Butterfly Class
A very big welcome to the children starting school in September and the Year Ones who are returning to Butterfly Class. We are a mixed Reception and Year One class.
Your class teacher is Mrs Waters and the teaching assistants are Miss Hardiman and Mrs Smith. We are here to help support you settle into school life and teach you lots of new and exciting things!
Our Learning Environment
We have a fantastic learning environment in Butterfly Class. We love exploring our outdoor area and using it to be creative.
We have lots of resources including bricks, pebbles, sand, wooden planks, guttering and milk crates. We have an area where we can dress up and act out stories. We have a sand pit, a digging area and a huge mud kitchen.
Inside we love to build in the construction area and make things in our creative area, paint or draw. We also have a great book corner.
We are currently following Map B.
Pupils in EYFS and Year 1 are expected to complete reading 5 times a week. Pupils in Year 1 are given Purple Home Learning books to practise age-appropriate spellings and Maths facts.
Please see the documents below for your termly home learning work. Remember to also use Numbots to practise your Maths facts!
Class Author – Term 3 and 4
Our class author this term is John Burningham. John Burningham was an award-winning artist and illustrator, known especially for the wit and humour in his storytelling and artwork. He was hugely admired amongst his contemporaries. During his career he won numerous awards for his work including the Kate Greenaway Award in 1963 for his first picture book, Borka, The Adventures of a Goose with No Feathers. 2023 was be the 60th anniversary of Borka’s publication. He has a great website: Happy Christmas Harvey Slumfenburger – John Burningham
Term 3
This term our theme in EYFS is ‘Our Wonderful World’. We will start with visiting North America and the Arctic circle! We have an exciting igloo roleplay area with many Arctic animals. We will also visit Africa, Asia, South America, Australia/Oceania, Antarctica and Europe. We will learn about the different weather, animals and people living there. We will also be celebrating Chinese New Year with a class topic day!
English
Our model text for ‘Talk for Writing’ this term is ‘The Gingerbread Man’. This is a quest tale and we will focus on characterisation, creating our own characters who go on their own quest!
The ‘Hook’ for this story was finding a video of the Gingerbread Man (and his friends) in our classroom. As you can imagine this sparked ALOT of excitement! See the video above, your children will probably ask you if they can watch it again and again.
Geography – The World
In Geography this term, we will learn the names of the 7 continents and 5 oceans. We will use atlases to locate the continents and oceans. We will find the equator and poles, whilst discussing the different weather and landscapes in different places of the world.
Art and Design
In Art and Design this term, we are learning about the artist Clare Youngs. She is a designer maker working with paper and fabric.
Longleat Outreach Visit
Butterfly and Owl Class were lucky enough to have a visit from two of the keepers from Longleat, Ben and Alex. They brought some different animals with them for us to learn about.
This snake is a royal python which is a type of constrictor. This animal squeezes its prey until it falls asleep!
Guinea pigs are rodents, which are types of mammals. Their teeth never stop growing!
These are Madagascan hissing cockroaches. The “hissing” sound (expelling air through their bodies) is their primary defence, to frighten potential predators, as they cannot fly and are easily captured.
We want to say a big THANK YOU to the FOSS for funding this visit for us and to Miss Smith for organising this.
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Class Author – Term 1 and 2
Our class author this term is Tom Percival. As well as being an amazing children’s author and illustrator, Tom Percival is an artist, video producer and musician.
To find out more about Tom Percival, you might want to have a look at his website: tom-percival.com | All About Tom Percival
Term 2
Our theme within EYFS this term is ‘Autumn Days’. We will be learning about lots of festivals and celebrations which take place in Autumn. These will include – Bonfire Night, Remembrance Day, Diwali, Hannukah and Christmas. We also have our school nativity to look forward to.
Remembrance Day and British Values Topic Day
We had a whole school topic day about Remembrance Day and British Values.
In the morning we learnt about WWI and WWII. We talked about the symbol of the poppy and then the children created their own poppy pictures.
At 11am on 11th November, we took part in a 2 minute silence to remember those who had fallen in WWI or WWII.
In independent learning, some children built a tank, an army base or explored small world army role play.
History
We have been learning about ‘Guy Fawkes’ and his role in ‘The Gunpowder Plot’. We know that the story of The Gunpowder Plot is the reason we celebrate Bonfire Night today. We learnt the story of the Gunpowder Plot and retold it using drama and roleplay. We also talked about our experiences of Bonfire Night. We then created rockets and fireworks pictures.
Design and Technology
In Design and Technology this term, the children in EYFS will learn lots of different ways to join materials – split pins, junk modelling. We will then practise spreading using a knife as we move on to food technology. The Year Ones have their own project to complete. This term they are evaluating existing toys and then planning and making their own toys.
*Thank you to the parents that attended our Phonics Showcase last week!*
Nativity Performance
We are so proud of the children in Butterfly Class and Owl Class for a fabulous performance of our school nativity ‘Prickly Hay’. A super show!
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Term 1
Our theme within EYFS this term is 'All About Me!' We will be getting to know each other, learning the class and school rules and settling into school life. Establishing trusting relationships with the adults and children in our class and building friendships is our priority this term. Here are some pictures of our Reception children in their first week of school. We have very busy!
Our talk for writing text this term is 'Sidney Spider - a tale of friendship' by Alison Cooper.
We are exploring print, collage, sculpture, paint mixing, drawing and textiles in our art sessions this term.
The artist we will learn about this term is Henri Matisse. This is his famous artwork ‘The Snail’.
Computing
In Computing we are learning to take digital photographs using an Ipad. We will learn about portrait and landscape pictures.
We had a fantastic ‘Stay and Play’ session with Butterfly Class EYFS parents!
Geography
This term we are learning about ‘Our School’. We found Stratford-sub-Castle on a map and located our school. We went on a welly walk in Stratford village and followed a map to find lots of local features e.g. the church and river. We looked at an Atlas to find the UK and we created our own maps.
