Blog 4 - 6th October

A very busy week in Apple Class but lots of awesome Autumnal fun! 

 

Our key words this week have been: Autumn, change, falling, pine cones, conkers, acorns, sticks. 

 

Just a quick one, please keep checking your child's learning journal. They are all up and running on the school360 app. If you are yet to see any observations of your child then please talk to Mrs Farrar and I'll have a look into it for you. 

 

Firstly, a big thank you to all our families for going out and about exploring the land and bringing back in some wonderful Autumn treasures! The children thoroughly enjoyed telling all staff about their walks, where they went, who they went with and what they found! We loved taking turns to talk in small groups about the fabulous things we found. 

 

This week we were very excited to have a go at recreating Vincent Van Gogh's painting "The Mulberry Tree". First we talked about what an artist is and lots of children were able to reflect upon the paintings they have created recently. Excellent reflective learning Apple Class! Next, we discussed how we knew the picture was painted in Autumn time. Most of us could spot the yellow leaves on the tree. We also thought carefully about why the artist may have created "wavy" leaves on the tree. Some of their ideas were: "the leaves are falling off", "it is really windy" and "the tree is wobbling in the wind". We had some super thoughtful discussions, well done! Afterwards the children enjoyed recreating their own paintings just like an artist. 

 

We have also enjoyed singing our 'Autumn Leaves are falling Down' song and the children enjoyed dancing like autumn leaves with paper streamers. This was so enjoyable for all!

 

In other learning around the classroom, the children have been busy practicing their pencil grip whilst colouring Autumn leaves, painting leaf pictures using Autumnal colours for our Autumn tree display and have developed their scissors skills to cut out leaves to make Autumn pictures.

 

We've really enjoyed our exploration in our tuff tray this week. We've had an explosion of Autumn treasures! Thank you to everyone who went out and about to bring in some Autumn treasures! 

 

In our mathematical learning, we had a go at making repeating patterns using autumn treasures. The children tried really hard and most of us understood a simple 2 part pattern (conker, pine cone, conker, pine cone) and some of us had a go at a 3 part pattern (conker, conker, pine cone).  It's important for children to understand patterns so that they can make predictions and make connections. Keep practising making repeating patterns at home. You could use any household items- fork, spoon, fork, spoon or sock, shoe  sock, shoe. I'd love to see pictures of you making your own patterns in your learning journal.

 

 Next week we stay with our Autumn All Around topic and look at our core text Leaf Man. 

 

Wishing you all a very wonderful (and a little windy) weekend

Mrs Farrar