Welcome to Badger Class!

Badger Class is our Reception class, where Mrs Smith and Mrs Hedges are the class teachers and Mrs Dyer is our teaching assistant.

For Term 6 our topic is 'Magic Carpet'.  We will be travelling around the world on our 'magic carpet', looking at stories from around the world, spending a few weeks on the story Handa's Surprise. We will also be applying the phonics we have learned to write sentences linked to the story, label pictures and write lists and instructions on making a fruit salad.  We will be consolidating the sounds we have already learned in phonics, applying them in both our reading and writing.  We will continue to practise all the high frequency words we have been learning.  In maths, we will be solving problems involving addition and subtraction and doubling and halving.  We will be using world maps to identify counties and continents and look at some of those countries in more detail.  We will also be having lots of different activities as our school year draws to a close, including transition activities which will ease the children into Year 1.

PE will be on a Tuesday, so please wear PE kit to school every Tuesday.  Please ensure that trainers have velcro so they can be easily taken on and off throughout the day.

Reminders

Please remember to bring a coat to school EVERY day. 

As you are all aware the weather in the UK is extremely changeable and the weather forecast is often wrong.  We try to go outside during break times as often as we can, including when it is raining and children may be uncomfortable if they then sit in wet clothing.

Please remember to bring a NAMED sunhat to school.

If the weather looks like it might be sunny, please bring a sunhat, as we have very little shelter on the field.  Also please use a long lasting sun cream at the beginning of the day.

Bug Ball

During our topic on Eric Carle, we read lots of stories involving insects that he had written, including The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Very Busy Spider and the The Bad Tempered Ladybird.  To celebrate the end of the topic we held a Bug Ball, where we made masks to wear before enjoying some party games, such as Bug, Bug, Beetle (Duck, Duck, Goose), musical statues and balloon games and enjoying some bug inspired snacks - some vegetables that insects like to eat like cucumber and carrots and some food that looked like insects like our grape beetles and raisin flies.  

Fire Safety Session

On Thursday, we had a zoom visit from Wiltshire Fire Service, where we learned about what a firefighter does and things that are safe for us to play with and things that are not safe.  We had some fun joining a firefighter for some Wake and Shake activities.

World Book Day

We had lots of fun dressing up as book characters and learning about the characters from James and the Giant Peach.  We watched videos of real bugs, then made ladybirds using paper plates, spiders by printing using tubes and drawing grasshoppers using step by step instructions.  We caught bugs from our own magic similar to the magic left by the Old Man in the story James and the Giant Peach.  We also had the opportunity to look at books!

Christmas

We have had a lovely couple of weeks in Badger Class getting ready to celebrate Christmas, with our nativity, Christmas lunch wearing our festive jumpers, a visit from Father Christmas and then enjoying the wonderful playground gifts he bought.

Term 2 

This term, we have enjoyed lots of firework activities on Thursday 5th November, celebrated Remembrance Day and have had fun playing estate agents linked to our topic on Homes.  We have also made houses using shapes and wooden bricks.  We have been learning about different materials through the story of The Three Little Pigs.  We have attempted to make houses using straws, sticks and bricks, with differing levels of success.  We have also enjoyed painting fingerprint leaves on our tree.  We have enjoyed lots of Christmas activities, sorting wrapped numicon pieces to unwrapped pieces, creating Christmas trees using numicon pieces and creating baubles on a Christmas tree by dropping coloured vinegar onto Christmas trees created from bicarbonate of soda. 

Phonics Training

Thank you to those parents that were able to join us for our phonics training.  Please find a PDF of the powerpoint used in the training - if you have any questions, please ask.

Badger Class Learning

Have a look at the learning we will be doing this year by following the link below.

Reading

The children in Badger Class will now be bringing reading books home.  To begin with books have no words and are used to encourage children to talk about what is happening in the pictures.  We will listen to your child read at least once a week, but in order for your child to make progress in their reading, we need you to support them and listen to them read at least 5 times a week.

Making Friends

The children have settled really well at school and have enjoyed exploring all the different areas of the classroom, both indoors and outdoors.  They have all been learning to make friends and cooperate with each other, taking turns and sharing.  We are very proud of the way they have adapted to school life at St Nicholas CE (VA) Primary School. 

Help

As our topic is All About Me, we would really like to give the children the opportunity to share something they enjoy doing with the class.  If you have one or two photos of your child taking part in a hobby or something that they would like to share with their friends, please email office@stnicholas.wilts.sch.uk and head it Badger Photo. You may like to add a little information to enable us to help your child share their photo with their class.

Thank you.

Class Reward

We have already earned our first class reward and went for a walk in our school woods.