In English we started reading "Same, same but different" – our words of the week were "unique" and "special". We celebrated how everyone is different and how we celebrate that everyone is "unique" and "special". We enjoyed learning the Makaton for our words of the week and talked about how we can share features with other people. Albie said “Albie and Rosie have green eyes”, Sienna added “Sienna and Rudi have lips” and Robyn said “Robyn and Jacob have the same eyes”. We also started to think about the kinds of houses that we live in, and how they can be different and yet the same to other people. Elijah said, "My house is made out of bricks and some wood", Hayden agreed and added "I have a red house with bricks on top of the roof", and Albie added that he has "a cat called Tinkerbell". This week we have read books about the Gruffalo, some adventurous dinosaurs and exploring sea creatures; thank you to everyone who brought in books to share!

In Phonics we learnt the phoneme ‘e’ for elbow and egg! Our nursery rhyme was Wheels on the Bus. This week we have been working on blending names of animals, making the sounds of a “c-a-t”, “d-o-g” and “d-u-ck”. On this week’s visit with Bertha the Bus, we saw an elephant!

We continued learning about the number five in Maths this week. We explored making five in different ways through making Sammy Snail Numicon, and we learnt about pentagons. We even tried cutting out pentagons along their five sides; this supports mathematical understanding of the shape, and helps develop our fine motor skills!

In RE we continued learning about Salvation and tasted Hot Cross Buns! Robyn said, "I liked the raisins and the spices", Elijah noticed "it has a cross on the top!" and Hayden added "I thought it was good after I tried a little". Overall, we enjoyed trying something new, and we followed the tasting by singing 'Hosanna' in provision.

This week’s Learning Means the World we explored creatures under the sea, as well as people who float on the sea… pirates! In our mystery bag we had something very exciting… a treasure map! We discussed what we thought we might find if we followed the map – Jacob said that he would “share the treasure with everyone” if he found it, and many agreed. After following the instructions, we found that we had treasure hidden in our classroom! Spa Bear and I were very impressed with how everyone followed the map's instructions, as well as sharing the treasure. In our Curiosity Cube we learnt all about pirates; inside we found pirate hats, a ship and a treasure bag with gold coins! We talked about who might wear the hats and what they might do; Robyn said “pirates” who say “Ahoy there matey!”, Rosie said that you could “dig the treasure up”, and Archie said the pirates might “sing songs with the treasure”.

Everyone has worked very hard in Spa Class during this half-term. We hope you have a restful week, and we look forward to seeing you after the break!