Ruby Class 2023-24

Summer term 2024

Stickmen/women

This half term, we will have outdoor learning on a Wednesday afternoon. We read the book 'Stickman' by Julia Donaldson. We then collected sticks in our outdoor area and used loose parts to create stickmen or stickwomen. 

Spring term 2024

Pancake race 

On Shrove Tuesday, we learnt about lent and why we have pancake day at the beginning of lent. We made pancakes for a pancake race. We mixed egg, flour and oat milk to make the batter for our pancakes. Then we went outside and were put into teams. We had to run whilst flipping the pancakes in the pan to the other side of the playground. We then passed it on to the next person in our team, until all people in our team had a turn. The winning team was the one which got all their members back first, whilst not dropping the pancake too many times! We had lots of fun pancake racing.

Making space biscuits

We have been reading the book Astro Girl. In the story, Astrid makes rocket biscuits with her Dad. We made rocket and star shaped biscuits like Astrid. We measured out the flour, sugar and butter and tipped them into a bowl. We watched Miss Warren add an egg to the ingredients. We mixed all the ingredients together to make a dough. Then we used a star shape cookie cutter and a plastic knife/triangle cookie cutter to create a rocket shape in the dough. Then we baked them in the oven. They were delicious!

R.E: Heroes

In RE we discussed what characteristics a hero needs to have. The children came up with the following ideas: strong, kind, helpful, keeps trying, caring, tries to be a better person, brave. We talked about Jesus being a hero to Christians. We listened to the song 'Jesus is my superhero.' Miss Warren then picked two people to be 'hero spotters' for the afternoon. They wore superhero costumes and looked for people showing hero characteristics, such as helping a friend. They gave hero stickers to people they spotted being a hero. 

Autumn term 2023

Tortilla skeletons

We have been learning about out bodies and what they do as a part of our All About Me topic. After a discussion about skeletons, the children made skeleton tortilla wraps. The tomato sauce was the 'blood' in our bodies, the cheese was the 'bones' and the salami represented our muscles. We talked about the parts of the skeleton as we made our wraps, such as, skull, rib cage and spine. We then ate them and they were delicious!

Colour monster adjectives

One of our core books in Literacy this half term is 'The Colour Monster.' We discussed the feelings shown in the story and matched the colour of the monster to the emotion. We learnt that an adjective means a describing word and we thought of lots of amazing adjectives to describe the different colour monsters, such as colourful and messy. We then made our own colour monsters out of play-doh and loose parts and described our colour monster using adjetcives. 

Transition information to support families 2023-2024:

Below is some useful information from the HFL website regarding how to support your child with transition and prepare them for school. There is also a PowerPoint to share with your child about Ruby Class. 

2022-23

Summer Term

Doubling butterflies

In Maths we have learnt how to double numbers (up to double 5). We explored doubling by painting dots on one half of a butterfly and then folding it in half and opening it up to see the amount of dots double. We then said the double sentence out loud e.g. "double 2 is 4!"

Transient art

We made transient art as a part of our topic 'Come Outside.' We learnt about the artist Andy Goldsworthy  and looked at examples of his work. We then used this as inspiration to create our own transient art from natural objects and loose part pieces. We liked that the pieces were movable so we could easily change them if we had a new idea. Many of us chose to create pictures of flowers, trees and rainbows with the natural objects/loose part pieces. 

Nature Wands

This half term we are doing 'Ourdoors Learning' every Wednesday. In outdoor learning we made nature wands! First we read the book 'Look what I've found in the woods' by Moira Butterfield, which gave us the idea of making nature wands. We wrapped wool/ribbon around a stick we had found in the forest school area and then we hunted for natural objects to attach to our nature wands. All of our nature wands were unique.

spring term

EGG ROLLING

We learnt about Easter traditions in the past and how these traditions are the same/different to the way some people celebrate Easter today. We had fun trying out an old Easter tradition - egg rolling! We had to see who could roll the egg the furthest without it cracking.

SNOW DAY

We had fun exploring in the snow. We worked as a team to build a snowman - we didn't have any carrots so we had to use an orange for its nose!

AUTUMN TERM

Diya lamps

In Ruby Class we have learnt about Diwali, the festival of light. We listened to the story of Rama and Sita and made Diya lamps from clay. 

Woodland walk

As a part of Understanding Christianity week at school, Ruby class learnt that some Christians believe God created the world. We discussed the wonderful animals that live on our Earth and we went for a woodland walk to look for minibeasts. 

in the dark dark...

Our focus book in Literacy is the Funnybones. We looked at the repeating words (in the dark, dark...) at the beginning of the story. Then we came up with our own story inspired by the repeating words. 

REPEATING PATTERNS

Ruby class have been exploring repeating patterns in Maths. We made repeating pattern bodies out of play-doh for the Very Hungry Caterpillar.  We also made repeating patterns with the fruit. 

Tortilla skeletons

We have been learning about our bodies and what they do as a part of our All About Me topic. After a discussion about skeletons, the children made skeleton tortilla wraps. The tomato sauce was the 'blood' in our bodies, the cheese represented bones and the pepperoni represented muscles. We talked about parts of the skeleton as we made our wraps. We then ate them and they were delicious!

SiGNS OF AUTUMN

In Ruby class we have been looking for signs of Autumn.  We discussed the leaves turning different colours and falling from the trees.  We looked for leaves on our school field and used them to do leaf rubbings with oil pastels.