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Teaching Team Miss Oliver Mrs Fitzgerald Mrs Paynter
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Support Staff Miss Hardwick Miss Shaw |
Week beginning: 9th February 2026
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Squirrels Class weekly theme Mental Health Week - 'This is my place' This week is children's mental health week, with a theme of belonging, safety and connection. We will be spending time talking about where we belong at home and at school and lots of fun activities to support relationship building within our class, and with new friends in other year groups. We will share the story Elmer and talk about how Elmer felt and where he belonged. |
Owls Class weekly theme Look after yourself and look out for your friends We have been discussing emotions in school and what we can do to support ourselves. We have been impressed by how kind the children have been and noticing if a friend looks ‘sad’ ‘upset’ or ‘lonely’ and taking steps to help them. We will talk more about this altogether this week as we think about our mental health and different emotions across the week. |
Our Learning this week includes:
Literacy - This week the children will discuss ‘Endings’ of some of their favourite books. We will encourage the children to speak in full sentences. We will take their ideas and have a go at creating written sentences as a class, remembering to begin with a capital letter, to use ‘segmenting’ fingers to identify each sound in a word, to use finger spaces, to check if it makes sense and finally to use a stop sign. The teacher will deliberately make some mistakes for the children to spot and correct!
The children will have a go at creating their own endings for their animal stories. They will begin with discussing ideas with a friend and then say their sentence out loud, counting each word. They will have a go at transcribing their sentence and will be supported in this process dependent on their own writing development.
Maths - The children will be comparing capacities and using these words and phrases, overflowing, full, nearly full, half full, nearly empty and empty. We will then compare capacities directly by pouring from one container to another to find which holds more, or to discover that two differently shaped containers can hold the same amount. The children will have opportunities to watch water being poured from a jug into a range of different-sized containers and will be encouraged to make predictions about what might happen, for example, “I think this tall, thin jugful will fit into this short, wide pan.”
Next, we will explore how to order three containers by capacity by using one container as a ‘go-between’. Following this, we will begin to explore the relationship between the size of a container and the number of units it holds by finding out how many cups/spoons of water can be poured from different-sized jugs and bottles. The children will also have opportunities to explore filling containers with uniformed physical objects like balls and bricks.
Later in the week we will be helping our learning puppet to make different types of repeating patterns. We will begin by creating ABC patterns. These have 3 items in the unit of repeat, that are all different e.g. red, blue, yellow; red, blue, yellow... We will then have a go at creating ABB patterns. This is a little more challenging because they have two items within the same unit of repeat, e.g. red, blue, blue; red, blue, blue...
Personal, Social and Emotional Development - After reading Elmer we will be talking about 'our place' and where we belong. Thinking about being a part of a team in our classes, the school community, our families and our communities. Elmer felt like he didn't belong with the herd because he was different, we will explore what it feels like to feel this way and share experiences. We will be creating our own Elmer artwork to display, and contributing to the new Swing Gate Family Tree display too - all to remind ourselves where we belong and that everyone is valued.
PE - We will have pedal bike coaching on Monday and Tuesday this week with coach Ben. We will also take part in a coaching session with Game On on Thursday.
| Phonics focus of the week | Song of the week | Words of the week |
Poem of the week |
| Recapping sounds learnt so far and Assessment Week | 5 Little Monkeys | belonging, included, feelings. |
Spring Wind |
Our termly Class letter is viewable here
What the children say...
In our EYFS unit we plan according to the children's interests. We spend time talking to the children, asking them what they already know and what they would like to find out.
Our weekly themes are led by the children. Each week we share ideas and then pick a theme for the coming week.
Our PE days for both classes are:
- Tuesday
- Thursday
RE learning
In Religious Education, we will be learning about different celebrations and festivals which link to the heritage of some of the children.
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