Maple Class 26-27 - Autumn 1, week 6
Date: 9th Oct 2026 @ 12:55pm
As we start the week in a new month, we thought about the order of the months in the year. We loved listening to a ‘months of the year’ song which we’ll listen to throughout the year to help learn the sequence of months. Here’s the link if you’d like to practise this at home too. Months of the Year Song
We continued to think about maps and journeys this week, both in stories and in Forest School. We ordered the story of the Gingerbread man in a story map to show the journey he went on and this helped us think about how the story journey could change, for example, what if he met a different animal or if the fox didn’t eat him? This is always a great way for the children to develop their imagination and creativity skills.
We have started learning our next set of sounds, g,o,c,k. We found ‘g’ and ‘k’ particularly tricky to write so any support at home with this would be really beneficial. The children have shown how brilliant they are blending words to read – we have been really impressed with the speed they are progressing, please continue to practise this at home to ensure their progression continues.
In Forest School, we thought again about maps and journeys and made our own journey sticks which we brought home on Monday. We had to go on our own journey around Forest School and collect things on our way. We then stuck these onto a stick and were able to explain where we had been in the correct order – super work!
Over the next couple of weeks, we will be focusing on learning everything about number 6. We use the Numberblocks series to help reinforce our learning so you may hear the children recalling episodes they have seen, or singing some of the songs. Here is a link to the songs the children love listening to, there is a maths concept at the heart of each song. Numberblocks Songs Playlist | 17+ minutes | CBeebies We are currently focusing on securing the children’s counting skills, including ‘one object, one number’, saying the numbers in the correct order, recognising the final number we count represents the number of objects and counting sounds or actions. Although these concepts may seem easy to some children, it is a vital part of understanding the wholeness of each number. Laying these foundations will enable the children to make links, solve problems and explain their understanding with more clarity and confidence as they continue their mathematical journey through the school.
We have thought about Harvest more closely this week, in preparation for our Harvest Festival service. We have learnt why we celebrate Harvest and are learning a song to sing for you at the church next week! The children always have really thoughtful questions and responses to our learning which is so heartwarming to hear.
In PE with Mrs Gardiner, we practised jumping on one and two feet to play hopscotch in different ways. The children found it particularly tricky to swap between the jumps so it would be a good thing to practise at home – we drew our hopscotch with chalk on the playground! We are really luck to have had an additional PE session this week with Sadie Herbert from Kingshill School. We had so much fun doing different races to practice skills including running, throwing, balancing beanbags and making shapes with ribbons. We’re really lucky to have been given some new beanbags from Sadie so we can use these to improve our skills further.
As it is World Mental Health Day this Saturday, we had a little think about how we are all unique and that we should celebrate everyone’s different skills and passions. We read the story ‘ One Dog Out’ about a dog who dresses differently to the others and feels out of place and how he overcomes that feeling. We also talked about what we can do to help us feel happy if something has upset us.
In PSHE this week we read the book Superworm by Julia Donaldson. We thought about ‘Excellence’ and making the right choices. We identified the characters in the story who were not making the right choices by putting our thumbs down, and those making the right choices by putting our thumbs up.
At the end of the week in maths we thought about counting things that are then no longer visable. We counted dinosaurs which were counted into a bag and we knew there were still 6. We have been making a mark for each object we counted as they then dissappeared. On Friday we were counting jumps, hops and sounds, making a mark as we did so.
Friday afternoon saw the second group of children make Gingerbread Men, again, the school smelt delicious! Luckily this week the Gingerbread Men weren’t so cheeky and didn’t run away from the oven!
In Dough Disco this week we have been working on our pincer grip. We made lots of autumn leaves by tearing bits off our ball of playdough and pushing our thumb and index finger into them to create falling autumn leaves. We then counted them and stacked them into piles of 6, to tie in with our maths this week. We also rolled small balls of playdough without fingertips and picked these up with our thumb and index finger before balancing them on the back of our hand.
Well done to Bethan, Oscar and Oliver who all received celebration certificates in assembly this week.
Have a lovely weekend and see you all next week.
