Year R
Summer Term
Dragons and Unicorns
The children have been enjoying the story The Dragon and The Unicorn: the Magic of Friendship by Charly Fron. This story teaches the audience about friendship and how magical it can be.
We read the first two pages to the children and asked them to imagine the two lands that we described. They went away and either drew Cloud City, where the dragons live, or Sparkle Land, where the unicorns live. They then wrote about the lands that they drew.
A storm whisks both Dan and Fran from their lands and they meet. Both were too shy to talk to one another but very curious about each other. They both discover that they are injured; Dan has a broken wing and Fran has an injured hoof. Fran uses her magic to fix her foot and Dan watches on in fascination but will not ask for help. Fran becomes thirsty and watches Dan melt the ice using his fire. She will not ask for his help and tries to drink the ice, but her tongue gets stuck on the ice. The children pretended to be the author of the story and wrote what they imagined might happen next.
They eventually catch each other’s eyes and Dan uses fire to melt the ice to release Frans’s tongue and Fran uses her magic to fix Dan’s wing. We shared with the children a picture from the story and asked them again to put on their author's hat and write what might happen next.
During this topic, children have had lots of opportunities to be artists. They have all had a go at drawing Dan and Fran, and they have used collage and colouring to make them look vibrant. They used lots of different materials to create different textures and really thought about where they were placing them on Dan and Fran.
Owls – Hawk Conservancy
At the beginning of this half term, the children were very excited to be going on their first school trip! Despite the rain, we had a fantastic day at the Hawk Conservancy and managed to learn the answers to all our wonderings about owls.
We took part in an owl workshop where we met Wispa a boobook owl. He wasn’t shy at all and enjoying flying around amongst the children …. even landing on one child’s feet!
Following our trip, we made our own class books about everything we had learnt about owls. Here are some of the things we learnt …
Under the sea - DT investigation
As part of an engaging Under the Sea topic, the children explored marine themes through a hands-on design and technology project. They were challenged to design and build their own submarines using junk modelling materials such as cardboard, plastic bottles, and other recyclable items. This creative activity allowed children to apply problem-solving skills, imagination, and teamwork as they planned and constructed their models.
Once completed, the children tested their submarines by investigating whether they would float or sink. This introduced basic scientific concepts such as buoyancy and material properties in a fun and accessible way. Through observation and discussion, the children reflected on what design features helped their submarines stay afloat and found ways to make them sink.
Under the Sea
As part of our learning about 'Under the Sea' we have been reading 'The Rainbow Fish'. In Art, we did observational drawings of Rainbow fish and then added colour using different media. Here are our finished pictures.
Spring Term
Living Eggs
One day some eggs appeared outside the office. We wondered what might be inside …
When they hatched, we were very excited to meet the baby chicks. We loved looking at them every time we went across to the main building. Then one day, they came to visit us in our classroom and we all got the chance to hold one. Now they have gone to be looked after in their forever homes.
World Book Day
The children enjoyed celebrating World Book Day and looked wonderful in their costumes. We spent the day talking about what we loved to read, where we liked to read and sharing our favourite books that we had brought in.
PE - 4 Point Balances
In PE this half-term the children have been learning all about 4-point balance. Using 4 points of the body to balance on, they have learnt the importance of using core muscles to support in holding themselves when in the position. They are encouraged to hold the position for 3 slow seconds!
They have also had the excitement of exploring the wall bars. Some children are very confident and love to climb all the way to the top.
Chinese New Year
We started this term with a flight to a mystery country. The children showed their passport at ‘security’ and then boarded the aeroplane. After a long flight (with some turbulence), we landed safely and explored our new surroundings.
Using the clues on the tables, the children worked out we had landed in China.
“I know that’s the China flag.”
“I know because there are dragons in China.”
“Pandas live in China.”
“I’ve used chopsticks before with Chinese food.”
We decided to stay in China for a few weeks to explore the country further and learn about how New Year is celebrated. In our continuous provision, we have enjoyed our Chinese role play areas – a café and an aeroplane, using chopsticks, learning about Chinese numbers, making playdough snakes along with lots of other exciting things!
We listened to a story called The Great Race. This story tells how the Chinese zodiac calendar was started. We listened to the story several times and then worked together to sequence key parts of the story. Then we had a go at writing some of the story ourselves.
We have also learnt a lot about how Chinese New Year is celebrated. We wrote letters to Mrs Wyeth asking if we could celebrate Chinese New Year at school. She said, yes!
We had so much fun celebrating Chinese New Year. We came to school wearing red clothes for good luck and cleaned and tidied the classroom to get rid of any bad luck. Then we hung our decorations up – we had made lanterns and bunting. Mrs Bond came in and helped us to make dumplings for our feast. In the afternoon, we enjoyed our special Chinese feast and did our dragon dance.
We finished our topic by reflecting on what we had enjoyed the most about our celebrations.
Autumn Term
Ish
We have been reading the story Ish.
Ish is a story about a boy named Ramon who loved to draw, and he would draw wherever he went. One day when he was drawing, his older brother came into the room and laughed at his drawing. This made Ramon very angry, and he crumpled up all his pictures. He gave up drawing because he just felt that his drawings weren’t perfect. His sister took from him a crumpled drawing and ran away with it. Ramon chases her and discovers that she has been putting up his drawings in her room. His sister shared her favourite picture, and it was one of the flowers in a vase. They said that it looked vase-ish. This gave Ramon the confidence to draw again. He just drew an ish picture each time.
The children enjoyed discussing this story. We spoke about feelings and if it was kind what his brother said. We thought about times when we may have been feeling like Ramon and how we could solve it. So, we thought it would be nice to do our own versions of vase-ish drawings. We had some flowers in a vase, and we created an observational drawing of what we could see. We particularly focused on the shapes and colours.
Exploring Autumn
We went on a walk around the school grounds, to talk about the season change. We looked for lots of changes such as the leaves falling, berries and the leaves changing colours.
During art we created some leaf rubbings with the leaves that we collected. We thought carefully about the colours that we would use. These matched the colours that we saw on our walk.
We also practised our fine motor skills and used scissors to cut out some leaves so we could put up a tree display in our classrooms.
Little Red Hen
It all began with the arrival of a mystery bag … the children worked together as detectives to work out that all the things in the bag belonged to the story of the Little Red Hen.
We listened to the story lots of times and drew our own story map. Then the children enjoyed using the puppets to retell the story with their friends.
A few days later, we received a very important letter …
But we had a problem – we wanted to help the Little Red Hen but we didn’t know how to make bread. Again, the children did some great detective work and found out the ingredients we needed and how to use them to make bread. We wrote a letter to tell the Little Red Hen we could help make some bread and Mrs Parry and Mrs Mead bought the ingredients we needed. Finally, we were ready to work together to make bread. We made a roll for each of us and some extra rolls to send to the Little Red Hen. It was delicious!
After we had made our bread for the Little Red Hen, we were interested in what other breads from around the world looked and tasted like. We tried baguette from France, sour dough from Egypt, Bagel from America, Flatbread from Greece and Tortilla Wraps from Mexico. We had a split on our favourite bread with the baguette and bagel coming out on top. 
Settling In - September 2024
The new Year R children have settled in really well and have spent their first few days at school exploring the resources in their classrooms and outdoors. They have had so much fun!
