Autumn Term 2 : How do Christians Celebrate Jesus’ Birthday and Who is Julia Donaldson?
Our Reception children have settled beautifully into being part of the Hoole St. Michael family. They have enjoyed exploring our beautiful grounds, visiting church and learning through play together. This half term is such a magical one leading up to Christmas : the birth of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. We explore what happened on that very first Christmas through story, picture and of course through the retelling of our EYFS and KS1 nativity.
Autumn Term 1 : Marvellous Me, Colour and I am special
Friendship Confidence Sharing
Friendship Confidence SharingWe have welcomed our new Reception children into our caring school where Christian values are at the core of everything we do. This half term’s topic are perfect for us to get to know each other, get to know our school and get to know God. Please have a look at our topic web below.
We have already started to have fun in our Woodland Wednesday sessions exploring our beautiful grounds. In this session we navigate obstacles, set ourselves challenges and overcome difficulties. Our PE sessions are on a Thursday afternoon so far we have enjoyed practising fundamental skills, a spot of yoga and putting together a dance!
Discovery 2022 – 2023
Summer Term 2 – Buckets & Spades
Admiration Peace Wonder at God’s World
Welcome back to our final half term together as our awesome Discovery Class. We are so excited about the plans we have in store! We have fit fortnight, where we will be able to try out some new, exciting and fabulous sports. Then our sports’ day, which is always fun, inclusive and competitive. Our class trip sees us heading to Blackpool where we can use all of our knowledge learnt over this topic alongside gaining first hand experiences! Look out for what we are up to on our Daily Dojo feed!
Summer Term 1 -The Great Outdoors
Understanding Appreciation Awe & Wonder
We are so incredibly lucky to have a great outdoor space for all of our children which includes our extensive school field; our Forest School area and our large outdoor area which children in : Honeybees (Nursery – pre-school age); Reception and Year 1 access on a daily basis. This half term’s topic sees us utilising our amazing outdoors to bring our learning to life! We love being part of a team which cares for one another and for God’s wonderful world. Outdoors sees us developing our team work and growth mindset skills! From camping skills to bug identification, nature spotting to exploring materials we truly love it outside!
Spring Term 1 – Hopping Around The World
Curriculum Driver Words: Adventure Diversity Exploration
We are about to embark on our journey all around the world! During this unit, we learn about the seven continents learning about what makes these places special. We will learn about the different climates and different animals in each continent. Our focus begins with a penguin visitor who is lost. We will use Oliver Jeffer’s book ‘Lost and Found’ to act as a stimulus to: create our own lost stories; raise questions about penguins as a basis for both our science / understanding of the world and to gather facts to write our own non-chronological reports. In our creative work, we will be focussing on sketching and line work which will lead onto making puppets which we can use to re-tell our own stories. We also have a visitor coming in to talk about travelling to Antarctica and sharing photos of penguins and answering our questions about these wonderful birds.
The Place I live
Curriculum Driver Words:
Evidence Seekers Friendship Change
We are looking forward to becoming explorers of our local environment; learning how to read maps; looking for differences over time and whizzing back in time to learn some old fashioned playground games which we will be able to compare to the games that we can play on our fantastic new front playground! This half term sees us as weather forecasters – watch this space Owain!
Curriculum Driver Words:
Exploration Trust Empathy
Spring 1 – 2022 Toy Story – taking our learning to ‘Infinity and Beyond!’
Welcome back and Happy New Year to you all. We hope that you have had a fun-filled Christmas holiday. We have another exciting half term ahead of us with lots of inspiring learning opportunities. Join us this half term as we explore the theme of friendship through the use of the Toy Story characters; find out about dinosaurs; volcanoes and travel through space in our unit Toy Story – to Infinity and Beyond!
Autumn 2 – 2021
We hope that you have all had a lovely half-term holiday after such a successful start to your child’s journey at Hoole. We have an exciting half term ahead of us leading towards the most magical and exciting time of year…CHRISTMAS! This half term sees us focussing on Julia Donaldson and some of her amazing stories in the unit – Who is Julia Donaldson? Click on this link to see what we have in store :
Curriculum Driver Words:
Persistence Love Resilience
Autumn 1 – 2021
Welcome to Discovery Class. We are so proud at how all the children have settled into school. We have already started to go into whole school assemblies and we have visited church. Below are links for the year ahead, what we are learning this half term and the meet the teacher powerpoint.
Autumn Term 1 Curriculum driver words:
Spring 2 and we are back together!
Welcome back to spring term 2. After being together virtually so long with ‘Lockdown’ we are incredibly happy to all be back together and learning with our AMAZING class of superstars, in our wonderful classroom! We have missed everyone so much.
This half term we have a ‘People and Communities’ focus with the texts ‘Mama Panyas Pancakes’ and ‘Handa’s Surprise’. We are also spending time on ‘Understanding the World’ with a unit on plants and the texts ‘Jasper’s Beanstalk’ and ‘The Tiny Seed’. This is such a busy half term on the lead up to Easter, so we have lots of RE to do alongside Fairtrade Fortnight, Multi-Faith Week, World Book day and Mother’s Day too!
Please see the ‘Discovery Newsletters’ section of our website for more information about our curriculum.
Welcome Back!
Welcome back to autumn term 2. A very busy but exciting term ahead. Please see below for our newsletter and medium term plan detailing what’s coming up for our superstars!
Our First Term
The children have settled so beautifully into life at Hoole and LOVE their learning. We are so proud of all our superstars and have had a great time with them on our journey so far! We can’t wait to see what next term brings.
Wednesday 23rd September 2020 ‘Meet the Teacher’ Popwerpoint
Thank you to everyone who joined us this evening, please find the PowerPoint below for your information. Any questions, please just ask.
Autumn Term 1 2020 – Welcome to Discovery!
Welcome to Discovery Class. We are really excited to welcome all of our Reception children and their families. We are so pleased to be back in school together in our own special bubble. We have an exciting year ahead of us and we can not wait to get to spend time with your lovely children. Our new Reception children will begin looking at the mini-topic ‘Getting to Know You’ and ‘Just Like Me!’. Your child will also receive daily Maths, English and Phonics teaching. Our topics go hand in hand with our EYFS RE focus : I’m Special and we will be looking at Harvest too.
See you newsletter and curriculum overview for more information about the term 🙂
We have a very busy half term ahead with lots of exciting and enriching experiences for your children. These will be posted on Dojo so don’t forget to keep an eye on our page- we will post all of our DAILY updates here along with reminders.
Summer Term 2 2020 – Home Learning
Hello everyone and welcome to our last half term. We are really missing you all and look forward to seeing you on Dojo this week.
Year 1 and Reception, please see below for your newsletter and topic webs for this half term.
This term our theme is ‘Buckets and Spades’ which will continue to lend itself perfectly to the home learning environment we are finding ourselves in.
Please use the timetables we have send to outline your learning each week.
Contact us on Dojo if you need anything at all. Enjoy this time with your families, stay in touch, stay safe and we will see you all soon.
Mrs Mesghali and Mrs Lever
Newsletter and Curriculum Planners Y1 and EYFS – Summer 2 2020
Summer Term 2020 – Home Learning
Hello everyone and welcome to a new term. We are missing you all so much and can’t wait to see all your smiling faces through Dojo again.
Year 1 and Reception, please see below for your newsletter and topic webs for this half term.
This term our theme is ‘The Great Outdoors’ which will lend itself perfectly to the home learning environment we are finding ourselves in. We will be looking at materials in science (sorting, grouping and comparing), our local area in geography, making our own playground equipment in DT, following and making our own trails in PE, digital research in computing and baptisms in RE. We are so sad we can’t teach it to you as we would normally but look forward to seeing your home learning take on it.
We have sent you a variety of home learning support documents via ParentPay to help you with this. As we have said from the beginning, do as much as you can and please don’t put any pressure on yourselves. Happy and healthy children are our main priority, anything else is a bonus.
Contact us on Dojo if you need anything at all. Enjoy this time with your families, stay in touch and we will see you all soon.
Mrs Mesghali and Mrs Lever
Newsletter and Curriculum Planners Y1 and EYFS – summer 2020
Learning from home – March 2020
It is so lovely to hear that our families are staying safe during the current climate. We have loved your updates, via Dojo, of all the amazing home learning you are doing. Here are a few pictures which have been sent in to put a smile on our faces as we are missing you all so much.
Growth and Green Fingers
This half term sees us dusting off our gardening gloves and wellies!
Our English work starts off with the classic story ‘The Enormous Turnip.’ We will be using story telling actions to learn and then innovate on this story. Following this we will be looking at how to follow instructions through the use of recipes and instructions on how to grow our own plants. Our last English unit will look at traditional rhymes focussing on linking these to plants.
As scientists, we will be continuing with our Nature Journal work linked to our school ground. We will also be learning how to identify and name a variety of common wild and garden plants, including deciduous and evergreen trees. In addition to this, we will learn how to identify and describe the basic structure of a variety of common flowering plants, including trees.
We are also hoping to have a visit to a plant nursery to see how the process works. Information to be sent out via Dojo.
During our art lessons, we will be looking at famous artists who have been inspired by plants and flowers. As artists, we will be developing our observational skills of drawing. We will use a range of media and look at how different paints create different effects. Our end product will see us using print making techniques to create a Mother’s Day card (shhh…it’s a secret!)
Multi Faith Week. Look out on Dojo for all the photos from this week. Our focus is on celebrations in religions and the food that is eaten.
Discovery – What’s New?
Explorers – Year 1
This half term our theme is Explorers. As Historians, we will be studying the two famous explorers : Christopher Columbus and Neil Armstrong. We will be learning how to compare the past to the present looking at similarities and differences between lives. We are working towards a piece of work entitled ‘If I were an explorer…’ We can not wait to read all about the children’s creative ideas of where they would explore and what equipment they would take with them.
As Geography experts, we will be comparing Much Hoole to a village in a far and distant land using maps, atlases, the internet and photos to make comparisons.
In our DT work, we will take on the challenge of designing a vehicle for exploration.
Our English work focuses on us using non-fiction texts to explore and learn about famous explorers. We look forward to sharing our expert writing with children in Atlantis Class. We will also be studying stories by the same author and writing our own stories based on a model.
Our maths work starts with shape where we will be looking at 3D and 2D shapes and learning lots of new vocabulary. We then extend our understanding of place value working with numbers upto 20.
Keep an eye on our Dojo posts for photos and updates of what we have been getting up to in class as this is updated regularly.
Discovery – What’s New?
For our Year 1 pupils, our overarching theme will be ‘The Place Where I Live.’ Please see the section ‘Discovery Class Newsletters’ for our topic overview. Our Christian values are ‘Love and Compassion.’ Please remember to keep an eye out on dojo where we post regular updates of the work we cover in class.
English in Discovery
This term the children will be focussing: on poems on a theme; stories with familiar settings and non-chronological reports linked to ‘The Place Where We Live.’
Maths in Discovery
We willl be continuing to focus on addition and number facts within 10. We will learn how to work systematically in finding all possibilities. Our work focuses on fact families, number bonds in and within 10 and using the language of mathematics to reason and problem solve. Later on in the term, we will begin to look at shapes both 3D and 2D. We will learn to recognise, name and sort the shapes aPlong with extending our understanding of pattern work. We aim to develop our mathemagicians!
R.E. in Discovery
During our R.E lessons this term, we will be looking at the story of Christmas and the journey to Bethlehem which will fall in line with our Nativity performance.
History in Discovery
During our history work, we will look at where we live and where we go to school. We will discuss how these places may have changed over time and become ‘time detectives’ who use maps, photographs, pictures and digital maps to look for evidence. We will ask questions about what it was like to live in our area a long time ago and look at how our school playground may have changed. We will come to school dressed as children from the Victorian era and live a school day as they would have done; playing games that they would have played and talking about how our school has changed.
Geography in Discovery
In Geography, we will be studying the local surrounding area and focusing on what has been built and what is natural in it. We will also be linking this to what the children do outside of school – Where do they visit? What do they do there? We will then use these places and locate them on a map.
PSHE in Discovery
We will be looking at keeping and understanding what is safe. We will also look to have an awareness of which adults the children can trust and who to go to for help if they feel unsafe.
P.E. in Discovery
PE continues to be on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons. Please can you make sure your child has their named PE kit in school at all times. Our daily run takes place form 2-2:10pm.
Art in Discovery
This half term we will be exploring the work of artists, craftspeople and designers from different times. We will use a variety of materials for printing and use our drawings to develop a simplified printing motif of school or our local area.
Music in Discovery
We start this half term by looking at reggae style music and compare this to hip-hop music. We will of course be learning songs for our nativity play too.
Trip to the Zoo
A fantastic trip to the zoo for our EYFS and KS1 children on the 25th September to launch our Science unit. We enjoyed using the map to navigate our way around, watch the sea lion and penguin shows and took part in workshops. A day filled with hands-on learning.
At the start of this new year, the children talked about what they would like to ask God to help them to do. They also talked about what they are thankful for. Here is our prayer which we have up in our class worship area.
Reception EYFS Meeting
Thank you for coming tonight. Please clink the link below for access to the powerpoint.
Hopping All Around The World – KS1 Curriculum
Welcome to Discovery Class. We have an exciting year ahead of us and we can not wait to get to ready know you all and see all that you are capable of. We begin our school year focussing on Growth Mindset and PSHE looking at how we deal with our feelings. Our topic of Hopping Around The World begins with a Geography focus. Using atlases, globes and Google Earth we will be flying around the world using our skills to find out about landmarks and animals on the seven continents and in the five oceans. To enrich our topic, we will be going on a trip to Blackpool Zoo (cue singing “We’re all going to the zoo tomorrow!”)
As scientists, our trip to the zoo will focus on us observing animals, learning how to find similarities and differences and group animals accordingly. We will be taking lots of photos of the penguins and using these in our art lessons. We will put our modelling skills to the test as we make our own clay penguin. Time to pick up a penguin!
In English, we will be learning how to plan using a story map, innovating on Lost and Found. It would be lovely to share these stories with you over a penguin biscuit and a drink…watch out for your invite. Following our trip to the zoo, we will be writing our own non-chronological poster/booklet. Our final genre will be poetry – Have you got a favourite animal poem you can share?
Our music sees us learning all about Hip Hop. We will be listening to some good old tunes by MC Hammer and Run-DMC to name a couple #youcan’ttouchthis.
RE work focuses on Harvest; it’s the time of year to think about the fact that we have plenty whilst others do not. Later on, we look at Jesus being a friend to everyone and how his miracles can inspire us to be a better friend.
Our PE sessions are on Tuesday with Sports Ribble Coaches and Wednesday with the team from Atlantis. We will also take part in a daily jog in the afternoon
Don’t forget to keep an eye out on Dojo – we will post all of our DAILY updates here along with reminders
Marvellous Me and Dear Zoo – EYFS Curriculum
Welcome to Discovery Class. We would like to welcome all of our Reception children and their families. We have an exciting year ahead of us and we can not wait to get to really know you all. Our new Reception children will begin looking at the mini-topic ‘Marvellous Me.’ Here they will share how marvellous and unique they all are and what makes them so special. This goes hand in hand with our EYFS RE focus : I’m Special. During our group work time we will begin to teach Growth Mindset through looking at how to build resilience in each child – listen out for your child persevering and please praise them.
Harvest is up and coming as an EYFS topic in RE. The children will visit church and learn all about Harvest.
Our next mini-topic Dear Zoo will begin with our first school trip out to the zoo. Here the children will have an opportunity to ask questions which will help us to generate lessons which have been inspired by the children themselves. After the trip, it would be lovely to see you in class so that your children can share their trip work. Well-behaved parents may even get a biscuit too! Of course, we will also be using the brilliant book Dear Zoo. What’s your favourite animal?
PE lessons will be on a Tuesday with South Ribble Sports Coaches.
We have a very packed half term ahead with lots of exciting and enriching experiences for your children. These will be posted on Dojo so…
Don’t forget to keep an eye out on Dojo – we will post all of our DAILY updates here along with reminders.