Beach Class Spring 2

We launched the half term with some strange goings on – the manager at Tesco needed our help because the vegetables had all gone missing – there was a pesky Pea on the loose! Supertato was taking a well earned holiday, so it was down to us to track down Evil Pea and to rescue the trapped vegetables.  We set traps and tricks to try to lure Pea to school and once we had found him, the children set about teaching him how to be kinder to the vegetables.

We have also been blessed with a superb Waste Workshop with the Isle of Wight Council.  This was a practical, morning workshop which consolidated the children’s understanding of the importance of working together to reduce, re-use and recycle.  We were treated to some videos and pictures from the Newport waste centre so the children could really understand where their rubbish goes and how it is recycled into new goods.

This half term we have also been fortunate to visit Amazon World and this launched our learning about animals and their different habitats.  The children have enjoyed using their imagination and new learning to build habitats in their child led learning.  We also used our school trip as an opportunity to learn about non-fiction texts and set about writing our own information books about the animals we’d seen.

We have been using the school ipads and laptops this half term too to capture photos and make artwork.  In our classroom environment we introduced a ‘tinker tray’ for the children to explore the inside of a computer.  They were fascinated to see the different components up close and began to spot parts including the motherboard.

Beach Class Spring 1

During the first Spring half term, we built upon the children’s interest in our local area and the observations that they were noticing on the way to school; ‘I saw some rubbish in the park,’ ‘There were bottles in the stream.’  We decided to explore our beautiful Island – it’s shape, position in relation to the mainland and we used Google Maps to find the Isle of Wight on the globe.  The children were amazed we could zoom in to even see our school and playground.

We explored the importance of looking after our beautiful Island and community and the danger that rubbish and pollution places on our landscapes and local wildlife.  We set about reducing, re-using and recycling – crafting our own paper, making sock puppets, using left over craft remnants to make dream catchers alongside other crafts.  The children also worked busily in teams to use our litter pickers to tidy up our classroom garden.

During the half term we also explored different emotions and used stories and circle times to consider what a ‘good’ friend is.  We revisited how our behaviour impacts those around us and how unkind words can be as hurtful as actions.

Before the half term break, we enjoyed a walk in the village with Little Stars, using one of our favourite stories, The Three Billy Goat’s Gruff as our inspiration to explore the stream and bridges in Spinfish Lane.

Beach Class Autumn 2

We have had a busy Autumn 2 half term and our learning themes have included cold climates, lots of work on friendships and team work and developing our understanding of personal space and emotions.  We have been delighted to see the children begin to use their phonics to write captions and to retell stories to each other.  In our number work we have been learning to subitise, order numbers to 10 and count an amount with 1:1 correspondence.  We have been playing a range of number games together, not only to build our turn taking skills but also to help us practice applying our number skills.

In the lead up to Christmas we joined with Key Stage 1 and Pre-School to perform our nativity, Little Blue Star.  We also enjoyed writing and posting letters to Santa and making decorations for our special tree at All Saints Christmas Tree Festival.

We will be sure to recharge our batteries over the Christmas break for another busy half term in January.  We are always excited to see where the children will take our learning next as our themes are always closely linked to the children’s current interests.

MacMillan – Beach Class
Beach Class held a Macmillan cake afternoon last week. We would like send a big thank you to Beach Class families for helping to raise £30 for our class charity.

Beach Class First Week of School

Our new starters have arrived at Beach Class this week showing great excitement, independence and resilience. It has been wonderful to spend time with the children as we settle them into school life and their new school community.
This half term we will be working hard to develop relationships within our class, encouraging new and existing friendships. This will, in part, be underpinned by introducing the children to our Conscious Community and School Values. As we play alongside our children and talk with them, we will shape our learning themes within class to meet their interests. Watch this space for some photos of our first few weeks in class.