Class Information

Foundation Team

 

Teachers– Mrs Sarah Walker (Monday, Tuesday and alternate Wednesdays)

 Mrs Catherine Harvey (alternate Wednesdays, Thursday and Friday)

 

Teaching Assistants-Mrs Partridge & Mrs Barnicoat

Welcome to our Foundation class, 2019!

 

We have all settled into Kea School life really well and already our children have had so many exciting and new experiences. 

We have learnt all about ourselves and our friends, the Oceans, found apples in our orchard to make apple crumbles, painted our portraits and started to learn lots of sounds in Read Write Inc. 

We are becoming more independent, trying to do things for ourselves, such as changing our reading books in the morning, zipping up our coats, unpacking and packing our own bags. We are making lots of new friends and finding out about each other through our learning, play and circle time. 

Here are some photos to show what we have got up to so far…

Welcome to Spring Term 2019!
 
This half term we are very excited to start our new topic about vehicles and transport. We have started by discussing what the word 'transport' and 'vehicle' means to us and have managed to think of so many different types of vehicle! We have started this topic by visiting the car park to look at cars and note what is different about each one. The children were intrigued to discover that all number plates are different and have asked to make their own. 
 
During this half term we are also going to learn about other vehicles including emergency vehicles and we are hoping to have a visit from the fire brigade and police at some point. At the end of the January we will be visiting the maritime museum to enhance our learning of boats and sea voyages. 
Christmas Nativity 2018
Well done to all the children for remembering all the words to the songs and singing so beautifully and for performing their dance with confidence and smiles. You were all stars! 
Autumn Term  / Second Half 2018
 
This half term we have been looking at different celebrations and events. We have learnt about birthdays and Diwali and why some people celebrate these occasions. We also discussed Children in Need and Remembrance Day and why we raise money to support these causes.
Our half term will finish with our lessons focusing on Christmas and how this time is celebrated. 
Remembrance Day
Foundation Class worked with an artist to create poppies using clay. These were then fired and painted and will be added to those made by other children throughout the school to create a special display of poppies. 
Autumn term 2018
Making bread and butter
 
As part of our focus on 'Harvest' we have been reading and thinking about the story of 'The Little Red Hen'. We made some bread to eat and also enjoyed making butter using double cream ...unlike the characters in the story of The Little Red Hen, we decided to all work together to make the bread and butter as many hands make light work. 
 
Our first week in the Foundation Class!  
 
 
We have settled into school life incredibly well and all children are enjoying the new and exciting experiences we offer here at Kea School. 
 
During this half term we are starting with the topic 'All About Me'. We are looking at self portrait and studying our features using mirrors. We are already gaining confidence during circle time to talk about our families, pets and homes. We are also building independence by trying to do things for ourselves, such as putting on our own jumpers and zipping up our own coats.  We are taking responsibility of our own belongings and putting them in the right places in the mornings. We are also enjoying having lots of new friends to play with and find out about. 
 Please take a look at all the exciting things we did in the Foundation Class last year! 
We did it! 
We are delighted that Cool Milk have responded to our letters and have agreed to send us milk in large recyclable bottles rather than the individual cartons. They also sent us some reusable cups to pour our milk into each day. 
Well done Foundation Class! 
Summer Term - 2nd Half
 
As the children thoroughly enjoyed our topic on Growth last half term, to follow on from this, our topic for the final half term this year will be Animals.
During this half term we will be focusing on Mini-beasts, pets, farm animals, animals from around the world and sealife.
When we returned from our half term break we were very pleased to find that our caterpillars were still sleeping and changing inside their cocoons and we hadn't missed their big reveal! 
 
We set up an iPad to record the cocoons whilst we were outside or overnight to ensure we could see them emerge. We were very pleased to discover that we managed to capture the moment that 'Ben' emerged from his cocoon and he even gave us a little flutter of his wings! You can watch Ben's special moment below...  
All five of our butterflies successfully hatched and were released into the big wide world to dance across the skies. Before we set them free the children were able to hold the butterflies on their hands. It enabled us to practice being very gentle with our hands, something all the children were very good at,  and allowed some incredibly close up observations of the butterflies to be made. 
 
Since releasing them the children often search for the butterflies around the school grounds and are very excited when they spot a Painted Lady butterfly - of course assuming it is one of our pets. 
 
We have all enjoyed watching the lifecycle of a butterfly and it has brought a great deal of awe and wonder into our classroom.  
Saving the planet - one milk carton at a time! 
 
The children in Foundation Class decided during snack time that they no longer wanted to throw their milk cartons in the bin each day and would prefer to use a more environmentally friendly alternative. We discussed plastic and the effect it has on our local environment and the ocean. The children decided as a class that they would each like to write a letter to 'Cool Milk', the supplier of the daily milk cartons, and see if they would be willing to provide larger recyclable bottles of milk that the children could pour into cups each day. 
You can read the children's thoughtful and amazing letters below. We are hoping to receive a reply from Cool Milk in the near future.  
Summer Term - 1st Half
 
This half term we are learning and exploring the topic of Growth. 
 
We were very excited to discover some frog spawn in our school pond. We carefully used nets to collect some, enabling us to take a closer look! 
 
 
We have looked at the life cycle of sunflowers and other plants. We were set a challenge to create a sunflower at home using any media or material that we liked and we all thoroughly enjoyed being creative at home with our parents. We have displayed our beautiful sunflower artwork in our garden centre role play. 
 
We have also been enjoying our 'Stay and Learn Together' sessions on Friday afternoons where our parents are invited to come into our classroom and explore some fun and interesting activities together. We have planted sunflowers and made a lifecycle wheel and made our own see-through greenhouses so we can see and watch how seeds grow. 
During our lesson about the lifecycle of chickens and ducks, we were very excited to hear some 'cheeping' coming from the corridor and were very surprised when five fluffy ducklings appeared for us to meet. We were even able to give then a cuddle! 

Science in Foundation

Learning about science starts in Foundation with our youngest children, embracing their naturally inquisitive nature to everything around them.  During their time in Foundation we constantly

-          talk about the things they observe such as animals, plants, natural and found objects

-          learn about why things happen and how things work

-          develop an understanding of growth, decay and changes over time

-          care for and are concerned for living things and the environment

-          look closely at similarities, differences, patterns and change

Whilst learning about all of the above, our children are also developing their communication and language skills, physical development and literacy and numeracy skills.  In addition, they are constantly developing their characteristics of effective learning through playing and exploring, our active learning and creating and thinking critically.

Below show some science activities the children have done so far this year…