Welcome to Hedgehog Class!

Our class is made up of 15 enthusiastic Foundation Stage Children, 2 highly experienced teachers and our lovely teaching assistants Mrs Ansell (Mon, Tues, Wed, Fri) and Mrs Marriot (Thurs). Our teachers are very passionate about early years and are dedicated to developing a love of learning and discovery.

To nurture our natural curiosity and develop awe and wonder, we love to explore outside in all weathers and find out about the world around us through a 'hands on' ethos. We are encouraged to ask our own questions and experiment to find the answers. We learn best when we discover for ourselves, nurtured and guided by our teachers.

We believe that working together is an essential part of developing our social and emotional skills. We work collaboratively in lots of ways; talk partners, team work to build and create, earning class rewards to name a few.

To help us become lifelong learners we think it is important to develop independent skills and have ownership of our learning. We take responsibility for our growth by choosing our next steps together and talking regularly about the challenges we face.

We are courageous and practice our resilience through risk taking and perseverance in solving problems in our child initiated play.

Notices...

Our new topic for next term is 'Space'. Please find our topic web below and let us know if you have any questions or are able to help with any enrichment opportunities e.g. you have a relevant skill or knowledge you would like to share with the children.

How to help at home with phonics, reading and writing...

Please find below some useful recources and videos on how to help develop your childs early literacy skills.

Mrs Hall's photo of the week...

This week has been 'Mental Health Week' and the children have been talking a lot about how to look after not just our own but others mental health. We've talked about how to identify feelings by our faces and how we can be kind to others when they are experiencing uncomfortable feelings. The children have really blessed us with their ideas and conversations with their friends. To achieve this photo the girls had to work together to balance while helping each other onto the tires and then stay really still!

The photo I've chosen this week demonstrates our fantastic maths work this week. We used the rule of one more to build some steps in the physical area. We then realised that if we stood on thesteps we got taller and taller. We also had great fun jumping off the end!

I've chosen this lovely photo of making our Diva lamps this week. The children had a wonderful have-a-go attitude and tried all the tools to chose their favourite effect. We can't wait to paint them!

I love this photo because it shows that however busy we get with our learning, we always have time for birthdays! 

This weeks photo is one of my favourites. It shows how well the children have engaged this week with our star challenges. They have loved our fairy tale topic this term and have really immersed themselves in putting on plays and puppet shows. They have used the provided resources to enhance their play and it has been lovely to see them blossom in confidence since those early days in September. They are really bonding well together and it's lovely to see.

I couldn't choose just one photo this week as we have had so much fun! This week we celebrated all our hard work as a class, making Gingerbread men and eating them while we watched a movie. 50 marbles well spent!

For this weeks photo I have chosen our Harvest Assembly. It was a great celebration of how far the children have come already. They were able to listen to and learn a brand new poem (and not a short one!) They worked so well as a class to perform and recite the poem. We were very proud of them! 

This weeks photo is of our first forest school. We had so much fun using the new spades kindly bought by Leon's mum. We worked together in groups to dig and fill up our buckets with mud and use it to make mud paint. Great messy fun! It was lovely to see the children helping each other not to slip on the mud too. 

I love this photo as it shows the fun the children have had this week outside. They have really enjoyed exploring the playhouse and making dens! It's lovely to see them so settled already!

This weeks photo shows the amazing teamwork skills the children have demonstrated this week building sandcastles, helping each other with aprons, playing games and completing puzzles. This group demonstrated great skills by using talk to work out who would do each role, they took turns, interacted politely and got the job done! Well done Hedgehogs!

Phonics and Early Reading Parents Information...

Please find below a video of the early reading skills presentation for your information. Please be aware that we are transitioning this year to a new phonics scheme so there may be a few small differences in the way that we teach phonics but the principles of early reading are the same. Please do ask if you have any questions.

Helpful information and links for Parents...

Useful online links to support learning at home...