We proudly showed off our marvellous mathematical thinking and super subitising this week when our parents joined us in school.  We love welcoming our families into school and spending some quality time learning together.  Thank you to everyone that was able to join us. 

Black Hole Planetarium Visit

We loved welcoming Mr Allen and his mobile planetarium into school this week. We were fascinated by his description of the Apollo 11 mission that resulted in men walking on the moon. 
 

We also learnt about the night sky, the phases of the moon  and some of the stories behind the names of the constellations. 

We really enjoyed meeting PCSO Katie and Constable Steve from West Mercia Safer Neighbourhood Teams for Wythall and Alvechurch.  Katie reminded us of the number to call if we needed the help of an emergency service such as the Police. We all remembered that we should dial 999 and some of us were able to say our address too.  This is such an important skill in the event of an emergency at home.  Keep practising Moss Class! 

During our time outside, we were able to sit in the 'cage' & try on some uniform.  We also had an opportunity to press lots of the buttons on the dashboard, illuminating the beacons, search torches and sounding the sirens. 

We had some fantastic questions and really embraced our inquisitiveness!  

We were incredibly resilient this week during our 'Bikeability Balance' sessions, not being put off by the cold and wet conditions!  We learnt to identify and name the parts of our balance bike including saddle, frame and brake.  We learnt why it was important to mount and dismount our bikes on the left side and we practised skills such as push and glide, steering and braking.  

Percy the Park Keeper's One Snowy Night

Nick Butterworth

We have really enjoyed reading One Snowy Night this week.  It has helped to learn a new skill in our writing lessons and we are all more confident in using a word card to support our spelling now. 

Seasonal Changes

This half term we have been learning about 'Seasons' as part of Knowledge and Understanding of the World curriculum.  Each day we have recorded the weather outside our classroom in our weather journal.  We have described the weather with fantastic vocabulary such as 'blustery', 'chilly' and 'torrential'.  

We have also been watching the leaves on the trees change colour and finally fall as autumn draws in.  This week we have been sketching autumn leaves. 

Can you remind your family of the PANTS rules?

Swipe across to reveal them....

We've been enjoying learning our Assembly songs in class this term.  Mr Irving noticed how impressive our singing was in assembly last week!  Below are some of our favourite songs!

We have made a fantastic start to school over the last few weeks.  We have been busy learning each others' names and finding our way around our new school.  

We followed a map around the school finding out which teachers are in each classroom & found Mrs Brown in her office.  She was very excited to see us all in our smart new uniforms! 

We have been showing how respectful we are by learning to play in our classroom alongside each other, making sure that we are all part of 'tidying up' time.  

An Artist Study:  Eric Carle

This afternoon we began our learning about Eric Carle.  We looked at pictures from his different books and noticed that they were made from lots of different patterns.  Mrs Bartlett showed us some photos of how Eric Carle achieved these patterns using layers of tissue. We tried creating our own patterns using layers of paint, stamps and stencils.  

Sorting

In maths this week we have been sorting.  Mrs Bartlett challenged us to use all of the things we've been learning this week to sort a random group of shapes.  Some of us chose to sort them by shape, others by colour and some by size.  There was lots of fantastic mathematical vocabulary including some excellent recall of the names of 2D shapes.  

This morning all of the new starters at Beoley First School blew me away with their positivity and eagerness to begin their school journey. Throughout the day all of the children have maintained that positive spirit and can-do attitude as they have learnt to share their new classroom with their peers and experienced their first day of a new routine.  

I am so proud of every child today - well done children!

History; Toys from the past.

This week we have been all been wowed and amazed by the 'magical' old toys that were brought into school for us to explore- thank you Mrs C Brown and Mrs C Taylor. Our story stimulus is Lost in the Museum and it inspired the children to ask you at home what you used to play with as children, thank you all for your contributions to our discussions!!

We have listened to each others discussions and use of language to compare our toys now and the difference between the old ones we looked at. They found the worn fur, mended seams, delicate material of the horse all added up to it being very old and windup toys very intriguing.

We had so much fun in the woodland on Friday morning.  The damp weather brought out lots of mini-beasts and we loved observing them in their natural habitats.  A garden snail made quite an impression on us, and enjoyed mooching around our learning environment all morning showing off how far he could stretch his tentacles to have a good look at our fantastic learning.  

We enjoyed spending money in Mrs Taylor's Garden Centre, we're becoming very confident at identifying bronze coins and making amounts with them.  We loved trying to find out which watering can or jug generated the fastest pour whilst we were racing boats and ducks from on tuff spot to another and this week in the kitchen we made mud pies!  We definitely have a few budding 'Master Chefs' in Moss Class! 

This week we listened to Mrs Bartlett read Fiery Fox and learnt all about how to stay safe around fire.  Mrs Bartlett then lit the fire and we used fantastic descriptive language to describe how the flames were burning and flickering.  Mrs Bartlett and Mrs Taylor were so impressed by our patience, that next week we will be cooking 'smores' on the fire!  Yum yum!! 

Lots of the children in Moss Class participated in our 'Value of the Month' homework for April.  We really enjoyed taking part in a whole school exhibition last week and felt a great sense of pride in our work.  Thank you to all of our Moss Class families for your continuing support with learning at home. 

During our outdoor learning session this week we were cooking up a feast in the Gruffalo Cafe, working our upper body in the dig zone and learning more about minibeasts using information books and small world models.  We planted some grass seed to use in our outdoor classroom and are looking forward to seeing it grow.  

This term children in Moss Class are taking part in the UK Space Agency's 'Train like an Astronaut - Mission X'.  It requires balance, agility, co-ordination and critical thinking.  Watch this space to see our progress! 

Windy days; The children wanted to have a go at making their own kites and found things in the classroom to create their ideas. Then they tested them and had so much fun in the big playground, running and watching their kites fly, fall and dive away. Their language was wonderful and they had so much fun, remaking and fixing the issues they had. Great spontaneous learning.

Exploring plants; this week we have learnt about roots, leaves, stems and flowers. We went to the greenhouse to look at the plants growing there and talked about what plants need to live and thrive. Then we found some weeds and held the little plant in our hand find to look at the parts.

We loved writing about our costumes! 

Everyone had a go at writing a simple sentence, using their own phonic knowledge and their robot arms to segment and blend, to then decide what letter/grapheme match they needed to write. 

The Great Fire of London in 1666

We have been learning all about this event and have found it fascinating. Here are some photographs of our display and work. Thank you for your contributions from home too.

Look at what we are learning to do... this week we have been learning new graphemes digraphs and trigraphs- and looking at the letter groups that make the same sounds as other letter groups. This means, for example, ch sounds the same as tch and x has the same sound as tch.

Some of the children had a go today at reading, making and writing the words with some of these choices in. WOW

This half term we are looking at People who Help Us. We have been finding out about emergency services and using our costumes, equipment and hats to dress up as doctors, nurses and vets. The children are loving the change and are enjoying the non-fiction books about these people.

Phonics Support 

Congratulations xx

All the children are learning their weekly letter sounds, which we learn each day, using our Floppy Phonics scheme.

With your support at home they are becoming confident to say the sounds we have learnt, all 22!! 

This link below is for you to hear the way each sound is said.

We have just started the Phase 3 sounds, which mainly comprise of 2 letters making one sound called digraphs, for example, ch, sh, ai - and 3 letters called trigraphs, such as igh, ear, air.

If you need any help with this just let me know.

Friendship Cards

The children have all finished making their card of friendship with you at home.

I have to tell you that they are all wonderful and made with love and care.

The children gave their card to the friend and everyone was very excited to receive such kind messages as we read what was written inside.

Thank you all for helping you child to create a lovely gift.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

This week we have started a new story and been learning through ideas.  So, I asked the children to work out, problem solve, how to make a chair that someone could sit on. Alot of the children have had a go, worked as a team, selected by themselves to create and try out whether or not their team chair would be successful... or not?

Here are some photo examples of what they have built so far.

Computers

They have been learning how to use a problem solving programme and a painting programme, using our Ipads. To do this we needed to explore how it worked, how to follow instructions and how to build on our ideas.

We had a go at making bread together. Everyone took part and mixed and made bread to eat, it was great fun and everyone was so helpful towards each other. This was the final activity for our Little Red Hen story topic.

Here are some of the counting and subitising activities we have tried. We like explaining things to each other so we needed to prove which collection had more; the pumpkins, runner beans or the pine cones that we had found in our outside classroom. Our other activity shows us finding matching amounts that we can subitise- say the amount on sight without counting each time. Also, behind us, you can see we have been using the interactive whiteboard to access learning games.

We had a very interesting time at the church...lots of questions and wonderment. The children were fascinated on the walk there and back as to what we saw and heard, looking at the outside and inside if the building too. They were all very well behaved as we listened to our friends talk and we sang our Harvest songs so well.

During healthy eating week we tried tasting unusual fruits; were they sweet, sour, felt funny in our mouth and which was the most liked taste - unbelievably it was the lemon!!

Another wonderful week of exploring! It has taken two weeks of creation and we have done a fabulous job. Firstly, we looked in the mirror and thought about the shape of our face and where to start painting on the paper, then this week we looked at which colour to use for the detail we needed to add. We are so impressed with the creativity and reflection all the children have used!

Welcome to Moss Class!

Our first few days as Moss class have been truly wonderful. The children are trying lots of different ways to learn, making friends, having fun and being brave. I am so proud of them all and they are all settling into the new routines and new adventures and getting to know each other. Well done everyone x

Welcome to Moss class 2021-2022

We have had a fantastic day today at Bishops Wood Centre.  Mrs Bartlett's camera is playing tricks on her this evening, but she is too excited to share her photos with you all.... 

In the Workshop this week we have been learning how to use a hammer safely.  We began by learning how to hold the hammer and a nail, hammering into a piece of corrugated cardboard for least resistance, followed by a block of polystyrene.  We all showed so much maturity when using these tools that our teachers felt we were ready to put our skills to the test by hammering a nail into a block of soft wood.  We were surprised at how much trickier this was.  

In our outdoor learning lessons we have been working on our team building skills and problem solving by building shelters for our whole class.  This week's was our favourite so far - we managed to fit ALL of Moss Class under the shelter, just as the rain began to pour!

A fabulous Monday morning full of collaborative learning.  This week we will be exploring more living things, including plants in our garden, blossoms from the trees and creatures that have made our school home.  We will be continuing to practise our subtilising skills by playing dominoes this week and our phonics focus will be rhyme.  

We we are looking forward to a week filled with learning, friendship building and laughter! 

In Literacy this week, we have been learning to speak in full sentences.  We have been using our outdoor environment to help us to create some interesting sentences.  

Some me of our favourite sentences so far have been:

“That’s not my Santa, his hat is too leafy brown.”

”That’s not my elf, his hat is too autumn orange.” 

No photos from today - we've been busy planning something special!

Watch this space!

This term our focused text is Grandad's Island by Benji Davis.  We will be learning about remembrance, the importance of remembrance and heading back in time to explore an ancient empire. 

Today, we have been on an imagination-fuelled adventure into Grandad's attic.  

We searched around until we found some treasures that we could see:  we named a bird cage, and a music box.  

As we were so good at being word-collectors yesterday, we carried on collecting vocabulary today too!  We began to describe what we had found, using our looking/noticing lens.  

We collected rusty and fragile today, to help with our descriptions. 

The final thing that we found in Grandad's attic was a couple of old records.  We listened to them on the record player, and danced to the music.  We told Mrs Bartlett that we had never heard music like this before.... we wanted to find out more! 

We used different lenses in our learning goggles to explore the bag and find out who it may belong to.  

Through our looking lense we saw a blue bag.  We became Word Collectors, and soon we were able to develop our description from 'a blue bag' into a 'navy blue bag'.  

We really impressed Mrs Bartlett with our vocabulary.  We used words such as large, dirty and well-used to describe the bag. 

Then we changed our lens; we explored the bag using our 'touch' lens.  We used words such as light, bumpy and squishy to describe how it felt.  We also heard some sounds, we had great fun using our voices to repeat these sounds:  crunching, rustling and crinkling. 

Eventually, we looked inside! 

We collected words including grimy, ancient, neon, bright, grubby and stretchy to describe what we found.  

Finally, we imagined that the ruck-sack must belong to somebody that had been on an adventure!

This week we are learning about a living artist called Yayoi Kusama.  We have found out that she is from Japan, and has bright red hair.  

We have enjoyed looking at photographs of her exhibitions.  Can you guess which picture we thought looked like tentacles? 

Beoley Bookworms

Each morning we begin our day with Beoley Bookworm time where we practise our reading, phonics, roach and fine motor skills.  

This morning we worked collaboratively to create our own story using 4 objects as prompts. 

Positivity Games

We have been celebrating positivity today as part of our Positivity Games.  We discussed how positivity can spread and all the things that help us to feel positive.  We used this video to see how easily positivity can spread and spent our afternoon spreading positivity. 

August 2020

Welcome to Moss Class, and to Beoley First School! 

We are so excited to meet you!  Over the last couple of weeks I have been busy preparing our new learning spaces and they are almost ready to share with you.  I will post some photos here, as well as e-mailing them to each of you before our new term begins.  

I can't wait to hear all about your summer adventures!  During the summer holidays my family adopted a baby rabbit.  His name is Flop and we love him, even though he makes me sneeze and itch a lot!  Here is a photo of him, he is a very cheeky rabbit!

See you soon, 

Mrs Bartlett