Culture Week in Purple Class

This week we have enjoyed celebrating our amazing and diverse community. It has been such an exciting and busy week for everyone involved. Each class spent the week finding out about a different country, including food, art, music and physical geography.

Purple class enjoyed learning all about the country Somalia!

Somalia Flag | Buy Flag of Somalia | The Flag Shop
We looked at different flags from around the world and talked about why flags are important. We talked about the children’s own heritage (family history) and made different flags to represent some of the different countries from around the world.

Food tasting was a fun way to introduce the country Somalia:

We learnt how to weave:

We looked at Somalian fabric and designed our own vibrant patterns:

A huge thank you to Rohan’s mum who visited the Reception classes to share a story with us that was read to her when she was a little girl! You can watch a version of this story below.

On Friday children had the opportunity to dress in national dress, clothes that represent their country or the country they have been learning about in class. We ended Culture Week with a parade around the school.

Little Red

This week we have been reading the story ‘Little Red’. We talked about how Little Red was a character of strength and fearlessness. In this version of the classic tale, we see Little Red outsmart the wolf, and all the children agreed that Little Red was brave and clever. We talked about the word ‘cunning’ and how we would usually associate this word with the wolf’s character, but in this version it is Little Red who is cunning.

There are lots of visual details to spot in this book: bunny, ladybug and hedgehog. This was our inspiration for creating forest pictures. We worked together in small groups to create these beautiful forest pictures. The children were asked to include a Wolf Den, Granny’s house and Little Red’s cottage. The children also enjoyed writing little speech bubbles and hiding forest animals in their pictures just like in the story Little Red.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Blast Off!

This week we have been learning about our planet, Earth and the solar system. We have found out about each of the planets and imagined what is was like in space.

Highlights of this week were:

  • Space Mapping
  • Listening to space music
  • Acting out being astronauts in space….and aliens!
  • Designing rockets
  • Writing to aliens

“Clay reigns supreme as the greatest and most marvellous toy possible…Clay is something that is nothing…but which can become anything and everything.” 

We have clay out everyday in Purple class. This week the children were inspired to make teapots, baskets and vases.

The children set up a cafe in the mud kitchen. Dish of the day was salad, the children discussed other healthy foods and enjoyed making menus for their customers.

Summer Term Learning in Purple Class

This term we’ve been inspired by tigers, mini beasts, pirates and mermaids!

We began the Summer term by reading the story ‘The Tiger who came to Tea’. We wrote letters to the tiger asking him questions about himself. We were very excited when we received a letter back from him.

We decided to have a party for the Tiger’s birthday as he was turning 5. We joined in the celebrations by also celebrating our own birthdays.

We made party hats for our birthday celebrations

We enjoyed singing, dancing, icing biscuits and playing party games.

This term we have loved learning facts about minibeasts. We observed snails in the classroom and then made these spectacular collages.

We learnt that a snails love to eat bananas.

We read the story ‘Night Time Pirates’. We were inspired to create these pictures.

Below are some pictures of all the different activities we have loved engaging in this term.

Learning to weave and sew.
Planting fruit and vegetables
Domestic play in the mud kitchen
Working together to build a dam.
Creating a whirlpool.
Hunting for minibeasts
Building rivers

Happy Easter Purple Class

I am so proud of all that the children have achieved this term in Purple Class. We thank you for all of the hard work and support that you have been giving, and we hope everyone is able to have a restful spring break. We look forward to seeing you again after the Easter break.

This week the sun has made a special appearance and we have enjoyed making the most of the sunshine!

We worked together to create mini pools.

We have been sculptors:

Patryk made burger, chips and an hotdog.
Anaise made a person.
Keon made a person.
John made a spider.

Xavier and Rudy enjoyed making a market stall:

Lara made a bag containing an eyeshadow, lipstick and a laptop.

Giants and Dragons…

It has been a great pleasure to welcome the children back to Purple Class. We have tried to concentrate on wellbeing this week and getting the children back to enjoying school.

Our curriculum focus over this past week has been giants and dragons. We read the stories ‘Shhh’ as well as the traditional tale ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and finally ‘George and the Dragon’.

We made Giant puppets and castles:

We have engaged in small world play:

We made the dragons fiery breath!

Did you know there are lots of different types of dragons? We enjoyed describing sun, ice and garden dragons. The children created dragons and wrote sentences describing them. The children were fantastic at remembering to use capital letters, finger spaces and full stops. I was so impressed with how confident the children were at sounding out words to spell.

This week Ms Francis and I have been very busy creating a nature area for the children in our Reception playground. We are always seeking to improve our outside area and we are particularly keen to source recycled or natural materials. If you have anything you no longer need and would like to make a donation we would be incredibly grateful.

Below is a list of the kind of items we would be eager to take:

Pallets, guttering, tubes, large rocks or stones, cable drums, seeds, plants, fake grass, herbs, compost, logs, tree trunks, pine cones, water pump, old pots and pans, utensils – ice cream scoops, ladles, spoons etc.