Maple Class - Summer 2, week 1
Date: 5th Jun 2026 @ 12:03pm
This week we have been thinking about African Animals and we have read the story Walking Through the Jungle by Julia Lacome. We looked at what it is like in the African Savannah and how it is the same and different to where we are in Ampney Crucis. We also discovered which animals live in the African Savannah…lions, elephants, hippopotamus’, rhinos, gazelles, antelopes, warthogs, leopards, cheetahs, giraffes, zebras and lots more! We learnt facts about the different animals and also shared what we already knew about them. Elephants are the largest land animals, only boy lions have manes and they protect their head when they are fighting, giraffes are the tallest animal on the planet and like to eat the leaves at the top of trees, gazelles are a type of antelope and have stripy horns, they run very fast and only sleep for 5 minutes a day. We also learnt that a group of lions are called a pride, a group of zebras are called a dazzle and a group of rhinos are called a crash!
We wrote our own facts about an African animal and our writing was amazing! We used the sound cards to help us when we needed them but most of our writing was independent – we didn’t need much help from the grown ups at all!
In phonics, we have been practicing reading and writing words and captions containing three adjacent consonants. The children have been brilliant at this – well done! We have noticed that many of the children are still not secure with their level 3 tricky words and are not learning their level 4 tricky words as quickly as expected. Please ensure you are continuing to look at these every day.
We have painted our favourite animals, thinking carefully about the colours we needed, the patterns on the skin and the shape of the animal.
In Forest School, we noticed lots of changes since we were last there before half term. Most of the blossom on the apple trees has now gone and the apples are starting to grow. We could see the leaves left from where the blossom had grown, and looked for the leaves on the bottom of our apples at snack time. All of the plants in Forest School had grown too, including the nettles so we had to be really careful to make sure we didn’t get stung. We learnt how to whittle this week using potato peelers and willow sticks. We had to wear a glove on the hand that we held the stick to protect ourselves from getting hurt. It was important that we sat in the correct position to keep ourselves safe. Our feet had to be apart, our elbows needed to rest on our knees and our hands needed to flop down between our legs. This is so that when we are whittling, we use the peeler down towards the ground to stop us from getting hurt.
We have been practicing our doubling skills again this week, using playdough to double the number of caterpillars on a leaf, spots on a ladybird, eggs in a basket, sprinkles on an ice-cream and spots on a butterfly.
In RE, we have started our new topic thinking about stories that are special to us and other people. Mrs Hopkins shared her favourite story ‘Some Dogs Do’ and the children shared which were their favourite bedtime stories too. The children were invited to bring their favourite into school for story time if they wish.
We loved our trip to Bristol Zoo Project on Wednesday – see our separate ‘News Item’ post under Maple Class page which includes information and photos on our trip. We created a wonderful book on our trip and wrote amazing sentences to go with our photos, well done Maple, your writing is coming on leaps and bounds.
On Thursday a group of children made cheese pinwheels – the classroom smelt amazing and they looked delicious, we hope you enjoyed them. We weighed out the ingredients, rolled up the pastry and practiced using a knife to cut the pinwheels up.
In our KS assembly with Willow we continued to think about our value this term - compassion, and thought about how it is different to just being kind, it is putting yourself in someone elses shoes and thinking about how they are feeling. We read the book I'm (almost) Always Kind by Milbourne Anna and thought about compassion and kindness was demonstrated in the story and how we have shown compassion in the past.
We had a visit from Life Education on Friday and visited their interactive tent. We met Harold the giraffe and thought about what our body needs to keep healthy and also what we can do to stay mentally healthy. We thought about how we brush our teeth, clean our face and brush our hair and helped Harold to get ready for the start of his day after his sleep. We thought about all the important organs in our body and the role they play and we placed them in the correct position on Ottilie.
We enjoyed our Dough Disco sessions and our Playdough Challenge this week was creating something that we saw at the zoo on Friday.
The second group of children continued with their balanceablity sessions on Friday, they renewed their confidence from before half term, thought about the glide move we learnt before half term, thought about the concept of a turn, became aware of the space around obstacles, followed instructions and gained confidence following other children.
In PHSE we read the story The Proudest Blue by Ibtihaj Muhammad which introduces children to the significance of the hijab in Muslim culture and highlights themes of pride, strength, and sisterhood. It is a powerful book that helps children reflect on their own identities and the importance of respecting others' traditions. We thought about something about ourselves that makes us feel proud, if we have ever worn anything special that makes us feel confident and why it is important to be kind to others, even if they look or dress differently from us.
Friday afternoon saw Maple children visit Willow class for a transition activity where they were able to explore the classroom and see what life will be like in Willow class for them in September. The children came back to Maple very excited.
We wish you all a lovely weekend and see you all next week.
