Raindrops

      Welcome to Raindrops Class Page

A very warm welcome from:

                                       Mrs Gajjar, Ms Piskova and Mrs Sheldrake

This is where you will be able to follow what we are doing in class, see our activities, find out about our topics and learn more about the curriculum.

WB 10.7.23

We read the story of Monty The Manatee which is about being kind to each other. Monty teaches other creatures in the sea school to look after each other and include everyone in their games. We cut out jellyfish from the story and attached their legs and also made our own aquariums full of fish that we also cut out.

In Forest School we had fun doing our own exploring and making up our own games.

We talked about prepositions in Maths and used them to position ourselves, such as ON the chair, UNDER the table, BEHIND your friend and so on.

On Thursday we all met our new teacher for next year and had fun playing in our new classrooms. It's a very exciting time as we reach a new stage in our school career.

wb 3.7.23

This week we read a book called How Billy Duck Learned To Swim. Billy was a duck who hated getting wet, so his mother dressed him in waterproof clothing until he found he was too restricted. So he got rid of the clothes and found that he didn't mind getting wet at all!

We investigated different materials to see if they were waterproof, including testing our umbrellas with a watering can! It was interesting to see if water went through the materials.

We spent a lot of time learning to play team games such as football on the field and became even more adventurous on the Trim Trail!

Jigsaw puzzles were popular this week and they were quite challenging! But lots of the children persevered and learnt to look carefully at the pieces to match up the pictures.

We sang lots of counting songs this week and used our own 10 green bottles to help us!

wb 26.6.23

This week was Sports Day! We did our running races one day and then our Carousel of Activities the next day. It was great fun! Our mums and dads came to watch and to cheer us on. 

We enjoyed lots of water play this week, pouring water into funnels and tubes and watching where it went. We talked about cold water and hot water and how to change the temperature. We learnt that water turns to ice when it is frozen. We froze some paint in ice cubes and painted with them as they melted.

wb 19.6.23

We continued our look at how plants grow this week by reading Errol's Garden. We made prints with vegetable sand then planted them in our pots with soil. We checked to see if our beans and sunflowers were growing...some are still a little bit sleepy! In Maths, we looked at shapes. We made pictures from large shapes on the carpet and then made our own 2D shapes from lolly sticks and string. We practised running for Sports Day. It was great fun to run on the track like real athletes!

WB 12.6.23

This was another busy week in Raindrops! Our book this week was called The Tiny Seed and we found out what happens when a seed is planted.

We planted our own seeds, took part in a drama lesson and did some exercises with an ex-Olympian! We played outside as much as possible building houses, fishing in the water, learning how to play Hopscotch, pairing up socks on the washing line and finding plants in Forest school. We learnt the names of the parts of the plant; stem, leaf, roots, petals and are eagerly waiting for our sunflowers and beans to grow!

wb 4.6.23

Our topic this term is called Sunshine and Sunflowers. Our book this week was called Sun. We talked about all the things we need to do to keep safe in the sun. We made pictures of the beach and then made our own suns! At Forest School, we looked for numbers all around us and then collected certain numbers of items eg. 3 sticks, 2 leaves.

Our mums and dads came to play with us on Friday morning which was great fun! After they left, we had turns in the paddling pool to keep us cool!

wb 22.5.23

This week we learnt a lot about Pentecost (see RE page).

We also enjoyed making caterpillars out of fruit and tasting lots of different things like spinach leaves and raw mushrooms!

We spent a lot of time out in the sunshine - using the parachute in PE and playing football with our friends. In our playground, we built towers of tyres and used wooden shapes and planks to build houses.

Half term will give us a chance to rest and recover from all our activities!

wb 15.5.23

Our book this week was called Clean Up. It was about a little girl in Africa who goes to visit the beach and finds it covered in plastic. She and her friends clean up the beach and make a bin out of recycled materials for people to use.

We talked about recycling and using some of our rubbish to make other things. We learnt what materials were called such as plastic, cardboard, metal and glass.

We sorted recycling into categories and recycling bins and in Forest School we went litter picking in the forest and around the school. We also used some rubbish to recycle into art work of our own.

Out in the playground our play has become much more imaginative. We were using tyres, wooden shapes and guttering to create our own structures and games. It was a fun week!

wb 8.5.23

We read a book called Fatou, Fetch The Water! this week. It was about a little girl who lived in an African village who had to fetch water from a well to fill her bucket. We learnt a lot about what a well is and how it works. We made our own well in the outside area and carried water in buckets on our heads!

At Forest School we made patterns from natural materials and we coloured in and printed ethnic patterns in the class.

Our mums and dads came to Stay and Play. It was fun playing with them and showing them our favourite activities. We also shared our Collective Worship with them (see the RE page)

wb 1.5.23

This is the week of the King's Coronation!

We have had great fun getting ready for it. We have made bunting and paper chains, coloured flags and made crowns! We iced biscuits and put a Coronation cake topper on them.

We made red, white and blue necklaces and had great fun at a Coronation Street Party with all the other children in Early Years! We had biscuits, crisps, and juice and we finished by having a few games and some dancing! We hope King Charles and Queen Camilla have as much fun at their coronation!

wb 24.4.23

As part of our topic Big Wide World, this week we read the story of Handa's Surprise. Handa took lots of different fruit to her friend as a present, but on the way, the jungle animals stole the fruit. Finally, a goat butted a tangerine tree and lots of tangerines fell into her basket. This was a surprise to Handa when she arrived at her friend's house!

We looked at and handled the fruit that was in Handa's basket. We drew pictures of the fruit, looking carefully at the colours and shapes.

In Maths, we cut the fruit into halves and learnt how two halves make a whole fruit. We tasted the fruit and talked about taste and texture - spiky, prickly, squashy, slimy, sweet, yucky!

After we had tasted the fruit, we made a class pictogram (graph) showing our favourite fruit. The winner was pineapple!

Wb 17.4.23

It was nice to be back in school and to see our friends again after the Easter holidays.

This half term, our topic is called Big Wide World and we will be learning about different places in the world and places where our families come from. We read a book called Under The Same Sky which teaches us that we are all under the same sky wherever we are and that we all share the same experiences.

We looked at a world map and found the countries that our families come from. We also made our own maps! In small groups we made a map from our classroom to the Trim Trail and talked about which way we turned to get there. Some of us tried to draw our own maps when we got back to class!

We found different routes around Forest School and looked for some buried treasure!

wb 27.3.23

This was a busy week leading up to Easter. We listened to the story of when Jesus died and sequenced pictures from the story. We had fun painting with flowers and making Easter cards for our families. We did an Easter Egg Hunt at Forest School and got to eat chocolate eggs!

We tried really hard to pop very small bubble wrap which is a good challenge for little fingers! We ate Hot Cross buns at snack time and found out why they have crosses on them. We made a little tomb to remind us what happened to Jesus after He died.

wb 20.3.23

This week we read Harry and The Bucketful of Dinosaurs. We had lots of buckets of dinosaurs around the class to play with and count and to role play the story. We had dinosaurs in ice eggs which melted as we played with them! There were dinosaur skeletons in the sand and dinosaur bones to make our own skeletons with!

At Forest School we took our magnifying glasses and binoculars and looked closely at all the things we could find in the forest.

On our loose parts table, we counted items into 5 and 10 frames and we made designs on crosses for Easter.

On Friday, we drew our own dinosaurs or cut out dinosaur body parts and made our own strange dinosaurs!

Another busy week in Nursery!

wb 13.3.23 

This week we read a lovely book called The Girl and The Dinosaur. It was about a little girl who dug up some bones and made a dinosaur skeleton which came to life at night! The dinosaur took her to a dream island in the clouds. Mrs Gajjar brought in some 'dinosaur bones' and we tried to see if we could make a skeleton!

We built dinosaurs from blocks and found out hog a dinosaur's stride was! It was 3 metres and our strides were only 20cm! We put our feet inside a dinosaur's footprint to see how many of our feet fitted in it!

We made some cards and pictures for our mums for Mother's Day.

wb 6.3.23

Our book this week was called Dinosaur Roar. We learnt about opposites and listened to the rhyming language in the book. We did bark rubbings in Forest School and thought about the textures we could find.

Later in the week, we made our own volcano! It was so much fun to see it erupting!

We made dinosaur fossils in playdough and looked at the bones inside the dinosaur.

wb 27.2.23

Our book this week was called 1,2,3 Do The Dinosaur! It was a rhyming book with a Dinosaur Dance to copy. We had lots of fun doing the ROAR!

In Forest School we went hunting for dinosaurs and we ticked them off a list as we found them. Everybody found 5 dinosaurs but it took a long time to find the 6th one! It was hiding really well in the forest!

We played a 2D shape game on the interactive whiteboard and then made dinosaur pictures from 2D shapes. We used some shapes that were already cut but we could also cut out our own shapes. Some of us made our own dinosaurs and others used a printed picture to stick the shapes onto.

In Fab Science we had lots of fun! We were able to touch the bubbles made from dry ice and then we tried to hold a cloud! Finally, we went outside to watch some lemonade and mint sweets make a super explosion! Everyone was very excited!

On Friday we put on our wellies and stepped in paint to make lots of footprints like dinosaurs used to make.

It was a busy week!

wb 20.2.23

This week saw the beginning of our topic Dangerous Dinosaurs! We read a book called Tyrannosaurus Drip and afterwards we had fun cutting out the words such as teeth and tail to label a dinosaur and also found matching pairs of dinosaurs.

In Maths we read a book called Hide-O-Saurus. This was a counting book about dinosaurs playing hide and seek. We had to find 10 dinosaurs. Then we counted dinosaurs and tried to find the matching number.

We had the musical instruments out on Thursday and we sang and played along to lots of our favourite songs.

Finally on Friday, we made and printed dinosaurs out of paper plates.

We celebrated Mardi Gras on Pancake Day. You can see our craft activities for this on our RE page. We had lots of fun having Pancake Day races and eating pancakes at snack time!

It was a busy week!

wb 6.2.23

This week was Feel Good Week! We had a great time doing lots of different activities!

On Monday we went to see some farm animals who were visiting the school. There was a donkey, 3 goats, 3 rabbits, a pig, a sheep and a dog! We were allowed to pet them.

On Tuesday we went to the Food Tech room and made some Rocky Road cake. 

On Thursday we had our scooter and Trim Trail time. That was fun!

Our book this week was Elmer The Elephant. We learnt about how different Elmer is from other elephants and that it is good that we are all different. We did lots of colour sorting, collage and colouring and making patterns with colours.

It was a busy tiring week and we're all ready for half term!!

wb 30.1.23

"He has terrible tusks and terrible claws, and terrible teeth in his terrible jaws! He's the Gruffalo!"

We read The Gruffalo this week and learnt The Gruffalo Song with Makaton signing.

We matched the animals in the story to their homes and counted prickle on the Gruffalo's back! We also practised writing over numbers 1-5. We went to the Trim Trail a couple of times and practised climbing, swinging and balancing. On Friday we made chocolate Gruffalo cakes and ate them!!

WB 23.1.23

This week was all about the story Room on The Broom! This is a rhyming book with a repetitive chorus so we were able to join in. We made potions and wands and talked about the animals in the story. We found things to put in a pot to make a magic spell in Forest School and stirred the pot. We also made edible wands using breadsticks, jam and sprinkles! Everybody loved them and they were all soon eaten!

In Maths we measured things using cubes and made witch faces from 2D shapes!

We made up our own prayer this week, to pray for people who are sick.

WB 16.1.23

This week we learnt the story of Goldilocks and The Three Bears. We did lots of size ordering in the class. We measured chairs, beds and bowls! We talked about big, medium and small and tried some nice warm porridge at snacktime! (Well, some of us did!)

We made bear masks and collaged bear faces. Tearing paper for the collage was a new skill for us.

wb 9.1.23

Welcome to all our new Nursery children who started in Raindrops this week! It has been lovely getting to know you all and to see you exploring the Nursery setting.

This week we have been listening to the story of Little Red Riding Hood. We have talked about what happens in the story and then sequenced pictures from the story.

We have counted cakes into a basket for Little Red Riding Hood to take to Grandma and we have told the story to each other using puppets and small world characters.

On Friday we made bread rolls and flowers to take to Grandma!

WB 12.12.22

We began the week with a Snow Day! Some of our children did the online learning that we set and went outside to build a snowman! See pictures below.

We have been very busy this week making things to take home for Christmas! We have made cards, calendars, wreaths, and lots more! Look out for everything coming home next week.

12.12.22 SNOW DAY!

This week in Maths we are looking at patterns. Play these games (links below) and ask your child to identify the next shape needed. This will follow on from our work on 2D shapes last week. To extend the activity, ask your child to identify shapes around the house; circle clock, rectangle TV, triangle Christmas tree, square box etc.

Here are a couple of interactive pattern games that your child could do today:

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/ordering-and-sequencing/shape-patterns

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/ordering-and-sequencing/christmas-patterns

and a Christmas Decorate The tree activity;

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/christmas/decorate-tree

Outdoor Learning: Go outside and make a snowman! Take a picture and email it to me! 

sgajjar@sphoward.herts.sch.uk

wb 21.11.22

We based a lot of our learning on the story "Don't Hog The Hedge!" this week. It was about a hedgehog who wanted to hibernate, but kept being disturbed by his friends who wanted to share the hedge. We acted out the story using puppets.

We had great fun playing the musical instruments and singing along!

We made playdough and clay hedgehogs as well painting hedgehogs with a fork! We collected leaves to make hedgehogs and at Forest School, we made hedgehog houses.

We did more travelling moves during PE and learnt to use a 5 frame in Maths to help us count up to 5 items.