Week beginning Monday 10th November 2025

Week beginning Monday 13th October 2025

This week in Year R we have been helping the Little Red Hen to make bread! When making the dough mixture, we practiced the skill of measuring. We carefully counted out each spoonful of flour and carefully used pipettes to add droplets of water. It was great fun to mix it all together.

Week beginning Monday 29th September 2025

This week in Year R we have been painting creatively on the easels. We then used spray bottles to clean our masterpieces away. Working vertically enables us to build our core muscles, develop coordination and increase the strength in our arms and hands to support us with learning to write. We had so much fun! 

Week beginning Monday 22nd September 2025

After reading the traditional tale The Three Little Pigs we set the Year R children a challenge. They had to build a house that couldn't be blown down. They explored the materials to see which might be the strongest before building and testing their houses. 

We have had an exciting week settling in and exploring. We haven’t let the weather spoil our fun.  We are now experts and putting on our wellies and raincoats! It’s been fun to collect up the conkers and dig up potatoes in the learning garden. Our teachers are so proud of us!

Week beginning Monday 8th September 2025

Our new year R children have been very busy exploring the classrooms, garden and the big playground at lunchtime. We have started to learn new routines and are making new friends at discovery time. They have made their teachers proud by how well they are joining in with the activities and helping us to look after our school.

Week Beginning 7th July 2025

Letters to our new teachers

The children have worked hard writing letters to their new teachers. They were each given the sentence starters, I like, I can and I have to complete, to give their teachers a little bit of information about themselves. Everyone tried hard to use their best Hazel Wood handwriting and remembered to use capital letters, finger spaces and full stops.

Year R had an exciting day on Tuesday, visiting Lepe Country Park. They had fun searching for shells, stones, seaweeds, crabs and driftwood on the beach, then created a collage from their finds. After that the children became Lepe explorers with Laura the ranger.  They followed a countryside trail learning about plants and their environment. After lunch they had fun playing games on the grass area. The day went very quickly and everyone was tired on the coach journey home. What a super day!

This week Year R had their last trip to Totton and Eling Tennis Centre at Hanger Farm. The children have thoroughly enjoyed the taster sessions run by coach Ben and all did very well! We shall now continue to practise the skills they have learnt in our PE sessions for the rest of the term.

Week beginning Monday 28th April 2025

As part of the new theme 'Ticket to ride!' year R children enjoyed listening to the story 'The boy who sailed the World by Julia Green'. They talked about boats and made models from found materials. This involved selecting  resources, finding ways to cut and join them, as well as developing important cooperative and problem solving skills. It was great fun testing the boats to see if they would float or sink and exciting to see some boats move as the wind caught their sails. The children thought the best material to use was plastic as it is waterproof. Well done Year R!

Week beginning Monday 31st March 2025

Year R have been learning this term about eggs and life cycles.  This week we have looked at how Christians celebrate Easter. We have made and decorated salt dough and pasta eggs. We finished the week with an exciting Easter Egg hunt.

Week beginning Monday 24th March 2025

The children have been learning to make repeating patterns this week. We started by copying repeated actions then the children made up their own. We then made repeated patterns with objects, making the patterns longer each time. The children all did very well and went on to make patterns independently with natural objects outside.

Drawing Club

Year R loved reading 'Bog Baby' by Jeanne Willis this week. They then used their imagination to think of a more suitable home for him. The children drew a picture and also wrote words or a sentence to describe it. They tried hard to remember capital letters, finger spaces and full stops in their writing. Well done everyone!

                                                                     Week beginning Monday 17th March 2025

During our music sessions this half term, we have been exploring the different sounds that we can make with percussion instruments. Today we chose instruments to represent the different vegetables in the 'Supertato' story. The children then took on the role of conductor using hand signals to state which instruments should play and when to stop. 

Week beginning Monday 17th March 2025

Year R have thoroughly enjoyed their gymnastics sessions with coach Louise from Flare gymnastics. They have learnt to make straight, star, straddle, pike and tuck shapes, using different parts of their bodies and on a range of apparatus. Everyone listened carefully and worked hard. Well done Year R!  

Week beginning Monday 10th March 2025

The children in Year R have been very busy learning all about caterpillars and butterflies! The caterpillars arrived in each classroom for us to look after, and we have been checking them to see how much they have grown. We have been learning about the life cycle of a butterfly, and used different pasta shapes to show each stage of the cycle. We added a title, and some arrows to show the whole life cycle. 

Week beginning Monday 3rd March 2025

This week in Year R it's been all about the chicks! We have been reading non-fiction books, drawing and writing about what chicks can do and making moving models with split pins.

On World Book day the chicks were treated to visits from story book characters who enjoyed holding and carefully stroking them.

World Book Day 2025

Well done to all of the children who came to school dressed as their favourite book character on World Book Day. It was lovely to hear all of the conversations about books and the stories being shared.

A big thank you to our staff who looked fabulous in their character costumes.

A big thank to local author Liam White for visiting Year R on World Book Day. We all enjoyed listening to you read Hugo the hungry horse.

Week Beginning Monday 24th February 2025

We had some special visitors arrive at Hazel Wood on Monday and the children were all very excited to meet them. Ten adorable, fluffy chicks hatched from their eggs throughout the day and we have been helping to look after them. Year R were lucky enough to stroke one of the chicks and then built a little run for them to have a bit of exercise. We are looking forward to seeing how much they grow over the next week.

To start our new topic, ‘Roots, Shoots and Muddy Boots’, we went on a welly walk around the school ground looking for signs of Spring. It was lovely to see daffodils, snowdrops and blossom on the trees. After that everyone had lots of fun exploring the garden centre role play. The children learnt how to use the till, take phone messages, write order forms and how to speak politely to customers.

Week beginning 10th February 

  Year R all had a fantastic time taking part in a drama workshop delivered by, 'Jack, the firefighter', from 'Perform'. In the engaging 'helping hands' themed session we used our creativity to explore a range of actions and ideas related to different jobs. It was great to see everyone joining in enthusiastically, developing their drama skills and confidence. A lot of fun was had by all. Well done everyone and thank you, Jack!