Purple

Scroll down for updates

Summer 2

Welcome to Purple Class, we are all very excited about our new topic this term and looking forward to our final term together as the new Purple Class.

This term, our topic is ‘Under the Sea’ so we will be learning all about the beach/seaside and of course all the wonderful water creatures that live under the sea. We will be pretending we are fishes swimming under the sea using lots of music and video stimulus. We will be packing a suitcase, making our own sunglasses, create underwater collages and even our own shark teeth necklaces! We will be looking at photographs of different places and deciding if we think fish can live there or not and making lots of 3D under water creatures in Art/DT.

In Literacy we will be reading ‘Hooray for Fish’’ by Lucy Cousins and using this to support our learning in speaking and listening, reading and writing.

HOORAY FOR FISH DVD

As well as sharing the story, we will be naming and labelling the fish using words, signs and symbols. We will be making sentences about the story, sequencing the events and role playing. We will use descriptive language to make up our own funny fish!

In Maths we will be solving puzzles and making patterns linked to our story ‘Hooray for Fish’. We will be sorting, counting and measuring using a variety of objects and materials. We will be looking at 2D and 3D shapes too.

In Science we will be exploring water through play e.g. pouring water through a sieve and watching what happens. We will be playing in wet and dry sand with our fingers, toes and seaside objects. We will also be making sounds using our bodies such as waves crashing. We will also be exploring water and ice by using our senses.

In Music we will be learning lots of songs, rhymes and dances linked to our topic ‘Under the sea’. We will be learning brand new songs such as ‘The Baby Shark Song’ as well as revisiting some familiar ones such as ‘1,2,3,4,5 Once I Caught a Fish Alive’

Baby Shark Song

1,2,3,4,5 Once I caught a fish alive

In Cookery we are focussing on picnic foods such as sandwiches, wraps and bagels. We will be using our senses to explore and taste new fillings such as tuna and avocado.

During ICT we will be using a range of software to explore mouse skills. We will be focussing on clicking, double clicking, following objects on screen with a cursor and ‘drag and drop’ skills.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Summer 1

Welcome to Purple Class, we are looking forward to the Summer term. I am Sapna and I’m new to Purple Class and Richmond Hill School. I am really enjoying getting to know the children and they are all already working really hard at showing me what they can do! Apart from me, the rest of the class team has stayed the same with Lucy as our TA2 and Marie, Amelia and Dawn as
our TAs.

This term our topic is ‘To Market, To Market’ so we will be learning all about different fruit, vegetables, food and shopping. We will be learning about different types of food and pretending to buy food in our shop. We are hoping to go on a visit to a greengrocers too!

In Literacy we will be reading ‘Oliver’s Vegetables’ by Vivian French and using this to support our learning in speaking and listening, reading and writing. We will be making sentences about the story, sequencing the events and role playing.

Oliver's Vegetables

In Maths we will be sorting, counting and measuring using a variety of objects and materials. We will be looking at more and less with real objects as well pictures of objects. Lots of our counting work will be linked to fruits and vegetables.

In Science we will be exploring real food and using our senses to describe what we have found. We will be doing lots of sorting by colour, taste, feel.

In Music we will be learning lots of songs, rhymes and dances about fruit and vegetables. We will be learning brand new songs as well as revisiting some familiar ones. ‘Apples are yummy’ is a new song that we are enjoying in Purple
Class!

In Cookery will be making a range of pastry dishes with fruit and vegetable fillings such as jam tarts and cheese pastries.

During ICT we will be using a range of software to explore mark making. We will be making pictures using different colours, shapes, lines and patterns.

Numeracy activities

Literacy activities

Science activities

Topic activities - To market, to market

Cookery activities

Gardening activities

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Spring 2

Our topic for the second half of the spring term is called 'The wheels on the bus' and will see us investigate various forms of transport. A significant element of this work is to experience different forms of transport together so there are lots of trips out this half term !

We will begin by looking at cars and will also have a go at washing a car!

In week two we will be thinking about buses and will go on a bus journey into Luton town centre.

Week three will focus on trains and we will be taking a train journey to Harpenden.

In week four we will be thinking about aeroplanes, we will visit Wigmore park to experience the sights, sounds and smells of the airport and will also create an aircraft simulator at school. As it's a very short half term we have decided to postpone our class trip to Australia!

Week five will focus on Easter based activities.

During the topic we will be singing lots of transport based songs including 'The wheels on the bus' and 'We all go travelling by'. We will be focusing our English sessions on the book 'The train ride' by June Crebbin. This is one of my favourite books and I hope the children will all enjoy experiencing it.

We are all looking forward to a very busy half term

Ian, Lucy, Amelia, Dawn and Marie

The Train Ride

Spring 1- Round up!

What a busy have term we have had in purple class and what a lot of fun and learning we have experienced over the half term with our topic 'Under your feet'.

Here are some of the highlights from this half term -

English - the children enjoyed revisiting 'Going on a bear hunt' and have all been acting this out during soft play sessions and at play times without adult prompting !

We have introduced Dough Disco' to help develop fine motor strength and control and everybody (including adults) in purple class has really enjoyed these sessions.

Maths - We have been focusing on the language of size, sorting and 2D shapes. The children have particularly enjoyed the big and little song and we have 'acted this out' using real objects.

The Big Little Song

Computing - We have been focusing on responding to what we see on the screen and responding to on screen prompts and commands. The children have enjoyed this unit of work.

Swimming - As you are all aware we finish our swimming sessions for this academic year on Friday 13th February. The children appear to have really enjoyed swimming sessions and all look forward to seeing swimming appear on our schedule. Good progress has been made in the pool and I hope you will all be able to continue to take your children swimming to help maintain their confidence in the water.

Topic - Our topic 'Under your feet' has involved a range of activities using our feet to investigate materials, the children were all very brave when investigating materials and were all keen to have a go and get stuck in! The children have also really impressed us by being able to communicate which materials they did or didn't like.

Spring 1

We are pleased to welcome a new pupil into purple class. Kamran has now joined Matthew, Eshal, Andrew, Jaelan, Jadon, Eamonn, Ram and Rohaan to give us a class of nine pupils. Our teaching team remains unchanged, with Ian as teacher, Lucy as lead support and Amelia, Dawn and Marie as support staff.

Our topics for the Spring term are 'Under your feet' and 'The Wheels on the bus'. For the first half term our topic 'Under your feet' will involve investigating our feet, socks, shoes and will then move on to looking at textures and materials as well as looking at hot and cold. Our weekly focus will be

week 1 - investigating shoes

week 2 - investigating socks

week 3 - my feet

week 4 - sensory walks

week 5 - hot and cold

week 6 - investigating materials

We will be looking at 3 fiction texts over the half term to support our topic and literacy work - The Foot Book by Dr Seuss, Socks by Nick Sharrett, We're going on a bear hunt by Michael Rosen (only for 1 week as a quick revisit!) and we will then spend two weeks looking at and making non fiction books about materials and hot and cold.

We will be using the following video in class with the children during weeks one and two.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Purple class have been using their feet to investigate materials. All of the children were very brave and tried each sensory tray and then told us if they liked it using symbols and spoken language.

We experienced sand, hot and cold water, shaving foam, bubble wrap, soft material, tin foil, snow dough and even used a foot spa. Everybody liked the shaving foam but only 2 children liked the cold water !

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Purple class have been developing their fine motor skills this half term, as part of this work we had a go at 'The Cheerio Challenge'. We had to thread Cheerios carefully onto a threading stick and try to get to the top in 5 minutes.

The children all tried really hard showed amazing determination and concentration during the activity, we will be repeating this during the term.

The Foot Book

I hope you will be able to share this at home.

In literacy sessions we will be focusing on mark making and early writing skills, particularly focusing on the paper / surface that we are mark making onto.

In maths sessions we will be continuing to focus on counting groups of objects accurately as well as units of work on size, shape and capacity.

Our science work will involve investigating materials linked to topic sessions and also looking at animals (grouping and sorting by specific features for example by number of legs).

Here is an animal snap game that we played on our first day back at school

Animal Snap

Our cookery unit of work will be making and designing pizzas.

There will be lots of trips out in the second half term as we investigate and experience transport, this half term we will be visiting Dunstable Downs for a sensory walk and will use our local park for this work too.

Swimming continues until February half term, children will have swimming sessions again from September 2015.

We hope everybody in purple class has a successful half term and that the great progress made last term continues into the new year.

Ian, Lucy, Amelia, Dawn and Marie

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This half term purple class have been investigating their classroom, the school grounds and our local environment as part of our 'Where is Barnaby bear' topic.

Barnaby Bear will be coming home to visit each member of purple class and their family for a weekend between now and the end of January, look out for news in your home / school book.

In literacy we have been looking at the traditional tale 'The Gingerbread man', we have been learning the story and have also been making gingerbread men in cookery.

In our maths sessions we continue to learn a range of number songs and rhymes, we are also focusing on counting out amounts of objects at each child's individual level.

As November draws to a close we will be making lots of different Christmas trees using a range of resources including,ribbon, paint and paper. In our Key stage Christmas production purple class will be learning a Christmas tree song, you can practice at home using this link.

The Dancing Christmas Tree Song

Topic work - 'Where is Barnaby Bear?'

Cookery Lessons

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Autumn 1

There have been many changes in purple class to start the 2014/2015 academic year.

Firstly our class team has seen some changes with us saying a sad goodbye to Nikki, Charlotte and Emily who have all gone off to work in other classes around the school but we are now delighted to have Lucy and Amelia join our team. Our full staff list is now; Ian - Class teacher, Lucy - lead teaching assistant, Amelia, Marie and Dawn - teaching assistants. Purple class would like to say a big thank you to Nikki, Emily and Charlotte who all worked very hard in Purple class and a big hello to Lucy and Amelia.

We have also seen some changes with our children too, Liam, Gabriel, Paulina, Emily and Laaibah have all joined new classes and we wish them every success in their new classes. Matthew, Eshal Andrew and Ram would therefore like to welcome Rawaha, Jadon, Jaelan and Rohaan to Purple class and hope that we all have a great year together.

Our topic for the first half term will be called 'The things people do'. We will be finding out about the people who work in our school, what some of the people in our families do and will then find out about lots of people who help us such us the police, fire service, doctors, dentists and also postal workers and hairdressers!!

Keep an eye on the website for updates over the next few weeks as we will be making pictures of ourselves to add to our class page and we will also have exciting updates about some of the books and number rhymes that we will be sharing in class.

Purple class team

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Warm up song

Purple class have been warming up for circle time by going in with the action song 'Clap your hands'. The children are really enjoying doing all of the actions to the song and we even have one or two children singing along too!

Literacy

Purple class have been learning the story 'The enormous turnip'. We have had great fun learning the words and signs to the sing along version of the story and are now beginning to act the story out together. Before half term we will be getting creative and we will be making character masks, spoon puppets from the story and of course we will be making an enormous turnip too !

The Enormous Turnip Song

Fire station visit

Purple class had a fantastic time visiting Stopsley fire station. We were able to talk to fire fighters, dress up as fire fighters, sit in the fire engine, operate the lights and siren and have a go at using the very powerful hoses. What a great visit, thanks to everyone at Stopsley fire station for making us feel so very welcome.

Community police visit

We were very fortunate to have a visit from community police services who let us have a look around a police van. Purple class children enjoyed getting into the van for a look around and also really enjoyed operating the vehicles lights and siren.

Coming soon......

Please come back and visit purple class page soon, for details and photos of our visit to a hairdressers salon. There will be news about a trip to Asda to do some shopping, and details of our new topic in November, called 'Where is Barnaby Bear'.