Maple Class - Summer 1, week 3
Date: 1st May 2026 @ 12:50pm
In Maple this week we have been thinking about how we can explore the world on water using a boat. We loved the story Captain McGrew Wants You for his Crew! And everyone decided that they dud not want to be part of the crew! We have been creative with pirate crafts this week and carefully followed the instructions to make a pirate hat.
In Understanding the World we investigated floating and sinking. We predicted what we thought would happen. We tested and sorted objects into those that floated and those that sunk during Explore and Learn. We enjoyed exploring the large sand pit and we learnt how to make tunnels in the sand for the pirates to hide in. We also made bridges between the islands.
In Forest School we were very busy and made a pirate boat and had a pirate party. Some people made the food and we had a ‘Walk the Plank’ – it was so much fun. We also and made pirate flags, bark rubbings (so as the pirate could check what type of wood they needed to repair their ship) and a bug hotel (for the pirates to collect bugs in to keep on the ship)!
In maths this week we were learning to take away from 9. We used the 10s frames to subtract from 9. We had to remember to take objects away in the right order. We have also been looking at solving problems to do with length this week and we have loved measuring each other, and different items during Explore and Learn. Our play dough challenge was to make different lengths of play dough and put them in order of length.
In Phonics we have started our Level 4 Twinkl Phonics. We have been learning about adjacent consonants. These are adjacent when each letter retains its individual sound, such as 's-t-r' in strap or 'm-p' in jump. They can appear at the beginning of words (blend, frog) or at the end (tent, bend). Unlike digraphs (e.g., 'sh', 'ch', 'th'), which make one sound, adjacent consonants are individual sounds. We have continued to produce amazing writing using our phonics knowledge.
In RE this week we revised the features that we would find in a church and focused on the importance of the bible to Christians as it tells stories about how to live their life. We read the story Noahs Ark, and children enjoyed pairing up the small world animals to go onto the ark, and created their own rainbows.
Our last group of children took part in our cooking session making naan bread pizzas this week. Again, the classroom smelt delicious, we hope they enjoyed sharing with you what they did at school.
Some children helped Mrs Chadwick take the dry braches that had been cut down from our trees into our Forest Schoo area ready for our fires.
We continued with our balanceability session this week with the same small group of children as last week – these children will continue with their sessions until half term, when a new group of children will then take part in their sessions. I have been really impressed at their concentration and listening – all children know which side to stand and how to safely pick their bike up. We have been further practicing controlling motor-functions by adjusting body balance in relation to weight and space. To learn varying method of stopping – smooth, natural and abrupt as well as learning the importance of stopping through various stop methods to increase the demands on the child’s control over motor-functions.
Mrs Duffey was treated to a beautiful 'well done' song by Maple Class on Thursday morning after running the London Marathon on Sunday. All the children loved seeing her medal and trying it on, commenting on how heavy it was. We noticed that the medal had braille on the front and discussed what this is and how this is helpful for people who are blind.
Enjoy the long Bank Holiday weekend and see you on Tuesday
