Pioneers Class

The Pioneers have completed their first full week at school and it has been wonderful. So much has been achieved and everyone is much more independent in the classroom. They know where the resources are and where and how they need to be returned. We are beginning to find the rhythm of the day and that is reassuring. Things happen in the same order each day and within that order, exploration and experimentation,thinking talking and calculating can happen. Often this is noisy and messy and then a calm occurs when everyone is focussed and the learning happens.

We have been painting and building and sorting and arranging and comparing and sharing and laughing and learning together. It is no wonder that we are a bit tired by the end of the day.

Well done!

Everything was ready for the new Pioneers to let the learning begin. The first week has been wonderful and full of so many “firsts”-a first day, a first lunchtime, a first trip to collective worship, a first PE session and a first trip to the library as a Pioneer.

The Pioneers rose to every challenge and were ready for the weekend. 

In preparation for our trip to Whitby next week, we took a look at FLOTSAM. This is a wonderful picture book full of curious items and possibilities.

The Pioneers had a great chat with Mrs Gurney about shells and cameras and things washed up on the shore. The Pioneers are very good at making predictions and giving reasons for these based on the evidence they have.

The Pioneers have been classifying living things and have been learning about fish. We got up close and looked at the fins and the scales and the teeth and the beard. The smell was not too bad as we got outside! We drew some great pictures recording features of each fish.

We also drew a Fish and Chip Shop food chain which was 

Thank you to our families for their rapid action in sourcing the fish for this fantastic learning.

We  have been following the life cycle of our caterpillars and this week they turned into butterflies so we knew that the release day was drawing near. We went to the forest and found a shady spot for the release. Our butterflies were happy to hang around so we could take a close look at their mouth parts and their bodies. Eventually they flew off into the trees.

Inspired by the artwork in Eric Carle’s books we found out what it would be like to be an artist when we grew up. We found out that Eric was inspired by nature and walks in the forest with his father. The Pioneers watched a video where Eric shared his techniques and thoughts about colour.

We got brushes and sponges. Some chose other items like blocks and fingers and we added paint to wet quality tissue paper. The process was fascinating. The classroom was a quiet buzz of chat about colour and pattern. We found places for it all to dry!

The next day we set about making our own collages. The originality was fabulous. The Pioneers selected colour and pattern to fit their own ideas and made flowers and butterflies and of course the Very Hungry Caterpillar made an appearance alongside a dinosaur.

Another wonderful week of learning.

The Pioneers have been very busy this week exploring calculations. We have returned to subtraction and the links with addition are becoming clearer. We have been working with teen numbers using a variety of manipulatives to support our work. The Pioneers moved form teacher to teacher trying out calculations with Numicon,Numberframes,Stickies,Moshimonsters and Tens and Ones. We wrote calculations and used Part/Whole Models to record our thinking. The quality of talk was high.Everyone was focussed and organised their resourses to get the right answers. Number formation is looking good and any reversed digits were quickly corrected.

Well done Pioneers.

The sun is shining and that makes everything feel wonderful.

We all did our writing outside and playtime was bursting with energy. Our sunflowers are stretching up tall and the snails have all disappeared into the shady spots.

We were inspired by Matisse to create some collage. The Pioneers added their own frames and really enjoyed “painting with scissors.”

We got out on the field to get to grips with the organisation required for Sports Day which is fast approaching. That field is mighty big when you are 4 or 5. We are learning not to cut the corners!

We have had another four day week but we have certainly done five days’ worth of work. The Pioneers have been on fire. We have been building up our knowledge of the creatures living on our school site and we focussed on snails. However,when we went on a snail hunt we only found one snail and a couple of rather large slugs. There were plenty of woodlice. Thankfully our wonderful families made up the shortfall and we imported a large number of snails all of which have found new homes outside…with a few inside too.

We have really enjoyed spotting pattern and shapes in shells and plants and recreating these using loose parts and pastels and pipecleaners.

The whole week has been just wonderful.

The Pioneers and their families had a wonderful afternoon celebrating the King’s Coronation. The classroom was packed and we made commemorative plates,King Charles spoons and crowns. On the floor, we built a huge structure inspired by Westminster Abbey. One high point was our rendition of God Save the King on Kazoo. This was unrehearsed!

Thank you to everyone who joined in the fun and helped with the tidy up too.

We had a wonderful morning with Mrs Robertson who brought in all her beekeeping kit. The Pioneers already had a lot of knowledge about bees and their body parts. This allowed them to ask very specific questions like,”Do bees have noses?” Mrs Robertson added to their existing knowledge giving us a glimpse into the life of a bee. Pollination was modelled with big paper flowers and a little bee. We all got up and did the wiggle dance that bees use to communicate with other bees. We got to handle parts of the hive and try on the suits used to stay safe.

So much learning and thank you to Mrs Robertson for sharing her knowledge and passion.