Hintlesham and Chattisham
C of E Primary School
RUBY CLASS 2023-2024
EYFS-RECEPTION
Ruby Class is our Early Years Foundation Stage class and is taught by Mrs Greenwood and Mrs Death.
We are supported by Mrs Hambling and Mrs Polley.
Our EYFS curriculum is strongly influenced by our curriculum drivers: community, communication, opportunities and possibilities and initiative, where the outcome is a cohort of happy, independent, confident and determined learners who are able to communicate effectively, have the ability to think critically, enjoy sharing their thoughts and ideas with others and believe that anything is achievable. The children within our early years provision learn through a range of child initiated play-based opportunities as well as child-led, adult led and independent learning opportunities.
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Click on the tree to see what we have been up to in the Wild Woods
For more information about our phonics program, Read Write Inc. click on Fred Frog.
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Welcome to a new academic year in EYFS at Hintlesham and Chattisham CofE Primary School. We cannot wait to share all of our learning and adventures with you...
Summer Term 1-Growing, Life-Cycles and In The Garden
25.4.2024
This week we read the story 'The Tiny Seed' by Eric Carle and learned about the life cycle of a sunflower. We also celebrated 'World Earth Day' and each made a promise to help take care for our wonderful earth.
In maths. we have been practicing our number formation and consolidating our understanding of the composition of 5. We have also been using die frames and tens frames to show our understanding and writing equations.
MAT Olympic torch relay...
to celebrate the upcoming Paris olympics, the MAT have been gifted a real London 2012 paralympic torch to pass between all 21 MAT schools. The torch relay began in Newmarket and has already passed through several MAT schools before arriving at Hintlesham on Thursday. On Friday, all of the children enjoyed finding out about the olympic values and having a turn at holding the torch-it wasn't as heavy as we were expecting! We have now passed the torch to Sproughton.
To further improve our writing skills, this week we have become authors. Each week we are going to our own write 5 sentence story, here are a couple from this week.
19.4.2024
We have had a super first week back. We read 'Jasper's Beanstalk' by Nick Butterworth and planted our own beans to nurture and grow. I wonder whose beanstalk will grow the tallest?
In maths, we have been following verbal instructions to create matching arrangements.
In Drawing Club, we read the story 'The Odd Egg' and learned the vocabulary words emerge, incubate, demolish, fracture, flourish and cherish.
We had lots of fun drawing the character-the duck, the setting-the duck's nest and designing a different egg and are getting much more independent when writing the magic codes.
Our 'Follow me Friday' session was led by A, who loves relaxing in the bath. We all became scientists when A taught us how to make scented bath bombs. Everyone was super at following the instructions and all created a very impressive, lavendar scented, bath bomb. Thanks for a very interesting and relaxing session A!
Spring Term 2-Once Upon a Time, Spring and Easter
28.3.2024
Happy Easter from everyone in Ruby Class!
This week we have acted out the celebrations of Palm Sunday, written Easter prayers and created Easter gardens. We performed 'Spring Chicken' in our first Easter service in church, and enjoyed lots of Spring and Easter themed activities (including a 'doubles' egg hunt!)
Amazing observational drawings of spring flowers using pencil and watercolours.
22.3.2024
This week we have been space explorers...we found out about Neil Armstrong and the very first moon landing and reviewed the names of all the planets (we learned about them in J's first 'Follow me Friday' session in November). We also read 'Alien Love Underpants' and discussed whether we believe aliens are real or not! We enjoyed making 'salad spinner' planets and printing with stars in the creative area. We had lots of fun designing our own underpants too!
In Drawing Club we read the story 'Are the Dinosaurs Dead, Dad? by Julia Middleton. We learned the vocabulary words disbelief, intrigue, ginormous, ferocious, herbivore and carnivore and enjoyed drawing the T-Rex, the museum and a way to stop the T-Rex from eating Dave and Dad. The children are getting much more confident and independent when writing their magic codes.
In maths, we have been exploring sorting.
Our 'Follow me Friday' session was led by N who is interested in jellyfish..."they are so funny!"
N had worked hard with her brother at home to prepare an information chart about jellyfish to teach her friends some fascinating facts! Did you know...jellyfish do not have eyes, bones, a heart or a brain? Did you know...that jellyfish can be blue, yellow, pink, purple and clear and that some jellyfish glow in the dark? We then created our own jellyfish 'smack' (the name of a group of jellyfish). Thanks for a great session N-we all love jellyfish now too!
We had the best fun during our 'skipping and playground games' workshop with Mr Massey. We are also very grateful to the HSA for buying us some new outdoor bricks for our construction zone. We have loved being the Ruby Class building company!
15.3.2024
It has been a busy week of investigations in Ruby Class this week as we celebrated 'British Science Week'. This year's theme is 'Time' and we had lots of fun finding out about shadows and the 4 different seasons.
Our 'Drawing Club' sessions have been based on 'Adventure of the past' and we have loved watching 'Road Runner'. We have learned the vocabulary speedy, zooming, ambush, boulder, slinking and escape. The children have enjoyed drawing Road Runner, thinking of a home for the coyote and inventing a way to make the coyote travel super fast! Super drawings and amazing magic codes everyone!
In maths, we have been naming and rotating shapes to solve tangram puzzles and exploring doubles...we are getting very speedy at saying our doubles to 5.
Our 'Follow me Friday' session was led by J who LOVES cheetahs! He taught us lots of interesting information about them from his book and we enjoyed creating cheetahs and tigers by tearing paper and adding features with markers (inspired by the book 'Maybe' by Chri Haughton).
SUPERHERO CAPE UPDATE...can you remember when we designed and printed our own superhero capes? Well, the ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE Mrs De Banks turned them into real capes for us to wear! Aren't they fabulous!
8.3.2024
This week, we have focused our learning on dinosaurs. We read 'The Girl and the Dinosaur' by Hollie Hughes and had an interesting class discussion about whether dinosaur bones could really come to life. We found out about the fossil hunter, Mary Anning and had lots of fun making our own fossils using salt dough.
On Tuesday, the whole school took part in a writing morning based on 'what's in the box? Wow Ruby Class...look at your super independent writing!
WORLD BOOK DAY 2024
You all looked amazing in your costumes. We had a very enjoyable WBD...sharing stories with our buddies, reading 'Bumpus Jumpus Dinosaurumpus' and then creating the setting and characters out of egg boxes and finding out about different reading genres in Class 3's assembly.
Our 'Drawing Club' story has been 'Little Red Hen' and we have learned the vocabulary concocting, unhelpful, ingredients, collaborating, rising and 'just desserts'. The children have enjoyed drawing Little Red Hen, the farm (with an unusual animal hiding) and something disgusting on the top of Red Hen's bread. They have written super magic codes too...
Our 'follow me Friday' session was led by D who still loves baking (in her last session she taught us how to bake cupcakes) so taught us how to bake cookies. They were very delicious!
Spring Term 1-Winter, Superheroes and People Who Help Us
9.2.2024
This week, we have been learning about real-life superheroes such as the police, firefighters, doctors, nurses, dentists, hairdressers, vets, paramedics, nail technicians, refuse collectors, mechanics and teachers. The children painted some amazing pictures and wrote some super sentences.
We practiced our cutting and weaving skills by creating a police car.
Our 'Follow me Friday' session was led by E, who LOVES ladybirds. She taught us all about the ladybirds she found in her garden, what they looked like, why they are good for the garden and she talked to us about their lifecycle-wow! We watched an amazing video showing us exactly what E had explained...watch it by clicking on the link...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws_D5nXOAJg
The children enjoyed sequencing the lifecycle of a ladybird and then working in pairs to create ladybird hotels to put in the Wild Woods.
Thank you for a super session E and for sharing all of your ladybird knowledge with us!
2.2.2024
This week, we listened to the story 'Ten Rules of Being a Superhero' and worked together to write our own rules (ready to apply to real-life superheroes next week).
In Drawing Club we have read 'Superworm' and learned the vocabulary words: transform, indestructible, zooming, courageous, calamity and heroic. We enjoyed drawing Superworm, Superworm's base and a monster and are getting better and better at writing captions for our magic code.
We have also enjoyed exploring tie-die to create our own superhero capes (look out for the finished products next week!)
Our 'Follow me Friday' session was led by L who is curious about volcanoes. L kindly created Rainbow Volcano at home and taught us everything he knows about volcanoes. We learned what a volcano is, where volcanoes can be found, discovered the difference between magma and lava and LOVED erupting Rainbow Volcano and our own volcanoes. Thank you for a very exciting session L!
26.1.2024
This week, we used the story 'Traction Man' as a springboard for our learning. We wrote some super sentences about his appearance and made predictions about what might happen next in the story...
In DT we have been thinking about superhero vehicles and have enjoyed designing, making and evaluating our own vehicle. Mrs Death was particularly impressed with how well some of us followed our designs and how we persevered until we reached the result we wanted (some took 2 days!)
Maths café
We enjoyed spending some time exploring a variety of maths activities with our mums and dads.
In Drawing Club, we have enjoyed watching 'Pink Panther' and learning the words: clumsy, splodge, comical, oblivious, reveal and furious.
Our 'Follow me Friday' session was led by A who is curious about how ice cream is made. We watched a video of honeycomb ice cream being made in a factory (Mackies) then became the Ruby Class ice cream factory. We worked together to whisk the whipping cream into soft peaks (with a hand whisk), mixed in the condensed milk and vanilla extract, whisked some more and then placed the mixture into silicone moulds. We then put the moulds in the freezer and waited and waited and waited! We were very excited when we got to eat the ice cream that we had made. Super team work Ruby Class, thanks A for a great session.
We also took part in the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch. Check out our 'Wild Woods' page to see some more of our amazing observational drawings and to find out our results.
https://www.hintleshamchattishamschool.com/copy-of-wild-woods
19.1.2024
This week, the children have really embraced our 'Superhero' topic. We started the week by sharing our ideas about what makes someone a superhero and designed our own superhero called 'Tidy Girl'.
She is very shiny, very strong, helps people and wears a cape! The children have enjoyed playing with superheroes in the construction zone and role play area and drawing and labelling superheroes in the writing area.
We have enjoyed reading 'Hansel and Gretal' in Drawing Club this week and learning the vocabulary words: confectionary, wicked, innocent, swish, double and cauldron.
We are all rising to the challenge and writing captions or sentences for our magic codes now-wow Ruby Class!
We have been fascinated by all of the ice in Ruby Gardens this week...we have enjoyed painting on it, chipping away at it with the tools and baking ice cupcakes in the mud kitchen. We also worked together to free the polar animals from the ice!
In maths, we have been looking at the staircase pattern and finding one more than a number to 10. We enjoyed playing a game with Maths Monkey where we had to work out which number was missing-we were very good at explaining our thinking and understanding of why.
Our 'Follow me Friday session was led by I, who shared her passion for potions and getting messy with us! She taught us how to use the pipettes to add different colours into our potions and was very good at predicting colour changes! The children enjoyed exploring coloured water, glitter and foam to create their perfect potion. They enthusiastically wrote labels for their potion and had lots of fun imagining and explaining what it might do-super sentences Ruby Class. What a fun and messy session I-thank you.
12.1.2024
We have had a super start to 2024 in Ruby Class!
We have made some new year promises...
We have been looking for signs of winter and talking about the weather and suitable clothing to wear.
We have enjoyed learning about the Arctic and Antarctic. Look at our celebration of polar bears!
In maths, we have been playing track games. We are getting much better at our careful counting. We even designed our own games-we can't wait to play them again!
This week, our 'Follow me Friday' session was led by A who told us all about her horse Toddy. She taught us how to trot and prepared some lovely horse themed craft activities for her friends. We enjoyed wearing our horse masks and having some horse races on the playground.
We really enjoyed our very first badminton session with Mrs Hughes. We have already learned how to hold the racket with a thumb grip or a v grip.
Autumn Term 2-Festivals and Celebrations-A world full of colour.
15.12.2023
This week we gave the most AMAZING performance of 'Angel Express' for our family and friends. Everyone is really proud of you all. We also enjoyed our Christingle service in school, our Christmas party with Emerald Class and our Christmas service at the church.
Merry Christmas to you all!
Love from Ruby Class.
8.12.2023
This week, we have been VERY busy practicing for our performance of 'Angel Express' (our Nativity with KS1). We are super at singing and remembering when it is our turn to go up on the stage. We are getting excited about performing for the school and our parents next week.
In amongst all of the practicing, we have made some special Christmas cards, have enjoyed
re-telling the Nativity story in a variety of ways and have decorated the classroom with Christmas posters and paper chains.
In maths, we have been playing track games. After a little bit of practice, and a reminder not to get upset if we have to slide down, we are now Snakes and Ladders experts! We have also been using vocabulary such as first, next, after that and finally to order events in our day and have been practicing ordering numbers to 10.
As a school, we are concerned about the speed at which some drivers drive through George Street and are worried that a serious accident may occur if something isn't done. As a result of our worries, the whole school have written letters which are being passed along to the local MP. Ruby Class have made some super suggestions about what could help. We will let you know when we get our response.
This week's 'Follow me Friday' session was led by N who LOVES flamingos! We LOVED finding out some flamingo facts...did you know that a group of flamingos is called a 'flamboyance'. Did you know that flamingos build their nests out of mud and that they are pink because of what they eat? We were surprised to find out that flamingo legs actually bend just like human legs not backwards...what looks like a flamingo's knee is really its ankle joint! The children then worked hard to create their own 'flamboyance of flamingos'-aren't they fabulous!
1.12.2023
This week, Christmas has arrived in Ruby Class! We were excited to read one of our favourite stories, Stickman by Julia Donaldson. We created our own Stick man and wrote speech bubbles, thinking about all the things he says in the story. We are getting very good at using our phonic knowledge to help us write words.
Is there a better way to spend a windy afternoon than making and flying a kite? We don't think so! We had a super time.
This week, our 'Follow me Friday' session was led by D who loves baking with her mummy. She talked to us about the different ingredients and taught us how to make delicious cupcakes. Thank you so much for a super yummy session D!
24.11.2023
This week, we have loved learning about birthdays-especially as we all have one! We were excited to discover that it was Ruby Bear's 5th birthday and all set to work making it very special for her. Lots of children wrote invitations, birthday cards and party food lists independently. They also enjoyed making paper chains, wrapping presents and creating special cakes and party food out of playdoh. We read stories such as 'Kipper's Birthday', 'Guess How Many Days Until my Birthday?' and 'The Blue Balloon' and talked about our different family birthday traditions.
In maths, we have been finding out about parts and wholes in a variety of different ways.
17.11.23
This week we have enjoyed celebrating Nursery Rhyme Week. On Monday, we sang Jack and Jill and learned what the words pail and crown mean. On Tuesday, we sang Hickory Dickory Dock and made our own mouse (cutting skills). On Wednesday, we sang Head, Shoulders, Kneees and Toes and enjoyed naming and labelling body parts (and creating a new friend!) On Thursday, we sang Row, Row, Row Your Boat and made cork boats to float-look out for the animals in the water! On Friday, we climbed aboard the Ruby Class bus and sang Wheels on the Bus in our best singing voices ever! Lots of fun was had by all.
We have also talked lots about friendships, being kind, being accepting of others and what bullying means as it is anti-bullying week. We wore odd socks to celebrate our uniqueness and designed our own odd socks in Ruby Bear's sock factory. We shared our ideas of how to keep our school free from bullying as we worked. Such super thinking everyone.
"If someone doesn't stop and you don't like it, always tell an adult and they will help you."
"If you see someone who is hurt or upset, give them a cuddle and be their friend."
"Always use kind hands and kind feet and be careful with your words."
"If someone falls down, please help them up again!"
"Help your friends be happy, not sad and look after everyone."
"When you are playing a game, let everyone join in."
Whole school maps day...
Ruby Class went on a walk around school, collecting items on their 'journey sticks' as they went. The children then used their journey sticks to create a map of their route.
Our 'Follow me Friday' session was led by J who is curious about stars-what are they made from and what do they look like up close? We loved finding out that stars are big balls of hot gas. They can be red, blue, yellow or white. They can be big or small. Did you know...the sun is a big star? J very kindly brought in his astronaut star gazer light-we LOVED lying under the stars looking for constellations.
We also read J's book called 'Little Comet' and found out the names of the planets. Look at the super planets we created using a salad spinner. We thought carefully about which colours we needed to use to make the different planets-can you guess which one is earth? Mars? Jupiter?
In Drawing Club, we have loved watching Mr Benn, Zookeeper and have been super at using our (quite tricky) vocabulary words in our work and play: liberate, capture, habitat, release, shelter, and forlorn.
We have drawn Mr Benn, his zoo and a brand new animal that has never been seen before. Look at our super magic codes too!
10.11.23
This week we have been finding out about how and why Diwali, Bonfire Night and Remembrance Day are celebrated.
We listened to the story of Rama and Sita and learned that Diwali is one of the major religious festivals in Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism. The name 'Diwali' is derived from the Sanskrit term dipavali, meaning “row of lights.” The festival generally symbolizes the victory of light over darkness. We enjoyed creating our own mendhi patterns and diva lamps.
We also learned all about Guy Fawkes' foiled plan to blow up the houses of parliamant and why some people have bonfires and fireworks on the 5th November. We shared our own experiences of fireworks, talked about fire safety and enjoyed creating our own fireworks display. We used our phonic knowledge to add some onomatapeia.
Our Drawing Club book was 'Goldilocks and the 3 Bears'. The children have been confiedently using vocabulary such as guzzled, cramped, piping hot and slumber in their work and play. We enjoyed drawing Goldilocks, the 3 Bear's house and a map of the route the bears took to find Goldilocks and writing our magic codes-porridge, baby bear and map.
We remembered our fallen soldiers and those still fighting for freedom by holding a moment of silence and creating poppies by printing or with clay.
This week we were very excited to start our 'Follow me Friday' sessions. J started us off with her curiousity about how bees make honey. We watched some videos and looked at some books and were not overly impressed with what we found out...did you know that honey is actually 'bee sick'...its not as disgusting as it sounds...click on the link to find out more!
https://video.link/w/AECtOFpbgVs#
J loved painting her friends hands to create handprint bees to add to our Ruby Class hive. We even had a little honey sandwich (our new knowledge didn't put us off!) Thanks for a super session J!
3/11/2023
This week learned all about the season 'Autumn'. We enjoyed going on a welly walk around school to look for signs of Autumn, we really noticed all of the beautiful colours we can now see. We used the ipads to take our own photos of the changes we could spot.
Then we created some Autumn trees by cutting, twisting and sticking paper (super for our fine motor development) and shared our thoughts about Autumn. We have also enjoyed colour mixing to paint pumpkins!
Our Drawing Club book was 'Room on the Broom' by Julia Donaldson. We are getting very good at using our new vocabulary words-whoosh, splat, scaly, passenger, fiery and swoop.
Look at our super drawings of the witch and the swamp...and our magic codes...we can write words now!
In maths, we have been learning to use the vocabulary 'more' and 'fewer' and are beginning to make comparisons between sets. We have also been continuing and making our own repeating patterns.
In phonics, we have started 'Fred Finger spelling'. Mrs Greenwood and Mrs Death are very impressed!
EAD
We chose a beautiful autumn leaf and turned it into something else...super creativity and imagination everyone!
Autumn Term 1-All about me, my wishes and dreams.
Wow! What a first half term we have had in Ruby Class...the children have settled into the routines of school life brilliantly and have been working hard on their learning too!
Here are some of our favourite bits...
Exploring and developing our new learning environment and making new friends. We are all very excited about the year ahead.
Looking at ourselves in the mirror and painting a self-portrait. We noticed that we have some things the same and some things that are different. Most importantly, we learned that we are all very important and very special!
Reading 'The Colour Monster' by Anna Llevas to help us think about and understand some of our feelings. The children enjoyed creating their own colour monsters and talking about things that make us feel happy, sad, angry, scared, calm and loved. We are going to use the monsters to help us check in with our feelings each day and learn how to manage some of the more tricky feelings we have sometimes. We have made a promise to help each other feel calm and happy at school and even worked together to create a 'calm shed' in the garden (there are even some colour monsters living in there!)
Supporting the BIG MACMILLAN COFFEE MORNING at the village hall by working together to make a Maltesar fridge cake.
Meeting Fred Frog and beginning our reading and writing journey...
Singing, singing and singing some more! We LOVED our first school trip to St Matthew's Church to record a Christmas song for Save the Children with the rest of our DMAT. We also enjoyed singing 'Dingle Dangle Scarecrow' in our first Harvest Service at our church.
Maths Across the Curriculum...we used 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury to inspire our maths learning. We discovered that maths is everywhere in EYFS!
The introduction of 'Drawing Club' into our curriculum...wow! We all love it! This half term we have read the stories The Colour Monster, The Gingerbread Man and We're Going on a Bear Hunt and we have watched the animation 'Bananaman meets Dr Gloom'. We have learned some amazing vocabulary such as discombobulated, courageous, flee, accelerate, gloomy, transformation and shimmering. The children are brilliant at using these words in different contexts and have loved drawing the characters, settings and 'I wonders' from the stories. Our most favourite part is writing the magic code-it started with shapes and patterns and has now progressed to writing sounds. Great work everyone!
