Foundation Stage 1

Once upon a time … there was a class of children called The Clever Kittens and they began exploring different traditional tales.

They tasted porridge with Goldilocks and the three Bears and joined in with the repeated phrases in the story e.g. “Who’s been eating my porridge?”  They began learning how stories were structured by sequencing pictures from the story and other stories such as The Three Billy Goats Gruff.  

The children read the Three Little Pigs story and were encouraged to understand questions linked to the story e.g. Who built the strongest house? Why didn’t the house of bricks blow down when the wolf huffed and puffed?  The Clever Kittens also joined in with story, using the language “Once upon a time ….” and “The end”.
They created Little Red Riding pictures using 2d Shapes, learning their mathematical names and mathematical terms to describe them.  

Parents/Carers also became involved helping the Clever Kittens to create 2d Shape pictures and constructing various 3d models of buildings inspired by their favourite traditional tale.

Finally, they celebrated the Chinese New Year of the pig by tasting Chinese food - trying hard to use chopsticks, dressed up in Chinese traditional costumes and also made Chinese fans and firework pictures.  For the festivities finale the Sheffield Dance Company performed the Chinese Lion Dance. Gung Hey Fat Choi (Happy New Year). 
It has been an amazing half term. 
The End.

Our topic for Autumn 2 was Worldwide Tales and we invited Kuda from Zimbabwe to come and talk to us about her experiences in Africa.  Kuda taught us a dance called ‘Making Melodies’, which involved us using some very unusual dance moves.

 

We read the books ‘Walking through the Jungle’ and ‘Handa’s Surprise’ and drew our favourite wild animal from the stories.  One of the Clever kitten’s brought their pet corn snake into class and told us all about it.

We developed our outdoor area - the Writing Dome and the ‘Twitchers’ Hut’, and placed a bird table nearby to look for different kinds of birds.  It was an unexpected surprise when one visited our classroom and we could observe it closely.

The Clever Kittens have been getting into the festive spirit and have made the home corner into the Christmas home corner together with the traditional turkey, Yorkshire puddings, carrots and the must-have sprouts.

Our parents/carers have also joined in the celebrations by helping the Clever Kittens to practise their cutting skills to make a silver and gold collage for the Home Learning, which has been put on display. 

The Clever Kittens went on an Autumn walk to Barker’s Park.  On our walk we were looking for brown, orange, red leaves, squirrels, hedgehogs, conkers and acorns.
 
It also gave the opportunity for children to notice aspects of the outside environment, e.g. change in seasons and using their senses,noticing different sights, sounds and smells.  We collected lots of materials to make an Autumn collage which we have displayed in the classroom. Look at the pictures to see what we found!

Welcome to Foundation Stage 1. The teacher is Mrs Bradwell and she is supported by Mrs Murray and Miss Cutler. The children have settled well into the routine of school life. During this half-term the children will be learning all about ‘Marvellous Me’.