream became thicker until it formed into a 'globule of fat' which was our butter. We enjoyed trying the buttermilk that surrounded the butter. We also loved having an opportunity to spread the butter and enjoy it on toast. 

Week Beginning 26.09.22

As our learning value this topic is being a team player, we worked together as a team to solve different problems. We explored different types of technology and talked about what the word technology means. We also remembered to listen to our team mates and to help each other out. 

Week Beginning 19.09.22

This week we have been making our own self-portraits. We thought carefully about the colour of our eyes and hair and used a mirror to help us see our reflection. 

Week Beginning 12.09.22 

This week in Squirrels the children have been enjoying exploring the Year R resources. We are really proud of how well the children are settling into their new class. 

Welcome to 

Squirrels Class (2022-2023)

Week beginning 5th September 2022

Well done Squirrels class, what a fantastic start to Year R. Miss Pooley and Mrs Shawyer are really proud of your resilience and independence.

This week in Squirrels and Year R we have been listening and responding in our music session. Over the course of the term we have been learning a song all about rainbows.

This week Year R have visited their new classes ready for September. They all had a fantastic day and looked so grown up.

This week in Squirrels and Year R we have been writing a letter to our new teacher. We have shared facts about ourselves, what we like and something we feel we may need a little help with.

This week in Squirrels class and Year R, we have been exploring how to use a number line to solve addition number sentences.

In Squirrels class and Year R this week we have been investigating number bonds to 10 using different maths resources.

This week in Squirrels and Year R we have been observing the wild flower garden. Over the course of the term we have been watering and caring for the flowers, watching them grow.

This week in Squirrels and Year R we have enjoyed exploring the book Handa's surprise. We enjoyed writing about what happened in the story.

This week in Year R we had great fun celebrating the Queen’s Jubilee. We had a street party lunch and a special assembly. Miss Phillips presented everyone with a special Jubilee coin.

In Squirrels and Year R this week we were learning about long and short sounds. First we played a game. We had to listen to a sound and decide if it was a long sound or a short sound. We decided that long sounds carry on after you stop playing and short sounds stop when you stop playing. The children then chose their own instruments, explored the type of sounds they made and then we sorted them into instruments that make long sounds and instruments that make short sounds. I was very impressed! Well done everyone!

This week we had a very exciting visit from a steam engine! Throughout the morning we had 5 different activities to complete - car track painting, hat making, tricycle racing, observational drawings at, asking questions to an engine driver and sitting on the steam engine!
On the steam engine, we looked inside the living van and Mrs Hughes told us all about it. We then had a chance to climb up onto the steam engine and look at the fire which heats the water to produce the steam that makes it move!
Then it was time for our special picnic lunch, which the rain didn’t stop us enjoying inside.

This week we had to help get the train ready to take the passengers on their journey. The children could remember what fuel a steam train needed. We talked about an algorithm and that it meant instructions for a computer. The children worked together as a team to use the instruction cards to work out the algorithm for our Bee-Bot train to follow. We then carefully programmed the Bee-Bot following our algorithm and watched to see if it was correct.
Our first attempt didn’t quite travel far enough so we had to go back and de-bug the algorithm and tried again.
Success, great team work, we all had a turn at following the algorithm. 🚂

In Squirrels class and in Year R we were learning about steam engines. We enjoyed exploring the coal and boiler suits, and began to learn about the different parts of a steam engine and how they work together to make it move.

This week in Squirrels and Year R, we learnt about pitch (high and low notes). Today we learnt to identify and play high, low and middle sounds on a xylophone.

Today we had the exciting opportunity of working as a whole school to create our own design for our Hampshire Hare. Each child placed their fingerprint on different parts representing our classes and school. We hope you agree the children have done a fantastic job.

In Squirrels and Year R we have been looking carefully at daffodils to create our own observational drawing. We evaluated our drawing by completing our checklist to ensure we included the stem, petal and trumpet. Then we talked about what went well.

In Squirrels class and Year R we have enjoyed exploring our environment hunting for pictures inspired from our visiting chicks. Once we found a picture we used our phonics knowledge to record what we had discovered on our hunt sheet.

Year R have been watching intensely at the eggs that arrived on Monday. When will they hatch? What colour will they be? What shall we name them? the children all asked. Much to their delight the little chicks have hatched overnight! It's been a very exciting morning and the chicks have been welcomed by lots of little faces peering in through the window and have had lots of drawings created for them. We look forward to helping the children learn how to care for the chicks over the next 7 days before they are taken back to the farm to live their life with their friends.

In Squirrels class and Year R we have been doing some gardening. We had fun weeding and preparing the beds ready for Spring. Our aim is to create a minibeast garden, a wildflower bed, and a vegetable patch. As part of our wild garden, we will be using the platinum Jubilee seeds from the Queen.

Phonics information