Maple Class - Autumn 1, week 3

Date: 19th Sep 2025 @ 3:55pm

This week we read the Smeds and the Smoos by Julie Donaldson and thought about how the characters were feeling.  We introduced ‘Empathy’ and explained what it meant and how we can show empathy to our friends. 

In phonics this week we have been focusing on alliteration and thinking about words which start with the same sound.  We thought about phrases which had words starting with the same sound such as ‘Cookie the crocodile cooks cakes’, ‘Lily the lobster loves learning’, ‘Joey the jellyfish jumps over jackets’.   We saw so many children ‘write’ this week, their emergent writing has been wonderful, and the letter formations for letters in their names are really coming along, with children practicing this during Explore and Learn time – we’ve been writing on the large whiteboard, on large paper with pens, with chalk, using water and paintbrushes outside as well as pencils and paper.  Children also used the ribbon sticks outside to make large circles and make the letters in their name – wonderful Maple, well done.   We have also done lots of writing while lying on our tummies this week which develops our shoulder and arm strength, core stability and postural control. 

In maths we have been counting out 5 objects, counting up to 5 sounds and counting 5 objects onto a number track.  We observed children recognising numbers and relating them to their everyday situations … Eddie said “I can see numbers on here, I am 4.  My brother is 6”.  Ruby printed 5 dots and said “I ‘ve made 5 dots like a dice”.  We have also been thinking about positional language and the adults have been modelling this during Explore and Learn time and we have looked at how we may describe the position of things. 

We have also been really creative this week and brought so many ideas into our play.  We had a cutting station in the classroom this week (to help with our scissor skills) and lots of children decided to snip the paper and create flowers.  We also had a large story scene with rocket, aliens, mountains, volcanoes and a beach, using different materials available around the classroom to create a large story world.  Lots of fun was had in the mud kitchen again, using the blackberries and the masher to make blackberry pies and mixing them with water – so much imagination and language being observed as well as team work. 

We worked on our fine motor skills by continuing with our dough gym sessions and in provision we put sponges and pipettes in water – this helps strengthen our fingers.  BeaBea and Rogan had a competition to see who could fill up their bucket first by squeezing the water from the sponges. 

We finished looking at the Summer Adventure books this week, the children loved sharing these with the class and we loved hearing them talk with passion about what they did over the summer.  These books are now in the book corner for them to enjoy to look at with their friends throughout the year. 

We enjoyed our second cricket session this week and we talked about demonstrating safety, respect and positivity.  We also practiced our throwing and catching skills on Friday and I was pleasantly surprised that we didn’t have balls flying around all over the place!  I was especially impressed with their catching.

In Forest School we went over our Forest School rules and explored the area.  Each of us had a pair of tweezers and were tasked with finding interesting things in the forest to fill our egg boxes with.  We could only pick things up with our tweezers, which again is helping us develop the muscles in our hand to help with our fine motor skills.  We also enjoyed searching for ladybirds and using the ladybird identification sheet to see if we could find different types of ladybirds as at playtime the girls found a black ladybird with red spots, which really sparked their interest.

Next week we will be starting our Level 2 phonics, so look out for the phonics sheets in your child’s book bag next week as well as books.  The children will be able to choose a book from the library trolly for you to read to them, and they will start to bring home their phonics books.  Please see the Phonics section of the website  for more information on how we teach phonics as well as a video showing you how to pronounce the Level 2 phonics sounds, if you are unsure.  Correct pronunciation is key to ensure children’s success in their phonics journey.  Do please continue to read books to your child before bedtime, this is crucial and the phonics books should not replace this special time in reading stories to your child. 

We hope you have a fantastic weekend. 

Things we have enjoyed in Maple class this week:

Olivia – Playing with the playdough

Arlo – I enjoyed playing with Ollie, Myles and Ruby

Elsie – Playing with Ottilie

Joey – When I play with Raffy at lunchtime

Ruby – Playing with my friends

Ollie – Playing with Eddie, Myles, Arlo and Elsie

Rogan – I enjoyed our PE lesson when we did throwing and catching with the ball.

Lili – Playing with the sand