Pioneers Class

Writing has been happening all over the place this week with Pioneers making signs and filling in tick-sheets with their families during our open morning. We have been out on the field taking inspiration from the trees to build sentences using adjectives. There is great excitement around writing out new letter shapes each day and the progress is wonderful to see. 

The Pioneers are to be congratulated for their superb efforts and outcomes in writing this week.

Happy Learning

We have been in and out of the classroom, developing fieldwork skills and looking at our school site. We collected data, deciding if areas were friendly to nature or not. We worked on how to record our findings on a table. 

After reading Six Dinner Sid, we discovered that he had visited many places on our site. We experimented with positional language to describe where Sid had been. We used on, behind and next to. 

We used an online compass to find out about north, south, east and west and drew some amazing field sketches of what we could see when we looked north. There were lots of questions about what to include and we discussed the things that were always there and the things that moved.

We read our story about Sid in Sleights, identifying locations in our village and describing these. Sid visited the bus stop. The bus stop is opposite Botham’s. We spotted road signs and lots of letters on shop signs. We had some great chat about the telephone box and how things had changed over time! 

There are some amazing pieces of work on the walls now-story maps and field sketches and collections of data.

The Pioneers should be very proud of how they have worked this week. Their kindness and perseverance has led to a wonderful week for all.

We hit the ground running in Pioneers and everyone worked together to get organised and into the swing of learning together.

We have been sorting all sorts of things-houses,cutlery,bricks and our favourite gems and buttons.

We have discussed our rules for sorting and we have become highly observant when looking for differences-two holes or three? Smooth or wavy edges?

Tidying in a new classroom adds a whole new level of complexity to sorting and this has gone really well too!

The Pioneers also managed PE and sorting their own sets of kit.

Very Happy Learning

The Chip Shop opened in the classroom this week as we investigate the food chain from the sea to the plate. The Pioneers wrote their own menus and receipts for food and took orders in from customers who arrived. The customers were met and greeted with a ,”Good Morning Madam. How can I help you?”

The prices were pretty high but the service was excellent. 

We discussed how the fish was processed and filleted and they were interested in which bits were removed before we get to eat it.

We went on to discuss the process of fishing and the Pioneers were full of amazing questions including how the fishermen got the right fish, how did they know it was cod in the net and how they would get rid of things that they did not want to catch.

We have been reading about wolves and listening to music with a wolf theme. We read Little Red, a version of the traditional tale where the wolf  has his coat removed at the end. The Pioneers made wonderful story maps and wrote lots of wonderful sentences.

This week we found some wolf evidence and we did a little bit of new learning about predators and their habits.

The wolf left behind fur and ear-wax, teeth and a little bit of his burnt tail. It got sizzled when he went down the chimney of the house to try to eat the three little pigs. Some of the evidence was stinky and some of it was a bit disgusting.

We read up on different types of teeth for different jobs and we found out that different animals have different poo. We set about making some wolf-poo adding bones and teeth and feathers. The Pioneers wrote lists of what may be in the poo and we measured the poo to ensure it was realistic in size. 

Watching play developed is amazing. The Pioneers work together to create amazing stories, structures and adventures. Over the year these have become so much more complex and the language used is specific and extensive.
The Pioneers share small spaces and lots of resources to create multi storey buildings and airport runways with moving tracks. They select from a range of loose parts,create fantastic uses for them while sharing this adventure with others. That sharing can be tricky at times and needs careful negotiation.
This week has been quite amazing and full of pretending and fun.
Go Pioneers!
I overheard all of these lines while observing the play.
Are we going on an adventure ?
This is the run way.
A gate needs to open to let us in.
You are alright to go
I landed on the runway
I’m not playing quite yet.

So much learning. Go Pioneers!

We continue to learn about the natural world, finding out about animals that hatch from an egg. We first found out about the features of birds and then explored the other animals making a huge list to discuss. The Pioneers were quick to spot that the nest and its spot were good for protection and to keep the precious eggs safe. we found out that nests are built in some odd spots, behind waterfalls and deep in the sand and high in trees. 

From reading, we found out some of the items birds use to make their nests. we wrote our own list and and then went foraging. We sat outside in the sunshine and made our own nests to cradle our eggs. Back in the classroom we made a label to say what would be hatching from each egg. This included snakes and owls and a brontosaurus and a couple of unicorns!

After reading the beautiful book,”Snail Trails”, the Pioneers were inspired to get up close and observe so wonderful snails. First we looked at them in the classroom and discussed the word “habitat”. We went outside and gathered the things we needed to construct a habitat. One Pioneer questioned whether nettles were a good addition and hypothesised that perhaps a snail has different skin to a human and the nettle would not prickle them.

We made habitat squared and observed the movements and preferences of our snails.  We left the snails and returned to find them under rocks and leaves. The Pioneers knew that they may be hiding from predators, perhaps The Big Bad Wolf. There is a starling living in the drain pipe and a crow who visits regularly so we talked about these being a real threat.

We then took our snails to the forest to release them into the wild. All of the Pioneers chose a suitable release spotted based on their observations of snail activity. 

Back in the classroom, we did some observational drawing and some absolutely wonderful writing.

And we rolled in the very long grass and collected dandelions and their seeds.

The Pioneers have spent the week learning more about the creatures who use our forest as their habitat The worms are vital to our soil and the bees are vital for pollination of future crops.

The Pioneers set some scientific questions and through observation they found the answers.

“Which end is the head end?”  The Pioneers quickly worked this out by watching direction of travel.

From further reading,they found out that worms cannot swim or live in water as they breath through their skin. They also learned how to tell the difference between an adult and a younger worm.

We measured our worms and labelled their features.

We had the delight of a visit from a real life bee keeper. She was able to build up our bank of knowledge on bees adding information about how bees communicate with each other. We got to model the process of pollination with big flowers and sticky bee legs.

To finish the session, we sang our wonderful bee song together.

So much learning!