Welcome to Foundation 2

Welcome to classes 1 and 2. Our team consists of Miss Sheppard (class 1 teacher), Miss Gill (class 1 TA), Miss Tyler (class 2 teacher) and Mrs Offord (class 2 TA). We love learning through play and spend our days being busy, active and often messy in our indoor and outdoor learning areas. Learning is planned around stories, chosen to engage and excite the children. Please check our website and our Purple Mash noticeboard regularly to see the fun we have been having!

Thank you!

Week beginning 20.7.20

When we started the year, we could never have imagined the challenges we would all face as staff, children and parents. However, despite this, we have had an amazing year in classes 1 and 2, and we are so proud of the achievements and efforts of each and every one of these wonderful children. The bravery they showed in entering a new environment back in September; their confidence and enthusiasm for tackling new problems and challenges; their resilience, trying again and again when they find something tricky; the kindness and consideration they demonstrate when playing and working with each other; and the big smiles that show that we have 60 happy children in classes 1 and 2, are just some of the fantastic memories that we will take from this year. We'd like to remind you also of the fun we had visiting our very own Goose Fair; going on our own Bear Hunt (special thanks to our wonderful TAs, Miss Gill and Mrs Offord for their ingenuity in designing these special events); our fabulous Christmas trip to Beaumanor Hall and meeting the big man himself; our amazing nativity play; hot chocolate and pyjamas on World Book Day; not to mention the funny faces they all pulled when we got them to taste different fruits for Handa's Surprise. Since March, we have been so impressed with the hard work and exciting activities they have been doing either at home or in key worker school, and we know that they will all continue to shine and make the year 1 team just as proud as we have been. 

Only two words seem appropriate to finish the year - THANK YOU!!! Thank you to all the parents, grandparents, carers, childminders and everyone else who has supported the children throughout the year. Your support has been invaluable, both during the time we were in school and during lockdown, and it has been wonderful to work together with you to ensure that the children have come through it in such a positive way. And finally, a huge thank you to all the children! You have faced some big challenges this year, and through it all you have continued to BE KIND, BE BRAVE and BE HAPPY! You are all fantastic and we could not be more proud of you all. Keep up the great work, have a wonderful, restful summer and we can't wait to see you all again as year 1s in September - we know that Ms O'Hanlon, Miss Creber, Mrs Bright and Mrs Bucknall are so excited to be working with you.

Lots of love

Miss Sheppard, Miss Tyler, Miss Gill and Mrs Offord xxx

The Lucky Dip

Week beginning 13.7.20

It has been another busy week at home and at school with some fantastic home learning going on and some brilliant work in school. We hope you have enjoyed the Lucky Dip story - it is one of my (Miss Tyler's) favourites as I love the twist at the end of the story. I wonder if you were surprised by it as well? The children in school have been busy doing lots of outdoor learning - I popped in to see them last week and we had a lovely socially distanced chat over the fence! I was very impressed at how well all the children are keeping to the new expectations regarding this - they are so grown up, thoughtful and sensible, it was great to see. We hope you have also enjoyed reading your child's reports this week and sharing these with them. Wishing you all a great last week of term whether you are in school or at home. Next week the home learning team will be feeding back on Friday so please make sure you upload anything you would like me to see by then (but you will still have access over the summer so please continue to use this if you wish). Fingers crossed the weather seems to be improving so hopefully we can all enjoy a bit of sunshine over the next few days!

An exciting week

Week beginning 6.7.20

This week most of the children have been to school to visit their new teachers. We spoke to the Year 1 teachers and they had a fantastic time meeting you all and they are very excited to see you in September. 

Miss Tyler has really enjoyed looking at your amazing home learning and she is very impressed. You are all doing an amazing job! I (Miss Sheppard) have been with the children in school and we have been enjoying lots of time in the outdoor learning area. We have also finished painting our rocks ready for the pebble pathway. It is going to look great! We hope you are all still enjoying time with your families and having lots of fun! 

Super learners at home and at school

Week beginning 29.06.20

We are so proud of all the F2 children over the last week. Miss Sheppard has had a great week with the children in school, who have been continuing to enjoy lots of outdoor learning despite the mixed weather. I (Miss Tyler) have really enjoyed looking at all your home learning, and continue to be amazed at the quality and quantity of what you are doing, both the learning set by school and also the activities your creative parents have come up with. Keep including lots of pictures and audios as I really do love looking at them and responding to you all.

Over the last couple of weeks, Miss Sheppard and I have had some lovely conversations with Ms O'Hanlon, Mrs Bright and Mrs Bucknall who are so excited to welcome you into year 1 in September. They are thrilled to hear what fantastic learners you all are, and have lots of exciting things planned for you so you have lots to look forward to. We hope you are all looking forward to visiting year 1 very soon.

Keep having fun and keep up the great work, we are so proud of you all!

A hot week!

Week beginning 22.6.20

The weather has been lovely this week and we have enjoyed spending lots of time outside. The children have been using the equipment and they have been teaching me (Miss Sheppard) how to hula hoop! We have also spent lots of time painting our stones for the community art project. The pebble pathway is going to look fantastic! The children in school have loved painting theirs and they have had some amazing ideas. It would be great if you could get involved at home too. All you have to do is paint a stone or a pebble with something that makes you happy and then write your name and the year on the back. Your families could get involved and paint some too! 

We hope you are all enjoying your time with your families and enjoying the lovely weather. We have been so impressed with your home learning this week, keep it up!

From all the F2 team.

Amazing Home Learning

Week beginning 15.6.20

I have had an amazing time this week looking at all the super home learning you got up to last week. It has been so lovely to see so many photos, videos, audios and pieces of written work submitted via OneNote. A massive thank you to all of you for working so hard with it and to your grown-ups as well for their hard work in supporting you. I hope you all enjoyed listening to my audio messages on the feedback page for the week of 8th June. I will be looking at it again on Monday and feeding back on this week's work ready for you to read or listen to by Tuesday morning, so make sure you've uploaded anything you'd like me to have a look at!

Keep up the fabulous work and we hope you are enjoying finding out about the Commotion in the Ocean!

Miss Tyler

Super learners!

Week beginning 8.6.20

It has been great to welcome some children back to school this week and we have been having lots of fun in

our 'cheeky cheetahs' group! We have enjoyed spending lots of time outside (even though the weather has been so wet). The children have been teaching me (Miss Sheppard) some new games. Maybe you could make up some new games to play with your family at home! There has been some wonderful home learning on OneNote and we are so proud of  what you have been doing.  

Have a fantastic week! From all of the F2 team. 

Exciting times starting next week

Week beginning 1.6.20

Hi everyone, we hope you all had a wonderful half term and were able to enjoy the lovely sunshine. We've really enjoyed talking to lots of you this week and are so pleased you are continuing to do so much great learning at home.

Miss Sheppard and I (Miss Tyler) have been very busy this week getting ready for some exciting changes that will be happening next week. Miss Sheppard has been preparing lots of great activities to welcome back Group 1 into school (the first challenge is to think of a better name than Group 1, so get your thinking caps on over the weekend!) If you're continuing to learn from home, make sure you get the new OneNote learning platform set up because it is AMAZING! I've spent lots of time this week learning about it (I've definitely needed to use my resilience!) and I can't wait for it to go live at the weekend and to start interacting with children from both classes. When you next see Mrs Burton, make sure you give her a huge round of applause for all her hard work setting this up - it's going to be brilliant.

Have a great week and we can't wait to see you next week, either on OneNote or in school.

Picnic in the sun

Week beginning 18.5.20

Once again we have been blown away by all your home learning! It has been fantastic to see all the amazing things you have done on purple mash. We hope you've been enjoying the work on Space and Aliens!

We have been very lucky with the weather again this week and I (Miss Sheppard) have been spending even more time outside. When I was in school we decided to sit in the sunshine and have a picnic. We had a fantastic time! I think I'm going to make some food for a picnic and have one in the garden at the weekend. Maybe you could make some food with your family at home and enjoy a picnic outside, I'm sure you would enjoy it as much as we did! We hope you are all keeping safe at home and enjoying your time. 

Lots of love from all the F2 team

(Trying to become a) brilliant baker!

Week beginning 11.5.20

Hi everyone. We hope you are still having a wonderful time at home with your families. We have loved speaking to many of you this week and hearing what a fantastic job you are doing with your home learning, and also seeing your work on Purple Mash. Keep it up!

Over the last few weeks, I have been practising my learning power of resilience by trying to improve my baking skills. As class 2 may remember, my sister Rachel is amazing at baking (cake shaped like a brain, anyone...really!) so I tend to be a bit lazy with it, because I know there are usually tasty treats whenever I see her! However, lockdown was the perfect time for me to work on my skills so I've been baking lots of yummy treats, and here are a few pictures. (The chocolate chip cookies were a particular highlight - I can recommend the recipe by a Reception child that is in the recipe section of our home learning page!) I know a lot of you have been enjoying baking over the last few weeks, and I hope you've been enjoying the products as much as we have! 

Enjoy next week's work on Space and Aliens, and we can't wait to see and speak to you all again soon.

VE Day

Week beginning 4.5.20

Hello everyone. Thank you so much for all the fantastic learning you have been doing at home. We have loved seeing what you have been up to on purple mash, especially the colourful dinosaurs! Keep it up, you're doing a great job. This week, I (Miss Sheppard) have been into school and we celebrated VE Day. We had lots of fun decorating cakes and making bunting to put up. When you go for your daily exercise you can try and spot the bunting people have put up. I saw lots on my drive home. If you can't get out maybe you could have a go at making some of your own to put up at home. I hope you're enjoying time with your families and we can't wait to see you.

Lots of love from all the F2 team

My Rainbow Walk

Week beginning 27.4.20

Hello everyone. We are really missing you and hope you are all having lots of fun completing your home learning. We have loved seeing all your work on Purple Mash - you are all getting so knowledgeable about caterpillars and butterflies. Next week we are returning to the story we started just before we broke up in March - Bumpus, Jumpus, Dinosaurumpus. We know you loved this story so we hope you all enjoy two weeks of dinosaur themed challenges!

Even though it's been a bit rainy this week, I (Miss Tyler) have still been getting out every day walking or running. Yesterday I decided to turn my walk into a treasure hunt. I drew a rainbow and challenged myself to find something with every colour of the rainbow. Have a look at my pictures below to see what I found! Next time you go for a walk, maybe you could try this. It doesn't need to be a rainbow, you could draw anything as long as it's colourful! If you can't get outside, maybe you could try it inside your house!

Keep having lots of fun with your families. We can't wait to hear about all the exciting things you've been up to! Lots of love from all the F2 team

Beautiful Spring

Week beginning 20.4.20

We hope you all had a wonderful Easter! We have enjoyed seeing lots of your Easter challenges, it looks like you have all had fun. We have been loving the sunshine and have been spending lots of time outside. I (Miss Sheppard) have been spending time outside enjoying my book and playing lots of games. I wonder if you could record some of the fun games you have been playing and when we're back at school you can play them with your friends! We are enjoying seeing everyone's work on purple mash, you are doing a great job! Thank you to all the children and parents for this. Keep doing an amazing job! 

From all the F2 team 

A week of birthdays

Week beginning 30.03.20

Since we've been off, both Miss Tyler and Mrs Offord have had their birthdays (2 days apart!) We were hoping to celebrate by having a few party games with all of classes 1 and 2, but we'll have to save that for when we are all back together again! It was a bit of a different birthday for both of us this year as we both really enjoy celebrating with friends and children at school, but we still managed to have lots of fun. I (Miss Tyler) started by getting active with Joe Wicks, and later on made a yummy lemon cake (one of the activities in the Easter challenge) and had video calls with family and friends singing Happy Birthday. Later on I went for a muddy walk in the woods behind my house so it was still lots of fun. If you have a birthday while we are off, we hope you have lots of fun and we look forward to singing to you when we're back at school! It's been great to see lots of you starting the Easter challenge - Miss Bartlam and I have loved seeing your pictures - so keep them coming and don't forget to check out the Home Learning section of the website to see what your friends have been up to (scroll right down to the bottom of the page for photos).

Keeping fit and healthy

Week beginning 23.03.20

As you know, the F2 children and teachers love being outside and keeping fit and healthy. Without having the children challenging us to running races, hula hoop challenges, playing on the trim trail, skipping and all the other activities we enjoy every day at school, the teachers are working hard to keep themselves active. We have been doing PE with Joe - how many of you are taking part? When we get back to school, Miss Tyler will definitely need some help with her 'Spiderman' moves and Miss Sheppard with her karate kicks - the co-ordination required is definitely not our strong point! Miss Sheppard has been out walking with her little brother, Harry, and Miss Tyler has also been out running lots (don't worry, the photo below is an old one, though it did look a bit like this when running early this morning!) We hope you are all keeping fit and healthy too. Maybe you could keep a list of some of the exercise you are managing to do at home - you can challenge the teachers to try some of the exercises once we are back at school! 

Best wishes and thank you

Week beginning 16.03.2020

Before the school closure begins on Monday, the whole Foundation team would just like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your support over the last two terms. We have had a wonderful start to the year with your children, and are so proud of all that they have achieved. Even though they may not be in school for a little while, we know that they will continue to grow, learn and develop over the coming weeks. We hope you all stay healthy and safe, and we look forward to seeing you all again soon and continuing our learning journey together.

With very best wishes from all the F2 team

Ducklings

Week beginning 16.3.20

Over the last two weeks we have watched the ducklings hatch. This week we have been very brave and each had a turn at holding them and stroking them. Once the ducklings were big enough we were able to put them in the water and watch them have a swim. It's been amazing to see! 

Science day 

Week beginning 9.3.20

We had a fantastic day on science day this week! The children really enjoyed the science activities they did in the different classes. We also had some visitors who brought in lots of exciting things for us to learn about and have a go with. It was a very exciting day.

Handa's surprise 

Week beginning 2.3.20

We have been reading Handa's surprise and have talked about the different fruits in the story and how they grow in Africa. This week the children saw the fruits from the story and even tried them! Both classes 1 and 2 have been very brave trying the fruit. 

Superstar readers

Week beginning 24.2.20 

We have had a fantastic week back! As a treat for our reading challenges, we had a special snack and a lovely time playing with balloons and dancing. Thank you for completing these at home, we have been reading with lots of children this week and we can really see the progress. If you still have the reading challenge at home, please return the card to school, even if you have not completed all the challenges.  

Super Scientists

Week beginning 10.2.20

Last week we also had a visit from Nina who will be starting the Science Tots club after half term. The children loved investigating chemical reactions by making sherbet and volcanoes out of lemon and bicarbonate of soda. Thank you to Friends of Woodthorpe for paying for this session for us, we really appreciate it.

Brilliant Bakers

Week beginning 3.2.20

We have had a great time baking bread. We followed a recipe and were brilliant at reading lots of the instructions ourselves. A copy of the recipe will be sent home in case you want to have a go at this at home! The children showed great understanding of the ingredients needed to make bread, why we did certain things e.g. kneading, and are very excited to share their creations with you.

Reading Challenge

Week Beginning 27.1.20

This week we launched our reading challenge. All the children should have brought home their reading challenge card and booklet. All the challenges are designed to develop a different aspect of reading. The "balloon words" are key words that cannot be sounded out and therefore the children "just have to know"." They can be found at the back of your child's reading diary - we will discuss this in more detail at parents' evening. Please can you encourage them to complete as many of the challenges as possible by 28th February, and return the completed card to school. The children have already been excitedly telling us which challenges they have completed so far!

Box Modelling

Week beginning 20.01.20

This week we have been having lots of fun with box modelling! Our classrooms are currently full of amazing boats, trains, planes, robots and other fantastically creative models. The children loved exploring different tools and media to make their construction work look fantastic. We would love to continue this and make box modelling a permanent area of our provision. You can help us with this by continuing to send in any old boxes, kitchen roll tubes, toilet rolls etc. that the children can use creatively. Thank you!

Amazing listeners!
Week beginning 13.1.20

We had a special visitor on Thursday 16th January. Elaine Medley from Nottinghamshire County Council visited us to talk to us about being great speakers and listeners. Elaine introduced her friend, Teddy, who wears hearing aids, and explained to the children how we could help Teddy by reducing background noise (by keeping our hands and feet still when someone is talking) and by making eye contact when we are talking. She also explained that many deaf people use sign language to communicate, and was very impressed when the children showed her how we sign our days of the week. The children were excellent listeners throughout the session and we were very proud of them - well done classes 1 and 2.

Marvellous Mathematicians!

Week beginning 6.1.20

Happy new year and welcome back to Woodthorpe Infant School. We hope you have all had a wonderful Christmas break. The children have certainly returned to school refreshed and ready for a busy half term. This week we have been doing some super maths work. We have been using the part-whole model to find different ways of partitioning number 10. The children were brilliant at finding different ways they could break down the number and several of them drew their own part-whole models to record their findings. Next week we will be learning how to add numbers together using counting on, so lots of counting practice (forwards and backwards) over the weekend would be really helpful if you have a spare few minutes!

Fantastic end to the half term

Week beginning 16.12.19

The children have had a fantastic half term! We have had a wonderful week with lots of Christmas activities and we even had a very special visitor. Hopefully they will have a lovely break and come back ready for a new exciting half term. Thank you so much for your generous cards, gifts and good wishes, we hope you have a lovely Christmas. 

Angel Express

Week beginning 9.12.19

The children have been working really hard to learn the words and songs for our nativity. This week they performed in front of the school and their families. We are so proud of the children! Thank you for your support with costumes, we hope you enjoyed the show. 

Our trip to Beaumanor Hall

Week beginning 2.12.19

This week we went on our school trip to Beaumanor Hall. When we were there we learned about what Christmas was like for the Victorians and how it is similar to our Christmas today. We sang Away in a manger and saw Santa on the roof! The children were very excited to meet Santa and then play with the Victorian toys. We had a great time at Beaumanor Hall. 

Fantastic Phonics!

Week beginning 25.11.19

We are superstars at our phonics! Since starting school we have been learning lots of phonemes and graphemes to read and write words and sentences. This week the children have been using all the skills they have been learning to read books and write some words. Well done classes 1 and 2!

Our Woodthorpe Bear Hunt

Week beginning 18.11.19

This week we went on our own bear hunt. The children had to read the instructions to remind them where to go. We went through the grass, the river, the mud, the forest, the snowstorm and then into the bear's cave! Everybody had a great time. Thank you for supporting it by ensuring the children had their wellies on Tuesday. 

Bear Hunt

Week beginning 11.11.19 

This week we have been learning our new story We're going on a Bear Hunt. We started by learning some actions to put with the story and on Tuesday we are going on our own bear hunt! Please remember to bring wellies. If the weather is really bad on Tuesday we will still do our bear hunt later in the week. 

Super start to the new half term

Week beginning 4.11.19

We have had a great start to the new half term. We loved meeting the firefighters on Monday and learning about how they keep us safe. On Tuesday we had a brilliant safety day where we visited year 1 and 2 to learn about staying safe at home, on the roads and around medicines. We are now settled back into our routine and doing some super learning - we have been revising all our single letters in phonics and have been practising finding 1 more and 1 less than numbers to 5 in maths. Well done to all our Superheroes who have completed their superhero challenges - we can't wait to celebrate with a treat on Friday afternoon!

Our first half term

Week beginning 14.10.19

Well done to classes 1 and 2. The children have all made a fantastic start to school and are happy and settled, having made lots of new friends. It has been wonderful to meet with so many parents this week and share your children's achievements, and it is lovely to hear that they are talking so positively about school and clearly enjoying learning through play.  Hopefully they will have a relaxing half term break ready for another fun and exciting half term of activities in the run up to Christmas! We look forward to seeing you all again on Monday 4th Nov when we hope that we may have some exciting visitors in school...

Magical Maths

Week beginning 7.10.19

We are becoming marvellous mathematicians! Over the last fortnight we have been spending lots of time exploring different representations of the numbers 1-5. We are brilliant at finding numbers on our fingers ,on dice, with Numicon and making them on 5 and 10 frames. This will help us to have a really concrete understanding of what the numbers mean. Look at some of the creative ways we have made our numbers!

Goldilocks

Week beginning 30.9.19

We had a great start to the week at our Harvest Festival. The children behaved brilliantly and they performed The Gruffalo beautifully. Thank you so much to all the parent helpers who made this visit possible. 

We have also started our new text, Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The children are really enjoying learning the story and creating actions. It's also fitted in well with our maths work as we have been looking at different representations of numbers 1-3 including on dice, Numicon, ten frames, words and our fingers. We sang the Goldilocks song and practised counting different groups of 3. We hope you enjoy looking  at some of our super bear paintings.

Goose Fair

Week beginning 23.9.19

It was lots of fun at the fair this year for classes 1 and 2. We had to postpone Goose Fair until Wednesday due to the poor weather on Tuesday, but when it finally happened we had a brilliant time! The children loved exploring the haunted house, using our very own Woodthorpe 'rollercoasters' (the skateboards), hooking ducks, splatting rats, playing on our coconut shy, having fun on the soft play and most of all splatting the teachers' pictures with wet sponges! We enjoyed delicious mushy peas and popcorn from our own popcorn maker which the children found very exciting! Many thanks for supporting our Goose Fair. Your contributions funded the food items for the fair and will also be put towards other exciting activities over the course of the year.

On Friday your child will bring home their Superhero Challenge. This is our termly homework activity, and this term all the activities will be based around the prime areas of learning (personal, social and emotional development, communication and language and physical development). Please complete as many of the activities as you can with your child and then send the card back to school (the booklet is to keep at home). We will be celebrating the children's achievements with a treat on Friday 8th November.

Gruffalo Storytelling

Week beginning 16.9.19

We have had lots of fun learning about the Gruffalo this week. Both classes have created actions to help us retell the story, and on Friday we will be performing our actions to the other class and videoing our performances. We have also made some amazing Gruffalos out of clay. We were so impressed at how well the children now know the story - they could remember all the different parts of the Gruffalo's body and were really creative, which was so lovely to see!

Computing fun

Week beginning 9.9.19

This week we had lots of fun with Mrs Burton. We built our own computers which helped us to learn all about the different features of a computer. Thanks so much to the parents who donated old boxes and resources to help us, we hope you were impressed with the results! We also had lots of fun getting changed for our first PE lessons! Lots of the children were super independent when getting changed, so well done! 

We look forward to seeing lots of you at the curriculum evening next Wednesday, 18th September.

Starting School

Week beginning 2.9.19

We have had a fantastic first week back at school. The children have been absolutely amazing. They have coped so well in adapting to new situations and challenges and getting to know lots of different people. The first two half days were really helpful in enabling the children to get to know the school environment in a calmer classroom. We had lots of fun exploring the school and meeting different members of staff. On Thursday we met Mr Smith and had a great PE lesson, and also met Mrs Burton who will be teaching us computing next Thursday. On Friday we also had fun learning some new songs with Miss Need. 

Many thanks to you all for supporting the children and ensuring that they have everything they need. Just a reminder that they all need their book bags in school each day, their water bottles filled with only water (no juice, squash or flavoured water), a coat as we do go outside in all weathers, and PE kits consisting of T shirt and shorts. PE will take place on Wednesdays and Thursdays and any earrings must be removed. Please could you ensure that all clothing and equipment is clearly labelled with your child's name.

Have a great weekend and we look forward to seeing you all again next week.