Starfish
Welcome to Starfish class page!
(Reception)
We are a kind and happy class who welcome you into our classroom to share our lovely learning.
These are the people who help us learn in Starfish
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| Mrs Eldred Class teacher |
Mrs Mills Teaching Assistant |
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Miss Bondar |
Mrs Franssen SNA (pm) |
If you need to contact Mrs Eldred, please email: starfish@maybury.surrey.sch.uk or message on Tapestry
**Please click here for Starfish Home Learning**
Our PE day is on Friday. Please come to school in your PE kit on a Friday.
Stay and Play is on every Monday morning, 8.40am to 9am
May 2023
Family Book
We have been reading one of our protected characteristic books, The Family Book and celebrating the many different types of families. We compared our families with our friends and talked about the differences and the similarities. Some children chose to draw their families.
Archery Workshop
Today the children took part in an archery workshop. They learnt how to hold the bow, load the arrows, aim at the target and fire!
They all did so well and showed good aiming skills, strength and perseverance as well as good listening, following the instructions well.
Well done Starfish Class.
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Ducklings
Starfish were so 'eggcited' when 5 white eggs were delivered to our classroom for us to look after.
This started great discussions as to what could be inside. The children thought maybe.... dinosaurs, dragons, snakes, turtles, chicks, penguins, birds? We would have to wait and see.
We didn't wait long before our first egg hatched and out came a little yellow duckling. We named it Rosie. Rosie was followed by Daisy another yellow duckling and then 2 brown ducklings called Buddy and Bob.
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The children have been fascinated learning about the ducklings and have learnt lots of new words and facts associated with ducks such as 'hatching', 'bill' and 'webbed feet' and many more.
Our ducklings have inspired our children to write, paint and draw.
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The children love to cuddle the ducklings and have learnt how to handle them gently. We have discussed the needs of the ducklings and what living things require for life. This led us to talking and sorting things that were 'alive' and things that 'have never been alive.'
We are sad to say bye bye to our ducklings but are happy that they are going to live on the farm where Miss Bondar lives, so we will get regular duck updates and know that they will love their new home with 2 ponds - the ducklings love swimming.
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The King's Coronation
We enjoyed learning about the King and his coronation. We learnt that the King is 74 years old, and his name is Charles III. He lives in London at Buckingham Palace. He has two dogs called Beth and Bluebell and loves animals and plants. King Charles loves trees and likes to shake their hands (their branches).
We also put the King's life in order from baby to King. We talked about the different stages.
King Charles is going to be crowned on Saturday. That means there is a special ceremony where his crown gets put on his head, and he makes a promise to look after our country.
We have been getting ready for our special coronation party by making crowns, decorations and jam tarts.
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April 2023
Elm Farm
What a lovely start to the summer term with a trip to Elm Farm. Starfish had a fantastic time meeting and feeding the animals. The children are getting superb at naming the different farm animals and the names of their babies too. We fed meal worms to the chickens who were really hungry and to the ducks and geese who were very noisy!
All the farm animals were enjoying the sunshine, especially the pigs who spent the whole time asleep in the mud.
All the children were impeccably behaved, we were so proud of them. Thank you to everyone who came to help us.
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Ramadan and Eid
Lots of children in Starfish Class were getting excited for Eid. They have been celebrating Ramadan, a time for Muslims to be thankful, kind and do good deeds, especially for people in need. Lots of children told us how they had cooked food for people who were hungry, given money to charity, read a bedtime story to their brothers and sisters and even helped tidy up their house and garden.
We read the story telling us about Ramadan.
We learnt when the new moon is spotted in the sky, Ramadan ends and Eid begins. This is a time to celebrate with family and friends. At Eid, many Muslims go to the Mosque to pray, wear new clothes, get presents and have a party with lots of yummy food.
March 2023
Easter
The children have been really interested in learning about the Christian festival of Easter. They compared Easter to other festivals they know about such as Ramadan and Eid. The children took part in Easter activities and particularly enjoyed our Easter Egg hunt, where they found eggs, opened them to reveal what was inside. The children either had a word to read using their phonics or a picture where they had to use their phonics to write a word.
We decorated an Easter tree.
And tried hot cross buns - they were delicious!
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We read Easter words using our phonic knowledge, made Easter Egg patterns on the lightbox.
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Writing words or sentences to go with the Easter pictures we found in the plastic eggs on roue egg hunt.
We also made chocolate Easter nests. We remembered how we had melted chocolate before, when we were learning about Belgium. Yummy!
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Horsell Common
Starfish had a visitor to talk to us about how fantastic Horsell Common is for our wildlife. We learnt about some new birds that live there and what they sound like when they sing. We copied their singing. If you have a couple of hours free in the Easter holidays the children would love to visit and see if they can spot the birds or even hear them sing.
Wellbeing Workshop
Today the children have joined Philip the Puppet from Open View Education on his journey to the wellbeing jungle. They met the Calm Crocodile, the Chatty Parrot and the Soothing Monkey who taught them how to speak up if they need help and feel worried. The animals also showed the children how they can use 5 big breaths to help them feel calm.
Blue Chameleon
We have been reading one of our protected characteristics book about a chameleon who had no friends and tried to find a new friend. Chameleon thought he had to change to make a friend; he thought he had to look like his friends. We talked about our similarities and differences and that we can be ourselves and not have to change to be like others to get friends. We played a game where we had to make new friends. The children have been telling their friends why they like them.
Signs of Spring
Starfish went on a spring walk to look for signs of spring. The children took photos of the things they found.
We read the book, 'What Can You See in Spring?' before we went on our spring walk. We learnt what a bud and blossom was and the names of some spring flowers such as daffodils, tulips, daisies and dandelions.
We learnt about 'April showers' and guess what, as soon as we went out on our walk it started to rain. We got caught in a shower without an umbrella!
Take a look at the photos the children took.
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Blossom on the tree. Daffodil bud.
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Daffodil Bud on a tree.
Puddle on the slide. Spring flowers.
The children looked carefully at the spring daffodils and had a go at drawing them using pastels.
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They found out about the famous artist Vincent Van Gogh, and were sad that no one liked his lovely paintings when he was alive. We looked at lots of his paintings and decided we really liked them and even tried to be artists like him. We copied his 'Almond Tree' painting as we liked the blossom we saw on our spring walk.
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We also planted our own wild flower garden, so the bees and butterflies can enjoy our garden in the summer. We are going to look after them and remember to water them and give them lots of sun to help them grow.
Mother's Day
This week the children have been thinking about all the things their mummies do for them.
They were very excited to sing songs to their mummies and give them their cards and plants.
We sang...
'I love my Mummy. My special Mummy.
You make me happy when I am sad.
I want to tell you, how much I love you.
When I'm with you, I always feel glad.'
We also sang...
'I have a very special Mum and Mummy is her name o.
M U M M Y . M U M M Y. M U M M Y.
And Mummy is her name o'
Thank you for coming and to the daddies too.
Happy Mother's Day!
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The children also enjoyed writing about why they love their Mummies.
7 is made of...
The children in Starfish Class have enjoyed finding different ways to make 7. They have used the STEM sentence '7 is made of....' They have learnt to represent the different ways using their fingers and recording it in their own ways.
See some of our learning below.
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Snow
Just as we thought spring might be on the way, it snowed! We were so excited to go outside and explore the snow, having a snowball fight, building a snowman and making footprints in the sand.
We dressed up warmly in coats, hats, scarves and gloves. Put on our boots, and off we went.
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Book Week
The children loved coming to school dressed as their favourite book characters. They could talk about their character and say which book they were from.
In Starfish Class we love stories from lots of different authors. We wrote about the characters from our favourite story books using our phonics to help us spell the words.
We really enjoyed our visit from the author Gareth P Jones. He read us one of his stories, The Lion on the Bus and sang songs about dinosaurs and pirates.
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February 2023
Pancake Day!
Starfish class enjoyed cooking and eating pancakes on Pancake Day.
On Pancake Day (Shrove Tuesday) Christians cook and eat pancakes, to use up foods such as eggs, butter and milk before Lent.
Lent is a time when Christians don’t eat these rich foods.
The end of Lent is the festival Easter.
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Yummy!
As it was Pancake Day, we also read a story about Mr Wolf's Pancakes. We guessed that the wolf ate all his neighbours up and all the pancakes all by himself!
Oral Health
Starfish class have been exploring how to keep their teeth healthy. They have learnt that to keep their teeth healthy they need to brush their teeth twice a day for 2 minutes and visit the dentist regularly.
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The children found out facts about teeth....
You need teeth to eat, talk, and smile.
When you are 4 you should have 20 milk teeth, but these milk teeth will be replaced with adult teeth as we get older.
Starfish learnt that our teeth do not like sugar. They sorted food into those that were good for teeth and those that were bad for teeth.
The children wrote posters reminding everyone of the importance of keeping your teeth healthy using their phonic knowledge.
Phonics Practise over the half-term
Why not watch these videos at home with your child to help reinforce our new sounds ay, ee, igh.
The Gingerbread Man Story
The children in Starfish have been enjoying reading the story of The Gingerbread Man. They enjoyed joining in with the repeated words in the story and loved the ending when the fox eats the Gingerbread Man in one big gulp.
The children know the story really well and were able to draw imaginary maps of the journey the Gingerbread Man took.
We baked our own Gingerbread Men, mixing the ingredients together, rolling out the dough, cutting the gingerbread man shapes, decorating them before baking and eating them. Yummy!
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We also made a giant Gingerbread Man. That's when the trouble began...
Our giant Gingerbread Man, jumped out of the oven and ran away. He has been spotted around school in different locations.
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Jumping out of the oven and running away from us.
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Saying hello to Bob and Max our guinea pigs and reading the story all about his friend.
Please keep your eye out for him and let Starfish know if you spot him. We want to eat him!
Starfish made Lost posters using their phonic knowledge, so everyone at school could help us find our gingerbread man before the fox finds him and eats him.
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*UPDATE
Things did not end well for the gingerbread man, the foxes found him and ate him up!
Luckily, Mrs Eldred cooked a spare one for us just in case this was to happen,
Take a look at some more Gingerbread Man learning in Starfish Class.
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Retelling the story using the characters. Painting a Gingerbread Man, mixing his own brown colour.
Using our phonic knowledge to write what the different characters say in the story.
Internet Safety Story time
Thank you to all the parents who joined us for our Internet Safety story time.
We read our favourite Internet Safety story, Chicken Clicking and a new one 'Webster's email'.
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Buddy Readers
What a lovely way to finish the half term with buddy readers. The children in Manta Rays read us our favourite stories and we joined in because they were our books that we are really familiar with from our book corner. Thank you Manta Rays children.
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January 2023
Happy New Year and welcome back to school.
P.E.
Starfish were very excited in their first PE lesson this term. We got out the wall bars and practised climbing and balancing across different apparatus. We also learnt how to jump off equipment safely by bending our knees and landing on our feet. We are all really looking forward to next Friday when we will get the wall bars out again.
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The Season Winter
Starfish have also been learning about the coldest season, winter. They enjoyed exploring and investigating the ice that had formed overnight. The children tried to melt the ice in their warm hands, but this made their hands cold. Some of the children used the hammer to smash the ice.
We also talked about some misconceptions that the sun shines only in the summer when it is hot and that it always snows in winter in England.
Maths
The children have also been loving playing maths games together. They are able to take turns and help their friends work out how many they need to roll on the dice to get to 10. They demonstrated great teamwork and cooperation.
Lightbox Trip
At the end of January, we went on a trip to the Lightbox, where we listened to a story about 'The Princess and the Frog'. We then made a puppet of one of the characters from the story, using lots of different media. We really enjoyed the story and joined in with the repetitive story language.
When we got back to school, we were able to play with our puppets and make up stories of our own.
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December 2022
Today (Thursday 15th) we had a very exciting day. We had a special visitor to see us. It was Santa with a big sack of presents for us. Thank you, Santa. Also, we had our Christmas lunch which was fun, we got to pull a cracker and have roast turkey. The day finished with a disco in the hall with Year 1. Happy Christmas everyone!
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Starfish enjoyed a walk into Woking Town to visit Christchurch and find out all about Christmas. The children looked for Christmas symbols in the church and acted out the Nativity story.
There was much excitement in Starfish Class when Santa sent us one of his Christmas elves to check that we were being good and installed a ’Santa Cam’. Every morning the elf is found somewhere in our classroom doing something different, and the children have enjoyed finding him.
Starfish Class have been comparing Christmas to other celebrations. They had fun decorating Christmas trees, playing Christmas games, wrapping presents and writing labels. They even helped Santa to deliver presents to the correct houses and designed and wrote their own Christmas cards.
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Starfish enjoyed learning different Christmas poems and performing them in front of all our school families. The children were very brave, used their loud voices and entertained everyone with their different personalities.
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We all had a great time at the Pantomime in town. This year it was Cinderella. We enjoyed booing the ugly sisters who were mean to Cinderella and joining in with the pantomime language and silly games which we found very funny.
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We love our guinea pigs, Bob and Max and enjoy looking after them. Each day we feed them and check they have water and hay. We help to clean out their hutch and have learnt that guinea pigs eat a lot which means lots of poo!
We love giving them cuddles and treats!
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November 2022
Little Street
Starfish had lots of fun on their first school trip to Little Street. They got to dress up and pretend to be lots of different people within our community. The children were so well-behaved, and we were so proud of them all. The staff at Little Street also commented on how well-behaved our children were. They were great ambassadors for our school.
Take a look at what we got up to...
We got to be the shopkeeper and go shopping for our tea.
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We also got to be the doctor and the patients.
Some of us were builders.
Some of us dressed up and put on a show.
Some of us chose to be farmers and look after the animals.
We enjoyed driving the cars around the road, and we got a drink.
Life stages
We have been reading 'As we Grow' and have been exploring what happens as we get older. The children have been naming and ordering the different life stages.
Some children ordered the dolls house people and noticed that the elderly people had grey hair and the man had gone bald and lost some of his hair.
Some children ordered the different life stages outside from baby, toddler, child, teenager, adult to elderly. The children noticed that the elderly man had a walking stick to help him walk. We talked about how when we were a baby we couldn't walk, then we learnt as a toddler, got better and faster as we became a child, teenager and adult but then needed help as we got older again.
Some children chose to cut out pictures of the life stages and stick them in a human timeline.
The children have also been comparing themselves now to when they were a baby. Wow, we have learnt to do lots of things. We can now walk, talk, run, jump, eat, drink from a cup, sleep in a bed, learn our sounds and use them to read words. The list goes on and on....
Odd Sock Day
This week is anti-bullying week (week beginning 14.11.2022), and today we came to school in odd socks to show that it is OK to be different. We also talked about the concepts same and different.
Remembrance Day
The children in Starfish Class remembered the brave soldiers that fought and died in the war. We talked about the poppies that people wear to remember the brave soldiers. The children decided to make their own poppies to help them remember and say thank you.
Autumn Walk
Starfish went on a walk to the park looking for signs of autumn. We have learnt that in the autumn the weather gets cooler, and we start to need to wear a coat. It can be quite a windy time of year too. The leaves on the trees change colour and then fall to the ground.
We learnt a poem about the leaves falling in autumn.
Leaves are falling, leaves are falling.
One fell on my nose.
Leaves are falling, leaves are falling.
One fell on my toes.
Leaves are falling, leaves are falling.
One fell on my head
Leaves are falling, leaves are falling.
Yellow, orange, red.
We then got to play in the park until it poured with rain, and we had to find shelter very quickly!
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Stay and Play Sessions
Today we had our first Stay and Play session in Starfish Class. Lots of Mummies and Daddies came to play and help us with our learning.
Play and Stay sessions are every Monday from 8.35am to 8.55am. It is a fantastic opportunity to see what your child is learning at school. Please come along and join in with us whenever you can.
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Bonfire Night
We learnt about Bonfire Night and being safe when near fireworks.
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We watched videos of fireworks and described them using words like, whoosh, whiz, pop, bang!
We made firework patterns in the coloured sand.
We watched children on Bonfire Night make patterns with sparklers in the sky. We made sparklers that we could eat, they were yummy!
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Remember...
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The Festival Diwali
Starfish Class have enjoyed finding out about the festival of Diwali. The children used clay to make Diva lamps.
We found out that people give gifts of sweets at Diwali time. The children used the play dough to make sweets to give to their friends.
The children also made rangoli patterns outside using chalk to decorate our garden for Diwali.
If you want to find out more about Diwali you can watch the videos below.
Click HERE to watch the Diwali Videos
The Life Space
Harold the giraffe came to school to teach us about how we can keep healthy. He told us we need to eat healthy food, get lots of exercise (an hour a day) and lots of sleep (12 hours a night). Did you know we grow when we are asleep?
Harold reminded us about the importance of brushing our teeth after breakfast and before we go to bed.
October 2022
International week
The week before half-term was international week. Starfish have enjoyed learning about the country Belgium. They particularly enjoyed cooking chocolate shards to share with the rest of the school.
We found Belgium on a world map and the globe and discussed how we would travel to Belgium. We found out that football is a popular sport in Belgium, and it is where The Smurfs came from. In Belgium, people speak French, German and Dutch.
Belgium is famous for Belgium chocolate, Belgium chocolate and fries with mayonnaise - yummy!
The last Wednesday of every half-term is 'Wellbeing Wednesday'. We talked about the things we like to do and are good at doing and what makes us 'wonderful'. We then had wellbeing treats. Today we had balloons to play with, and we made Belgium waffles.
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We have now introduced the children to using our woodwork bench. Initially they have learnt to safely hammer nails into lumps of wood. Later in the year they will use this skill to make objects by joining pieces of wood together using nails.
This month we have been reading the book 'You Choose'. This is one of our 'Protected Characteristic' books which promotes children saying what they think and having a choice.
We have also been talking about keeping safe when we are 'online' and enjoyed discussing what "clicking chicken' got up to on the computer.
One night Chick hops into the farmer's house and has a browse on his computer - CLICK - soon she's shopping online for the whole farm! But when she arranges to meet up with a friend she's made online, she discovers all is not as it seems...
Fred Game
Here is a great video to watch to help your child blend sounds together. This link will run out in December. Enjoy watching.
Click HERE to watch Fred Games. Or use the QR code below.
The children in Starfish are really enjoying their phonics learning and are excited every morning to find out what sound they are learning each day. The children have enjoyed practising their sounds as they play in our school role play being the teacher.
In maths, we have introduced the children to subitising, an essential maths skill for developing composition of number. The children use their 'fast eyes' to say the amount of objects/dots they see, they don't count and also represent each amount on their fingers.
Subitising and copying dice patterns.
Have a go at home.
"Fast eyes, don't count, say the amount!
The children are really enjoying taking turns on our interactive whiteboard, where they are learning to play games and draw by clicking on icons to make things happen.
Starfish are also learning to look after our garden and know they have to water the plants to help them grow bigger.
September 2022
Clear pronunciation of sounds is extremely important when teaching phonics. This video will demonstrate how to say sounds clearly. Click the link below.
How to pronounce sounds RWI
Here is a useful video for you, to help you know how to support your child at home with their first stages of reading. Children need to learn many things such as their phonic sounds and being able to use 'Fred Talk' before bringing home a reading book from school.
Any questions about reading and reading books please ask me directly.
Thank you.
Mrs Eldred
Welcome back and welcome to our new children and families. The children in Starfish Class are settling in very well to life at school, exploring their new classroom and garden, learning our new routines, making new friends and are developing their listening skills, which are so important for learning.
The children have adapted to having lunch at school really well, trying new foods and trying to use their knives and forks. I have never seen so many clean plates!
See photos below of our happy, settled children.
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