Welcome to Butterfly Class

Class Email

If you need to speak to Miss Ward, please feel free to email me at: butterfly@shakespeare-inf.hants.sch.uk

Each term we will introduce you to a new project focusing on different areas, for example we have a project on fairy tales, pirates and minibeasts!

News

Week Beginning 22.4.24

This week we have been taking part in lots of activities related to our project - Fairy Tales. We have listened to and retold the story of the Three Little Pigs. In our explore and play time we have been building houses out of different materials and testing out which was the strongest.

On Monday, we had a special visitor Kelly Simm, a GB gymnast. She told us all about her life and achievements. It was incredible to hear all about what she has achieved and it inspired us to get outside and to see what exercises we could try too!  

We also had a very exciting visit from Openbox Theatre and we took part in an immersive story telling workshop. We travelled through our imaginations and retold the story of Jack and the beanstalk, we grew like beans and flew like birds, portrayed the characters emotions throughout the story and all had a lot of fun throughout the whole session!

News 18.03.24

This week we have been reading the story ‘pattans pumpkin’ and have been doing some fabulous drawing and writing about the story.

In maths we have been learning lots about 2D shapes and have been spotting lots in our  environment.

We continued our Art and painted our ideal flowers, thinking carefully about the colours and size of paintbrushes we needed. 

We have been watching our plant grow in our classroom and have been very excited about how tall our bean has grown! 

11.03.24

This week we have been exploring deconstructed plants and talking about the parts of a plant. We have also begun sketching our flowers ready for painting inspired by our artist Georgia O’Keefe. Our book of the week for drawing club is The Enormous Turnip and the children found this book very funny. We also have planted some bulbs in the courtyard and are excited to see them grow. In our art area we have been exploring and experimenting with paint. In our construction area we have been building car track and car parks. In the tuff tray we have enjoyed making flowers using natural resources.

In Maths this week we have been learning all about 3D shapes.

4.03.24

This week we explored our key artist Georgia O’Keefe and observed her flower paintings whilst talking about what we liked about them. In drawing club we looked at the poem- How does your garden grow? By Julia Donaldson. The children have also observed lots of changes in the plants we have grown in our classrooms.

In our art area we painted flowers from observation. In our construction area we made a plant shop. In the tuff tray we observed different leaves with magnifying glasses.

This week in Maths we have been learning about spatial awareness.

We also had World Book Day and loved seeing all the childrens costumes. 

26.02.24

This week we have engaged in seed exploration and thought about the visible similarities and differences. We also discussed what we thought they would grow into. Our book of the week was ‘The Tiny Seed’ and the children enjoyed learning about growing through different seasons. In our art area we made watering cans out of junk modelling. In the tuff tray we read words hidden in the soil and identified the digraphs and trigraphs in the words. As scientists we have enjoyed observing our plant as it has started growing a very small root. We are excited to fill in our seed diary and watch it grow! This week in Maths we have extended our number bond to 10 knowledge by drawing part whole models and writing number sentences.

19.02.24

We were all so excited to come back to school to be greeted by Jasper the Cat! He came into our classes with a big box full of lots of exciting things such as seeds and the book ‘Jasper and the Beanstalk’. Jasper wrote us a letter asking us to help plants his seeds. All the children discussed how they were going to grow their cress seeds at home. We enjoyed reading Jaspers story this week and learning about growing plants. In our art area we made beanstalks just like Jaspers. In the tuff tray we built beanstalks with cubes and discussed how many cubes high they were.

This week in Maths we learnt our number bonds to 10 and in phonics we have been practising chunking longer words. 

05.02.24

This week we went to our local park and used the apparatus as pirates! All the children had so much fun engaging in this pirate play.

We finished off our pirate project by following a map around the school where we found Captain McGrew at the end! We walked the plank and received a pirate certificate from him.

In maths and phonics we have been reviewing previously taught content.

Our we care time this week was all about safer internet day and we learnt how to use technology safely and discussed who our safe adults are if we are worried about anything.

29.01.24

This week captain McGrew sent us some clues around our school to find! We became Geographers to follow the directions on the clues to find the treasure. Once we had found his treasure we drew the map showing the route of the school we took to find the it.

In maths we learnt all about the skills of addition and practiced adding two numbers together to make 10.

In week care time this week we discovered all about the Chinese new year.

We have been extending our phonics and writing ability to form sentences as part of our drawing club.

We are super excited for Captain McGrew's final challenge next week!

22.01.24

This week's challenge from Captain McGrew was to help him build a new boat that would float in the sea. We quickly became scientists and designers to test different objects from our classroom to see if they float or sink in water. Using this information we predicted what materials would be good to build a pirate boat. We then designed and built our boats thinking about the different parts of a boat. We used different materials to make our boats such as lego, foil, card, paper, cardboard and plastic. 

Once they were all built we got to test them in the water to see if they would float. After we evaluated our boats, thinking about why they floated and why some of them sunk, reflecting on the materials we used.

We also had a special visit this week from the RNLI, who taught us all about how to be safe at sea. 

In wellbeing time we learnt about how we could fill up peoples buckets by being kind and caring friends. 

In maths we have been comparing numbers to 10 and in phonics we have been learning to read longer words using the chunking up method. 

15.01.24

This week we have continued to be heavily engrossed in our pirate project, we received another letter from Captain McGrew asking us to learn all about maps. We became expert geographers learning all about what street furniture is. We then went around the school grounds spotting different pieces of street furniture such as bins, benches, gates etc. We then came back to class and looked at an aerial map of our school and placed where we saw the street furniture. 

We have enjoyed making pirate treasure with the modelling clay and labelling it using our phonics knowledge. 

In maths this we have explored the numbers 9 and 10 and practiced forming them using our school number rhymes. 

In phonics we have continued to expand our digraph knowledge and having been reading more sentences and doing fantastic writing. 

We have been very excited by all the ice outside in the learning lane and courtyard, some of us even formed our name in the snow! 

09.01.24

On Monday we had an exciting parcel arrive, inside was a letter from captain McGrew asking us to be part of his pirate crew, there was also some pirate words for us to learn and a book to read called ‘Are you the pirate captain?’.  In our drawing club we wrote lots of words about our story. 

We accepted his challenge and began a fun week of learning about pirates. In our woodland time we practiced climbing the riggings and hunting for pirate treasure in the woodland.

In maths we learnt all about the number 6,7, 8, we completed lots of activities to support our number knowledge. 

02.01.2024

We have had a great first week back after the holidays. We had lots of exciting news to share with our friends and teachers.

This week has been our RE immersion week, we have been exploring the concept of birthdays. We looked at the Sikh story of Guru Nanak and learnt lots about him.

We learnt the digraphs ee, ai, oa and the trigraph igh, in phonics this week.

In maths we learnt about number bonds to 5 and completed lots of fun activities to consolidate our learning. 

We have also been learning lots about capital letters and the capital letters in our names. 

11.12.23

This week our book of the week was Mog and the Christmas Calamity.

The children have worked so hard and put on a fantastic Nativity performance for the school and parents and carers this week.

In our continuous provision we wrote letters to Santa, wrapped presents in our tuff tray and looked at patterns with natural resources in our loose parts area.

In Phonics and Maths we had a review week to gain a deep understanding of all the learning we have done in our first term of school.

We loved having our Christmas Lunch and Christmas Party in our classes before breaking up for the holidays.

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

4.12.23

Our book of the week this week was Joy to the World which is all about how Christmas is celebrated in different countries all around the world. The children tried really hard this week in drawing club to apply their phonics knowledge when writing about this book.

In our Art area we enjoyed making Christmas characters such as Elfs, Santa and Rudolf on paper plates. In the Tuff tray we decorated Christmas trees using a variety of materials and we enjoyed looking at and playing with the Nativity characters in the curiosity cube.

In Phonics this week we learnt to read words with ‘s’ at the end and we learnt that sometimes this makes a /z/ sound.

In Maths we learnt about all Time.

27.11.23

To start off our Christmas project we decorated our class rooms and enjoyed a range of Christmas crafts such as decorating the tree, making pipe cleaner candy canes and Christmas colouring.

Our book of the week was The Jolly Christmas Postman. In Drawing club the children all drew and wrote about the different Characters in the book. We also made cards and letters in the Art area to be delivered by the Jolly Christmas postman. In the Tuff tray we organised 2D shapes into the correct groups and talked about how many corners and side they have. We also made patterns with shapes in our loose parts area.

In Maths we learnt how to find one less than a given number.

In Phonics we learnt the sounds sh, th, ng and nk.

20.11.23

This week we learnt the Nursery Rhyme The Grand Old Duke of York. In our Art Area we have been junk modelling drums, in our Tuff Tray we have been making flags for the Soldiers and in the construction area we have been building very tall castles.

On Thursday we had Nursery Rhyme dress up day and we loved seeing everyone’s fabulous costumes. The children enjoyed the parade we put on in the hall to showcase their costumes and sing all the Nursery Rhymes they were dressed up as.

In Maths we learnt how to find one more than a given number.

In Phonics we learnt the sounds z, qu and ch.

13.11.23

This week we learnt the Nursery Rhyme Miss Molly had a dolly. In our tuff tray we have been dressing up as Doctors and looking after Miss Molly. We have also made get well soon cards for Miss Molly in our Art area. 

We had a very exciting visit this week from Music Bugs! We loved singing and dancing to Nursery rhymes with instruments and fun props.

In Maths we learnt how to compare non-identical objects using the vocabulary- more, same and fewer.

In Phonics we learnt the sounds v, w, x and y.

6.11.23

This week the Nursery Rhyme that we learnt was Jack and Jill. We all also had a go at writing words from the rhyme such as Jack, Jill, bed, fell and hill.

This week in woodland time we all got to explore the pond for the first time which was very exciting.

In Maths we learnt how to compare identical objects using the vocabulary- more, same and fewer.

In Phonics we learnt the sounds j, ff, ll and ss.

30.10.23

This week we started our new project Nursery Rhymes! Our rhyme of the week was Hickory Dickory Dock and we enjoyed making Mice in our art area and clocks with loose parts.

We also went on a Nursery Rhyme hunt around the school grounds to find clues as to which Nursery Rhymes we are going to learn over the next few weeks. 

In Maths we learnt how to sort objects into groups based on size, colour, shapes, numbers and habitats.

This week we had a review week in Phonics to practise the sounds and tricky words we know.

16.10.2023

We have had a super busy last week before half term, full of lots of fun activities and new experiences. 

This week we had our RE immersion days where we learnt all about belonging. We talked about all the groups we belonged to including our school community. On Thursday we visited the church for the first time at school to celebrate our harvest festival. 

On Wednesday we did lots of fun activities to say goodbye to the wonderful Mrs Kesterson and Mrs Shuttleworth. 

In number we learnt all about the number 5.

As part of our belonging  learning we made our families in the tuff tray using pebbles, it was so much fun! 

We explored our sense of touch by making feely pictures using lots of different materials. 

In phonics we learnt the sounds h, b, f and l and did our first word writing task where we independently had a go writing the words dog, ten, red and mum.  

We hope you all have alovely  half-term and look forward to hearing all about it! 

09.10.2023

This week we have been exploring our sense of taste, we did a taste test of different fruits. We also explored our other senses to see what they felt like, what we could see they looked like in side and how they smelt!

In phonics we learnt the sounds ck, e, r and u. 

We learnt all ahout the number 4 and completed different counting activities.  In the tuff tray we explored different ways to make plate4 using the natural resources. In our creative area we had the opportunity to create our favourite good items on a plate! 

02.10.2023

This week we have become Artists just like Henri Matisse and we have been exploring collage and layering to collage a self portrait. 

We have also become mathematicians learning all about numbers 1-3; we have practiced making 3 and writing the numbers in our school formation using our number rhymes.

This week in the woodland we explored our sense of smell and made smelly caterpillars using the different herbs in the sensory garden. 

In phonics we learnt the sounds g, o, c, k and applied this knowledge to work out the initial sounds of the objects hiding in the spiderweb, in our tuff trays!

27.09.2023

This week we have been exploring the sense hearing, we went on a walk to see what we could hear using our ears. We could hear lots of cars driving past, the birds signing and the happy laughter of the big children playing!

Our weekly book is the Gruffalo and we have transformed our tuff trays into a magical woodland.

In phonics we have be learning the sounds i,n,m,d. We have also started our reading practice sessions and you will find the new book and diary in their bookbags, please spend time looking at these books with your child.

We have started our morning routine of funky fingers, where the children complete a 5 minute fine motor activity to some jazzy music!

22.09.2023

The children have settled very well into school and have enjoyed their first full time week. Have a look at the photos of some of the learning that we have been doing this week. This week we have been reading the story 'Elmer' and exploring colours using pom poms. We have been learning about our sense of sight where we have been making binoculars and using our looking eyes to describe the objects. We have started to teach phonics using our Little Wandle programme where we have learnt the sounds s a t p. 

Other important information about school:

P.E

Each week, P.E is taught on a Tuesday afternoon (Trackie Tuesday). This term we are strengthening our core muscles and using our gross motor skills to develop body control. Please make sure your child comes into school wearing their P.E kit.

Reading

Our teachers may read with us any day of the week. Please make sure your reading diary and book is in your book bag every day.

Library

Every Friday afternoon, we are allowed to borrow a book from the library. Please make sure your child puts their library book in their book bag every Friday morning so they can choose a new one!

What you need

Please make sure you bring your water bottle (please carry separately) and book bag to school each day. We visit the Woodland every WEDNESDAY, so please ensure your wellies and puddle suits are in school. 

If you ever have any questions then please do come and ask, we are always happy to help!