Welcome to Meadowsfoot Class! We are an EYFS class. Our teacher is Miss Gilberthorpe. We are supported by Mrs Readey, Mrs Josee and Mrs Broadheard.
We are all enjoying our new book ‘Knock Knock Open the Door’. We have been practising using adjectives to describe different animals. We talked about the best adjectives to use to help our friends guess who was hiding behind the door.
In maths, we have completed our topic on shape. We are all able to describe 2D and 3D shapes and use them to make patterns and create wonderful structures.
In EYFS we have been talking about the different homes people live in. We all agreed we would like to live in a house boat and have the option to sail away when we fancied!
It was lovely welcoming the children back to school on Tuesday and hearing tales of their Christmas holidays. The children set to work straight away thinking of their own resolutions for the coming year. As a class, we are challenging ourselves to get better at sporting activities, cooking and trying to save money! We are going to display these in the classroom to remind ourselves what we set out to achieve.
In maths, the children have been building homes and castles with 2D and 3D shapes and discussing the properties of each shape. On Tuesday, EYFS enjoyed their first swimming lesson. They developed the confidence in getting their face wet and splashing with their legs. Everyone is very excited for their next session.
The week started with a bang thanks to the children's wonderful nativity 'A Christmas Recipe'. The children loved performing to you all and dressing up in their wonderful costumes! They have been recreating the nativity in the classroom all week. I think it will be a long time before we stop hearing the songs!
In year 1, children have been working hard writing their own version of Boa's Bad Birthday. They have been thinking of new presents that Boa wouldn't want to receive.
The EYFS children have been very busy helping Santa by designing new toys and creating maps to help him find his way to all of the houses on Christmas Eve.
We have been very busy practising for our nativity this week. We are all so excited to perform for you on Monday! We wonder what your favourite song will be!? All term we have been talking about celebrations and how we all celebrate in different ways. We had great fun today decorating our classroom for the final two weeks of school as we sang songs, danced to Christmas music and shared stories of our family traditions.
This has been the last week of normality before we head into a magical December full of nativities, tree decorating and waiting for Father Christmas! This week, we have spent time thinking about why people celebrate and realised that people all over the world celebrate for lots of different occasions, but each celebration has similar traditions such as gathering with families, giving presents and sharing food! We have all made loads of progress in our reading these last few weeks. We are really keen to show off what we know. Don’t forget you can ask Miss Gilberthorpe for ideas on how you can help us at home. As we say in Meadowsfoot, teamwork makes the dream work!!
This week we were very excited to find a present in our classroom. We enjoyed a game of pass the parcel before finding it was a new story book 'Boa's Bad Birthday'. We made predictions about why his birthday was bad. We thought that maybe his friends didn't show up, he was sick or maybe he didn't get any presents. After reading the book we found out it was because all of his presents were rubbish! We have spent the rest of the week painting pictures of snakes, adding actions to the story and 'hot seating the characters to find out why they got Boa such awful presents!
On Monday, the year one children went on a journey out of class in preparation for writing their own poem based on The Train Ride. Having internalised the language pattern, we were able to put the sights we saw into a brand-new version of the poem. On Wednesday, they started writing up their own poems ready to share with their friends at the end of the week.
EYFS children have been busy learning the sounds; b, f, l and j. They are putting their phonic knowledge to the test as they write birthday cards and birthday lists as we continue to enjoy our celebrations topic!
The children have returned to school with many tales of their half terms. They have been to firework displays, Halloween parties and Ewan did a litter pick along the river outside school to keep our environment safe for all to enjoy!
In class, we learned about why people celebrate Bonfire night and the different ways people mark the occasion. EYFS enjoyed lighting a fire with Mrs Readey. They talked about how to keep safe around a firework and came up with great tips for their friends. Year 1 created the Houses of Parliament in the construction area and wrote noun phrases about Guy Fawkes!
Next week, EYFS will learn about Remembrance Day. We will talk about what the word peace means and the significance of remembering events from the past.
Mothecombe enjoyed celebrating the end of the half term with a fun swimming session as well as performing in the Harvest Festival. In class we have completed all of our foundation units of work by completing quizzes to check our knowledge. In maths, we have been subtracting from 10 and noticing patterns with the ones eg: 10- 3 = 7 therefore 40 - 3 is 37. In English, we have focused on spotting verbs and creating expanded noun phrases.
We hope you all have a lovely half term break.
This week we have been enjoying learning our songs for the Harvest festival, exploring the colours of autumn and sharing our special places. In year 1, we have been learning and remembering our new text, The Train Ride. We used drawing and actions to help us 'map out' the poem to help us learn the structure. We shared ideas of other things the girl might see on a train and the person she might meet at the end! We have all been showing Miss Gilberthorpe all of the sounds and tricky words we know in phonics. We are working really hard to blend the sounds we know together to read words.
This week, we have had lots of fun learning our new text 'The Train Ride'. We enjoyed creating our own train and talked about the things the girl saw along the way. We shared stories of when we have been on trains. We were most excited to talk about The Polar Express journey!
We had a wonderful day at Brixham, visiting the Golden Hind. We enjoyed learning all about Sir Francis Drake and his expeditions and seal spotting as we ate our lunch!
This week, the EYFS children have been exploring the different ways they can sort objects! They came up with lots of different ways of sorting animals, such as ones that live on land and ones that live in the water. In the afternoons, they have been creating Christmas cards and thinking about why people send cards and how we feel when we receive a card. The Year 1 children have been busy learning about how to ask questions. On Wednesday, they got a call from Spiderman and were able to ask him lots of questions to find out more about him! They are now very busy planning their own book that asks the reader a question. It has been wonderful to hear stories from the Year 1s about their swimming each Tuesday! We are all very excited about our trip to Brixham next week! We can't wait to become real life explorers for the day!
This week, year 1 have been looking at synonyms and sorting words that have a similar meaning! We’ve been working very hard on having a calm and harmonious learning environment. They have also enjoyed their challenge cards which allow them to independently continue their learning in their own way.
EYFS have been enjoying Dough Disco each morning which supports the development of their physical skills. In the afternoons, we have been retelling the story of ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’.
This week the Foundation children have been enjoying learning even more letter sounds. They are beginning to blend letters together to read simple words and identifying the initial sounds in words to write very important shopping lists! In the afternoons, they have been reading our Favourite Five stories, singing songs and spending lots of time chatting to their friends about our families and the things they enjoy. It has been wonderful to see their friendships develop.
The year one children have been learning all about nouns and verbs in English. They have sorted the different word classes, created their own and written their own sentences! Next week, the children will begin reading the book 'How do you feel?'.
This week has been full to the brim of excitement, enthusiasm and a shed load of fun! In the mornings, we have been learning our new routine involving handwriting, phonics, dough disco, English, maths and FunFit! We are all working so hard and helping each other to be the best we can be! In year 1, we have been writing about ourselves using our phonic knowledge from Foundation stage. In EYFS we have been practising writing our names so we can name all of our wonderful creations!
Meadowsfoot have had a wonderful first two days of school. We loved welcoming our new foundation stage children into the classroom and having lots of fun getting to know each other. We have been busy reminding ourselves of the rules and routines to make sure we are always ready to learn!
I think we are going to have lots of fun this year!
This week we set sail on the seven seas as the class was taken over by pirates. Inspired by our story The Naughty Bus, we set about making our own naughty pirate ships. We used our growing knowledge of maps to find the hidden treasure and worked together to uncover it and move it to safety.
In the afternoon, we enjoyed exploring aerial maps of the local area. We spoke about the features we spotted such as symbols for campsites, Dartmoor Zoo and the A38. On Wednesday, we used colourful pens to add our own features to the maps including our school and homes.
We are all very excited for our final half term of this school year! Our new topic ‘Off We Go’ is set to be full of fun as we journey through air, sea and land with the help of our Favourite Five stories. Over the coming weeks we will read and take part in activities based around the books to help us develop our vocabulary and understanding of stories. We are even going to have a go at inventing our own stories of adventure!
On Tuesday, we spoke about what makes us unique and how the world is made up of lots of different people. To celebrate this, we made colourful rainbows and wonderful self-portraits.
The end of another half term…wow! It’s very clear as when you walk into Meadowsfoot now that the children are nearing the end of their foundation year and soon ready to begin their year 1 adventure.
The children had a wonderful time in the woods on Monday afternoon. They listened well to Mrs Readey in order to make their own fire to toast marshmallow before having lots of fun running down the steep hill!
After half term the children will have lots of fun with their new topic ‘off we go!’.
This week the children have been enjoying the text Burglar Bill.
Throughout the week they have been very busy thinking of the other things Burglar Bill might put in his sack and writing wanted posters describing what he looks like to help the police spot him! The children have all shown what wonderful imaginative writers they are! I can’t wait to see what they do next!
On Monday, everyone had a wonderful yet soggy adventure at Forest School. They jumped in puddles and got very, very muddy! In preparation for Walk to School week next week, the children have been talking about how to be a safe pedestrian. Please encourage more of these chats at home if you can.
This week, Meadowsfoot children turned into artists as they created their own artwork inspired by the work of local artist, Yvonne Comber. After studying Yvonne's creations, the children spoke about what they noticed and how the artwork made them feel. The children used water colours and long brush strokes to create a background before using colourful paints and crayons to create the flower meadow in the forefront. The children encouraged each other as they created their unique pieces offering suggestions about how they could make their masterpiece even better.
It has been wonderful to welcome the children back to school this week and hear about their adventures. Everyone was keen to share what they had been up to at home. It sounded like everyone had a great time and are ready to enjoy the summer term! The children kicked off our topic 'Mary, Mary Quite Contrary' on Monday by discussing everything they already know about growing plants and the things they are keen to find out about. Everyone is excited about growing our own plants and observing their growth over the term.
In maths, the children have been learning about numbers above 10. They have been investigating the patterns of numbers between 10-14 and using a range of images and structures to showcase their understanding. I think we have a class of mathematicians!
As we wave goodbye to another term it’s a really good chance for us to look back at our learning. On Tuesday, we enjoyed looking at our floor book and the photos we have taken on the iPad. We made comments about how much taller we looked and all the things we have achieved since the photos were taken. We reminisced about our African dance workshop, the songs we have sung and the topics we have learnt about.
When we return, we are excited to start our topic ‘Mary Mary Quite Contrary’ where we will be planting seeds and bulbs and observing their growth.
Have a wonderful Easter.
We are all eagerly awaiting the transformation of our caterpillars and butterflies. We are hoping to see some big changes in the next few days.
We have been talking this week about our special places and how our bodies feel when we go to these places. We had wonderful conversations and realised that we have such a wide variety of special places. Some of us like the beach or being at home where our bodies feel calm and relaxed, whilst some of us love theme parks and swimming pools where our bodies feel excited. We also looked at some buildings other people feel are special such as churches, mosques and temples. We noticed that some have very ornate decorations and others are less extravagant.
This week the children have been everything from scientists, to engineers, to high flying mathematicians as we celebrated British science week. On Wednesday, the children worked as a team to build their own water park. They thought carefully about how to make the slide steep enough for the thrill seekers amongst them and built their own ticket office.
Next week we are looking forward to beginning our Easter celebrations. We look forward to you joining us on Friday afternoon at our Easter Bonnet workshop!
This week we’ve continued to watch our caterpillars and tadpoles grow as they quickly approach the next stage of their life cycle. We have been carefully observing both creatures and sharing the changes we see through discussion and drawing. On Tuesday, we were blessed with beautiful spring sunshine so headed outside to check for signs of spring. We noticed buds on the trees and the gentle breeze on our skin as we relaxed in the sunshine.
In phonics, we are practising reading and writing longer words. Miss Gilberthorpe is so happy to see so many of us reading at home. No wonder we are all making such great progress!
This week saw the arrival of tadpoles and caterpillars! We have been closely observing them and talking about what we can see. We used our knowledge of mixing paints to paint our own tadpoles and a giant butterfly you will soon see on display near the hall! Over the next few weeks, we will keep a close eye on them to see how they change. We continue to read our 'Favourite Five' stories. We are starting to join in with key parts of the story, add expression when we read and learn about unknown words that we are able to use in conversations with our friends!
We got straight to work on our return to school this week with our new topic Bugs, Butterflies and Bunnies. We headed to the park on Tuesday to spot signs of spring. We observed the world around us and noticed that the trees were bare which meant they had no leaves on them. We discussed that some of the trees had leaves and that these are called evergreen trees and they keep their leaves all year. We returned to the classroom to record our observations using pictures and words. We will continue to make observations in the park and notice how the world around us changes throughout the year.
On Wednesday, we talked about our friends and what makes them 'good’ friends. We realised that we are all very lucky to have such good friends in our class. We made paper dolls to represent our friends and enjoyed reading the story 'Paper Dolls'.