Maple class - summer 1, week 1
Date: 17th Apr 2026 @ 12:59pm
Welcome back to the summer term. We hope you had an enjoyable Easter break, it was so lovely to see all the Maple children back in school this week and hear all their exciting news from the holidays. We are also very pleased to welcome Lottie into Maple class, she has settled brilliantly and all the children have been very welcoming.
This term we have a new question – I wonder how we can explore the world? This week we have read Mr Gumpy’s Motor Car by John Burningham and we thought about why Mr Gumpy’s car got stuck. We thought of different ways we can explore our world – by aeroplane, boat, car, bus, van, train, bicycle, scooter … We learnt that when the animals pushed the car they were using a FORCE and we investigated how we could make a car go faster. We made ramps at different eights ad measured how far a car travelled. We also pushed the cars with different forces.
At Forest School we made bridges for Mr Gumpy’s car to go over to avoid the mud. We looked at the suitable materials we could use and discussed why they’d be good options.
In Phonics we have been carrying out phonics assessments and are so pleased with how well all children are progressing – Super work Maple, well done!
In maths we have done amazing subtraction using numicon and a 10’s frame. We have also looked at decomposing 2D shapes into other shapes.
In RE we are thinking about special places to us and how they make us feel. It was so lovely to hear all the places Maple class feel are special to them.
We are so excited to have started our cooking sessions in Maple this week. 4 children made naan bread pizzas – they looked and smelled delicious! We used knives to safely cut up the vegetables to go on the top and tasted things we said we weren’t sure we liked. We can’t wait to continue with these weekly sessions – those who didn’t cook this week will do next week or the following week! The children enjoyed taking their pizzas home to share with their families and talk about what they did.
We have also started our Balanceability sessions in Maple this week. This week all children were assessed to be put into groups according to their ability. Each child will then take part in a block of 4 weeks balanceability sessions. All children listened brilliantly and were very sensible in the sessions, well done Maple. While the children were learning about the balance bikes, the other children enjoyed an afternoon of board games with Mrs Cordell.
Our new value for the Summer term is Compassion. In our Key Stage Assembly we read the book Kind and talked about times we have been kind or others have been kind to us.
Have a lovely weekend and lets hope for some more sunny weather soon.
