Dear Red Class,

This week, at Forest School, we explored leaves and why some trees lose their leaves in the autumn. We performed a counting song called ‘10 Little Leaves’ and added new actions with the leaves turning, tumbling and even jumping through the air. Every Forest School session, the children are invited to explore their own interests. Today, some children were looking at stories inspired by nature,  another group of children decided to look for animals (puppets and other soft toys) hidden around the site and some children created a pretend fire.  

Phonics lessons focused on h, b, f and l. We tried very hard to spell words using these letters and their sounds.  At this stage of the year, we use letter tiles and magnetic letters for spelling activities. We also read our keywords daily: to, into the, I. See if you can find these keywords in your reading books. In Literacy sessions, we sequenced story events from ‘The Little Red Hen’ and compared the story to ‘The Very Helpful Hedgehog.’ We thought the hedgehog could help the hen’s friends to be helpful!

In Maths, we talked about the idea of doubles and doubling using a picture stimulus board. We then made the link between doubles in the world around us (double yellow lines, double-decker bus) to finding simple doubles with equipment, for example, putting two of the same Numicon tiles together. During the rest of the week, we investigated patterns in the environment and used equipment to explore colour and shape patterns. You might like to try this game at home: https://www.topmarks.co.uk/ordering-and-sequencing/shape-patterns

As a warm up in Music, we clapped the rhythm of our names and then played an untuned instrument to Mrs Webb’s pulse (beat). The children listened carefully and tried very hard to play together. After our performance warm up, we explored the sounds of the instruments before creating a class composition about falling leaves.

What a busy week! It’s now time to rest, play and enjoy your weekend. See you all Monday.

Mrs Webb, Mrs Reid and Mrs Cain x