Pearl Class
Teacher: Miss Axford
Adults in Class: Miss Matthews and Miss Redstone
Welcome to Pearl Class. We are a Reception and Year 1 class and we love learning! Please keep visiting our class website page as we will update it fortnightly. Our most recent learning will be at the top of our page.
Please see the documents below for our yearly overview and our planning pathways.
Pearl Class Planning pathway summer 2024
Pearl Class Spring term learning pathway 2024
Pearl Class Planning pathway Autumn 2023
Pearl Class yearly overview 2023-2024
We were lucky enough to have a visit from the dogs trust this week. They explained to us how to care for a dog safely and be dog smart! We learnt the 5 rules of taking care of a dog and even got to do some role play as well. We really enjoyed sharing all the information about dogs we have in our lives and how we love and care for them.
In Pearl class this term we have been exploring forest school. In forest school we practiced climbing and balancing and lots of other skills. We built dens and even had a go at being rolled inside a tire! Last week we learnt how to use a saw and practiced leading our friends around when they had a blindfold on. This helped us understand how to communicate and that small details matter. So far we have conquered fears and thrown ourselves into every activity. We can’t wait to see what the rest of the term brings.
At the end of term 5 we put our animal knowledge to the test on our trip to Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm. We went on a walking safari and learnt a lot about all the animals that they care for. We even got to feed the bears! We learnt how animals camouflage and held a real Ostridge egg. We really enjoyed looking at all the animals from Africa that we have been learning about this term.
In DT this term we have been learning about healthy eating. We looked at what is good for us and how it gives us energy. We have tasted lots of different fruits and used this information to make a healthy fruit skewer snack. We tried blueberries, oranges, grapes and bananas. We had to investigate how to make the fruit the right size to fit on the skewer. We used butter knives to chop the fruit up so we could share it between us. The easiest one to cut was the pineapple rings. Our favourite part was tasting our creations!
In DT we have been making thaumatropes. These are an example of how Victorian children entertaind themselves. We used straws and paper with different images on each side. When we attach the paper together and spin the straw between our hands it creates an illusion of the two images blurring together. We had lots of great ideas, such as a bird on one side and a cage on the other. When we move the thaumatrope the bird goes inside the cage!
In English we are reading Jack and the Beanstalk. To help us understand the characters we thought about how the Giant felt when Jack stole his hen. We did some hot seating and asked the giant lots of questions about what happened and how it made him feel. We used this information to write a thought bubble from the Giant’s point of view. Some children took this learning further and sorted out pictures of different facial expressions and how the person is feeling. We then discussed how we knew they were feeling that way and came up with ides on what they could do to feel more positive or share their happiness. We came up with ideas such as bake a cake and share with friends, as well as talking to an adult about their feelings and asking them to help.
As part of our history this term we were treated to a visit from Mrs Kendall and her collection of Victorian dolls. We learnt all about who the dolls belonged to and could see how the materials the dolls were made from changed over time. The dolls dated back to 1870’s and really helped us understand toys children from this time had and how they played with them. Pearl class asked very thoughtful questions and helped Mrs Kendall put the dolls into chronological order.
Pearl class celebrated Chinese New Year in class and learnt about the traditions and culture linked to the festival. We worked together to complete activities in our provision and tried some different foods (noodles, dragon fruit and spring rolls). We also enjoyed decorating our classroom.
To support our learning on letter writing and provide a meaningful context, the class wrote letters to their families to invite them to a themed picnic all about bears; this also tied in with our learning on ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’. We walked to the post office to post our letters home.
We have been putting our creativity to use in Pearl class this term and have undertaken the project of decorating our windows. We decided on the theme of the seasons as we enjoyed learning about them so much last term. We discussed what we see in the different seasons and have been creating suncatchers. We cant wait to see what it looks like when we’re done.
As artists, we have also been using our skills of observation to create portraits using different styles. We are really pleased with the final pictures.
As a class we have been learning what it means to double a number. To help us with this, one of the activities in our provision has been doubling spots on ladybirds. We worked as a team to find the correct number of spots to make a double.
In maths we have been exploring numbers to 20 in year one, we used manipulatives to find the number bonds to 20. We found a pattern that linked to our number bonds to 10.
In English we have been reading ‘ We’re all going on a bear hunt.’ To help us really understand the story we have been role playing our own bear hunts and taking it in turns to be the bear in the cave. We used these experiences to inspire our innovation of the story and used the emotions and observations to add adjectives into our writing.
Term 3 in Pearl class is whizzing by. This term our topic is ‘How have children’s lives changed.’ As historians we learnt who the Victorians were and how they got their name. We’ve also been looking at our favourite toys and comparing them to the toys that children in the Victorian era played with. Our favourite was the spinning top and the sliding whistle!
We have been celebrating Christmas this week in Pearl class. We created party hats to wear to Christmas lunch using glitter, sequins, colouring and cutting out our handprints. This helped us create antlers just like Rudolph! We wore our hats to meet Santa as well and really enjoyed joining him in a singalong of jingle bells. Santa gave each of us a present and wished us a merry Christmas!
We used our craft skills to make some Christmas light garlands with stamps and paint, as well as folded paper angels. We can’t wait to see how beautiful they look on our trees at home!
The highlight of the last couple of weeks has been the amazing nativity that we have been performing for parents this week. All of the adults in Pearl class are so impressed and proud of how hard everyone has worked, we earnt a whole class work of the week for our effort!
In maths we have been learning about how to find the different parts that make up a whole number. We used part- part- whole models to explore all the different fact families that make up the numbers within 10. We used this knowledge to challenge our partner to find the different parts of a number. We found that there are lots of different ways to make one number.
In Reception maths we have been exploring numbers to 5. We started by identifying what it would look like when we have a number of objects, then we split the objects up to see what numbers we could make within the whole number. We found that within 3 we found a 2 and a 1.
We counted lots of different objects. We found two feet with two shoes on them, then we explored if it mattered if the objects were the same, would we still have the same number of objects if they looked different? We found that even if every object was different we still had the same number of items in our group.
In our role play area we have been exploring how to keep ourselves healthy at the doctor surgery. We have had great fun dressing as doctors and nurses, as well as role playing as patients with a variety of different injuries from broken arms to painful head bumps. We spoke about how we help people and why its important to go to the doctors when we are hurt. We explored all the different ways doctors treat patients, through bandages and plasters, all the way to prescribing medicines. We wrote down patient information at our mark making station and used it to help us treat our friends.
Last week we had a visit from the ambulance service who taught us CPR. It was really interesting to learn about how to help someone in an emergency situation as well as how to keep ourselves safe in those situations. Pearl class showed amazing listening and respect while learning this new skill.
Thankyou to all the parents and carers who came to Pearl class’ first showcase of the year. The children had a wonderful time sharing their story ‘The Enormous Turnip’ with everyone. We also enjoyed sharing our Funky Fingers activities with everyone. Funky Fingers is what we use to strengthen our finger muscles ready for our writing. We love to come up with creative ways to warm up our muscles.
To celebrate bonfire night we used our buddy time this week to create some collaborative art. We used glitter and paint to create amazing firework displays. The children really enjoyed sharing their ideas with their buddies and we were all very impressed with the art they produced. We see our buddies once every fortnight and it is always a lovely experience for everyone involved.
This term we are designing and making taxis in DT. For our first lesson started to learn about forces. We learned that forces make things move and, as objects cannot move themselves, that we must pull or push them. We tried to move a heavy box by pulling or pushing it. To make it move easier, we took somethings out of it. Then we looked at other objects and discussed that wheels make things much easier to move. So, we also added some wheels to our box, and it was much easier to move. We looked closer how wheels are used and learnt new vocabulary such as wheel, axles and chassis.
This week we went to the church for our harvest festival. In Pearl class we have been learning the poem brambles from the book of lost words. At the start of the year we made pictures from blackberries inspired by the poem. We loved it so much we wanted to share it with everyone. The children were so brave and enthusiastic with their poem that we even lead the school in the song Big Red Combine Harvester.
It has been a very exciting term in Pearl class.
In our topic work we have been exploring the landmarks of London. We created a big red London bus and went sight seeing. We saw the Gherkin, Big Ben and the London eye with all our families on it.
We also went on a walk of our local area to identify the different types of homes people live in. We saw detached houses, semi detached houses, flats and bungalows. We noticed that we have wide open green spaces which shows we live in the countryside. When we compared this to London we found that there was much less green space and the buildings were much taller!
In English we have been learning the story of Goldilocks and the Three bears. We retold the story to our friends and wrote some of our phonics words in porridge oats. We then re-invented our story by changing the main character and the food they eat. We had lots of creative ideas.
In our science learning we have been investigating seasons and what happens to our environment when the seasons change. We started by looking at autumn and explored our school field to look for sign that autumn is coming. We noticed the leaves were changing colour and falling from the trees.
We were also lucky enough to have a visit from guide dog Loki. Loki came to see us and we learnt all about how he helps his owner. Loki was very calm and gentle and taught us so much.
We turned our role play area into a vets office so we could explore how we can take care of animals like Loki.
Over the summer our classroom underwent some very exciting changes to make it a really lovely enabling environment. We even have a new mud kitchen! Here is our new environment and some of the learning we have been accessing.
We used the book ‘The Lost Words’ to explore brambles and blackberries. We created artwork based on the poem through leaf rubbing and then painting with blackberries. We have been developing our fine motor skills through ‘Funky Fingers’ and we have also been exploring our new environment. We have shown respect towards the new resources and to each other.
