Welcome
Welcome to Bumblebee Class!
We have been very busy settling into Bumblebee class over the past few weeks.
Our topic this half term has been ‘All About Me’ and we have had a focus on thinking about how we use our bodies, who we love in our families and looking at our own personal history by looking at baby photos.
Here are a few photos of what we have been getting up to in class.
These are some books we have been enjoying as part as the All About Me topic and Black History Month.
We have been very busy this half term and filled up our marble jar! This means we could have our dance party and we even had a bubble machine as a special surprise. All the children decorated biscuits, thinking about the change of texture when making the icing and adding food colouring. They also enjoyed painting (mark making) on the pumpkins. Bumblebee class had a lot of fun, and we can’t wait to start the new half term.
Last week we thought about the celebrations Diwali and Guy Fawkes Night. We read the story of Rama and Sita, made Diya lamps, Rangoli patterns, looked at some special clothing and made lots of firework pictures for the celebrations. We also started our new topic of ‘People Who Help Us’ and started to think about the police and how they can help.
Last week we took the time to think about Remembrance Day. We took part in a minute silence to think about the day and were busy making some poppy art.
We have been very busy this half term with our topic ‘People Who Help Us’. The children have all been thinking about what they would like to be when they are older and how they can help their community.
Thank you for donating to Children in Need and taking part in our Mad Hair Day! The children had lots of fun!
On Wednesday we had our ‘People Who Help Us’ Day, where the children dressed up as someone who helps us, the children loved being police officers, firefighters, vets, supermarket workers, doctors and builders!
At the start of last week, we were thinking about people who celebrate Hanukkah. We worked really hard to try and make some pattern candles from blue and silver squares. Happy Hanukkah!
On the 1st December we had a very special visitor, his name is Sam the elf! On the first day he used his elf magic to bring his Christmas tree and decorations all the way from the North Pole for us to decorate. The Children were all very excited!
We had such fun at the Christmas Disco, the children loved playing all the games and dancing to all the songs!
10th – 14th January 2022: This week the children have been learning about which animals live in Africa and which different habitats there are in the continent. We have enjoyed books like The Ugly Five by Julia Donaldson and Handa’s Surprise by Eileen Browne, and the children have been learning a lot of new animal facts. The children have also enjoyed playing in the vets clinic, looking after all the poorly animals.
17th – 21st January 2022: This week Bumblebees took a dive under the ocean as we looked at Under the Sea. We found out some really interesting information about Seahorses and Octopuses, thought about how we can help look after the oceans and sea creatures, and heard lots of stories. Bumblebee class has really enjoyed looking up question and answers in our new fact book and explored numbers, capacity, colour mixing and rhyming in class.
24th – 28th January 2022: This week we took a trip to the Americas, as we explored what animals live in North and South America. We have also been thinking about how we can use the – and = symbols while singing ‘Five Little Speckled Frogs’. We found some interesting information about the rainforest in South America and thought about how different animals move. They have been working really hard on their cutting skills to make their rainforest pictures. Bumblebee class has worked really hard to think about their phonics and what sounds they can see in their environment. They have also enjoyed reading "Slowly, slowly, slowly," said the sloth by Eric Carle and Melissa's Octopus and Other Unsuitable Pets by Charlotte Voake.
31st January - 4th February 2022: This week we took the adventure to Asia, where we were learning about the tigers in India and the Pandas in China. We also took the time to learn and celebrate Chinese New Year, where we learnt how people celebrate, made paper lanterns and thought about what pattern we can see on a tiger. They were also busy making playdough dragons. Bumblebee class were also busy making rain bottles, where we will start to collect and measure the rain, and exploring the new zoo in the playground looking at direction and positional language.
7th – 11th February 2022 This week Bumblebee class were learning about farms. We explored what grows on the farm and what animals we can find there. We explored numbers in the pigs mud, vegetable painting, where we looked at colour mixing and printing patterns, and story telling in the farm tray. Outside the children enjoyed investigating sinking and floating. We enjoyed ‘On the Farm’ by Caryl Hart and Lauren Tobia.
21st – 25th February 2022 This week Bumblebee class have been very busy starting their new topic of ‘Traditional Tales’. We have been reading different versions of Rapunzel, doing lots of measuring of Rapunzel’s hair, working on our cutting skills and retelling stories through our play. This week we looked at the artist Wassily Kandinsky, and Bumblebee class worked hard to remake some of his famous artwork, using paints and pastels. We have also been busy completing a science experiment. We were seeing if we could change the colour of the white flowers, and I think we were rather successful!
28th February – 4th March 2022: This week has been a very busy week for Bumblebee class! On Tuesday and Thursday, we celebrated World Book Day. The children were very busy sharing their favourite books, and we really enjoyed reding the Gingerbread Man and the Ugly Duckling. On Tuesday and Thursday, we were also busy making yummy pancakes for Pancake Day. Bumblebee class all did so well to take turns to measure and mix the ingredients, and to make choice to what to put on them. We also spoke about what lent meant to Christians. This week was also St David’s day, and we were busy drawing daffodil with the pastels. The Artist of the week was Jeff Koons and we looked at some of his famous sculptures, such as ‘Play-Doh’ and ‘Hulk (Friends)’. Bumblebee class were then getting busy by using the clay to make their own sculptures, hopefully we will be able to paint them soon!
7th – 11th March 2022: This week we read the books ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ and ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. Bumblebee Class were so excited by both stories, but we also thought about if they would ever go into a house on their own like Goldilocks or talk to a stranger like Jack. We finished our clay sculptures from last week with paint, and moved onto looking at Frida Kahlo, and her self-portraits with flowers. Bumblebee Class worked really hard to paint flower crowns on their pictures and they are up on display in the classroom. Bumblebee class also really enjoys exploring the outside world and discovering plants and leaves they found outside. We looked at some potato seeds this week, and read the instructions together, soon we will be planting them together.
14th- 18th March 2022: This week we read ‘The Three Little Pigs’ and ‘Hansel and Gretel’ . Bumblebee Class were very busy finding different ways to print onto paper to create their own houses, while re telling the story. This week we have been working on subitizing numbers up to three by looking at the traditional characters. The artist of the week was Vincent Van Gogh, we looked at that once in his life he lived not so far from where we are now. We all worked super hard learning what a self-portrait is and making our own ones, while thinking about what colours and shapes we need to use. We also enjoyed working on making swirls in the shaving foam with black, blue and yellow paint, to try and recreate ‘The Starry Night’. We also thought about St. Patricks Day, and we made pom pom rainbow pictures. Last week we started a science experiment to think about what would happen to fruit if we did not put it in the bin. This week the children are continuing to observe the fruit to see if we can see any changes and reflect on our predictions.
This week we have a second post as we had a very exciting day on Wednesday! It was our Traditional Tales Day! The children were also so excited coming in dressed in their amazing costumes, and the workshop from Perform, was very engaging, energetic, and enjoyable! It was a very busy day, but I think we can all agree, it was a great one!
21st – 25th March – This our traditional tale has been ‘Cinderella’ and we also read ‘I Love Mummy Every Day’ by Isabel Otter, while getting ready to celebrate Mother’s Day on Sunday. The children all were super busy making a Mother’s Day card and thinking about what they all love about their mummy. Bumblebee class have also been busy being the fairy godmother and creating their own outfits to the ball. We also spent time being engineers, exploring different materials to create and design their own boats to see if they sink or float. The children have now had a chance to use the iPad from the investigation station, and have been taking pictures of the environment outside. Later on in the week, we made the teeth of a giant, we thought back on the story of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. Next week we are going to have a think about how and why we clean our own teeth!
28th Match – 1st April 2022: This week Bumblebee class have been super busy in the lead up to Easter. On Wednesday, the children had their pyjama party to celebrate them filling up their marble jar, and all the hard work they have done this term! They all made chocolate nest cakes and had a dance party with bubbles! Throughout the week we had a rhyming easter egg hunt in our Bumblebee playground, and the children all got a chocolate egg at the end. We also made our Easter cards where the children printed on an Easter egg and practiced their writing.
Our traditional tale this week was ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’, we thought about how to make a bridge out of the blocks for the billy goats to pass over to escape the troll. The children also were able to experiment with the use of candles and water colours in their work to use the wax resist painting with candles technique to create a bridge picture. We looked at a painting by Monet and thought about the story while painting our own bridges. This week we also looked at the importance of brushing teeth and had a try and brushing the giants dirty teeth! When doing this we also thought about the story of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ which we read a few weeks ago to see if we could remember what the giant said when he saw Jack!
We also had a tricky challenge this week when took on the Humpty Dumpty challenge where we had to think about how we could protect an egg when dropping him from a height. The children were all challenged to think about what materials they could use and how it would help him.
We would also like to send a BIG thank you to the PTA for our easter bunnies. Bumblebee class were very excited to take one home! The children who come at the start of the week, took theirs home on Wednesday and the rest of the children on Friday, had another easter egg hunt to find bunnies, to swap them for a chocolate bunny! We hope you all have a wonderful Easter break, and we are very excited to see the children’s WOW moments and holiday news when they get back.
19th – 22nd April 2022: Welcome back to school, we hope you all had a lovely Easter break! We have been busy this week starting our new topic of Minibeasts and Growing. The children all explored the pattens on bumblebees and ladybirds. Outside we had lots of fun in the mud kitchen, cooking up lots of yummy food, and remembering to water all our plants that we have been growing in our garden. We also briefly looked at the festival of Vaisakhi and read a few books about dragons while thinking about St George’s day.
25th – 29th May 2022: This week the children have been busy exploring minibeast in our new minibeast lab. As a class, we ready The Very Lazy Ladybird, and Grow Up, Ant- Man. In our numeracy activities we worked really hard on our measuring and counting. The children have all been scientists, exploring insects and the plants growing outside. We were also busy planting cress; we will be checking to see how it grows soon. We even were so well behaved in assembly last week, we were able to use the big playground on Friday afternoon.
2nd May – 6th May: This week have been busy like the character in the book we have been reading ‘The Very Busy Spider’. We made spider webs with the glitter and glue, practiced our phonics with the chalk in the rice tray, painted with numicon, and worked on our cutting skills. We looked at the celebration Eid, by reading our story ’The Most Exciting Eid’, looking at pictures, videos, and listening to some of our friends who celebrated. I hope everyone who celebrated had a lovely day, it sounds like you did in class!
9th – 13th May 2022: This week Bumblebee Class have been very busy reading ‘The Very Busy Caterpillar’. We have painting circle caterpillars and symmetrical butterflies, sorting minibeast by their appearance, working on our cutting skills to make ‘The Very Busy Caterpillar’ pictures to help us retell the story, and we have been playing in the sensory rice feeding the very hungry caterpillar. We even found our very own hungry caterpillar outside on Friday! We have also been getting ready for the Queens jubilee, by making her cards, and started making bunting.
16th – 20th May 2022: This week we have been reading ‘Yucky Worms’ and ‘Doug the Bug That Went Boing’. They have been working on their cutting skills to strengthen their fine motor skills to make worms in the soil and practicing writing /w/ for worm. In the messy play, we were exploring rhyming words and thinking of their own ones. We have also been working hard on recognising numbers and even trying to add them together. Outside, they were exploring their shadows, and seeing if it moved throughout the day, exploring numbers and discovering minibeast.
23rd – 27th May 2022: This week was a very busy week filled with lots of exciting activities. On Wednesday we had our Minibeast workshop, it was amazing to learn all the new information about them, plus to see how brave Bumblebee Class was to look, touch and hold them!
The big celebration this week was for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, where we were celebrating Queen Elizabeth being on the throne for 70 years! We did a lot of party prep, made decorations, cakes and egg and cress sandwiches with the cress we have been growing at school. We also looked at some old and new pictures of her to think about the difference we could see. The children watched part of the coronation, and they were amazed at all the horses and carriages they could see. We also read a story about her life, and a book about when Paddington the Bear took a visit to the palace! On Friday, we had a big celebration outside at Chennestone, and even though it was a very warm day, they all had a great time!
6th – 10th June 2022: On our first week back after half term, we have been busy reading ‘Naughty Bus’ by Jan and Jerry Oke, and ‘Shhh! Don't Wake the Royal Baby!’ by Martha Mumford. We have been exploring London landmarks and have been building out own buildings and exploring retelling stories in the messy play. In maths we have been identifying, counting, attempting to write our numbers. Outside the Bumblebees have been busy making telescopes, building boats out of blocks, riding bikes, and using their imaginations to take part in lots of pretend play.
13th – 17th June 2022: This week we were very busy with our sports day practice getting faster and faster. The children loved playing car wash with the soapy water, and we stayed nice and cool by playing with the water and ice! They were busy making their father’s day cards, trying card to hear the sounds in ‘dad’ and writing their own names.
20th – 25th June 2022: This week we have been learning around the world again! We were very lucky to have a mummy to teach us some Spanish this week! We also got very messy making some paintings of the planet Earth, where we live! We have been exploring shapes and making shape pictures with the paint and crayons. We have also carried on exploring flags and maps.
27th – 30th June 2022: This week has been very busy with practicing for our sports day next week (Wednesday 6th July at 11am) and have been working on our writing skills to start making our graduation invitation. Plus working on our control of scissors and glue to create the other side of the invitation. We have carried on exploring maps and the world, by looking at where our friends are from. In numeracy, we have been looking at our positional language by exploring ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’.
We have also been working on retelling stories that we love as a class. ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ is very popular in class at the moment!
4th – 8th July 2022: This week was very busy for Bumblebee class as we had out first sports day! Thank you to everyone who came to support the children, they did very well, and we are all so proud of them! The whole class even got a joint special certificate, and on top of that we filled the marble jar! This week children explored measure, inside they were experimenting which toys could travel better on the ramp and outside they were exploring measurement in the water. We have also started to practice for something very special in the last week of term.
11th – 15th July – A very exciting week for Bumblebee Class as we had our end of year party marble party, where the children chose to have a water, bubble, ice cream party! The children were busy keeping cool in the water, thinking about capacity, weighing, and what forces they can see when exploring. They were all very excited to also be splashed with the hose pipe and sprinkler!
In class, we have been exploring masks from around the world, they have been busy looking for inspiration from the pictures and creating their own.
On Wednesday we had our music workshop by Earth Song. The children loved being able to explore different instruments from around the world and being able to play some themselves. We just want to thank Earth Song again for the amazing workshop, the children all had an amazing time and loved taking part.
Earth Song2.mp4
