Mercury
Welcome to Mercury Class!
Mars class is a mixed early years class .
Our teachers are Miss Connor and Miss Bleakley. Mrs Arachchige, Mrs Wiseman and Mrs Nash are our teaching assistants.
The ethos of our class is to develop happy, confident and independent learners who are willing to try their best and find success in their everyday learning. Every child is unique and we aim to tailor our continuous provision to the individual needs of the children.
On this page you can find updates about our learning and any special adventures we have been on. We hope you enjoy reading about our learning journey!
Week Commencing 20th January 2025
Another fab week in Mercury class this week! We've continued our theme of 'Once Upon a Time...' in Literacy by exploring the story of Little Red Riding Hood. The children in Reception worked together to write their own version of the story as a class book. Nursery have been drawing different characters from the story and we've all be doing some role play! In Maths we've been exploring mass and capacity. The children have enjoyed using the balance scales and ordering different containers. They've been working hard to predict which is the heaviest/lightest or which has the most capacity.
The children enjoyed some parachute games this week with Miss Connor and were fab at listening carefully to the instructions! They have also been exploring Kandinsky artwork and created their own artwork- they look amazing! In phonics this week we have been recapping all the sounds taught so far as well as recapping some new sounds that needed revisiting. Reception have worked hard to recognise digraphs and trigraphs and we are beginning to see these used in their writing. Nursery have continued practising their phase 1 phonics skills and have been exploring songs, copying clapping patterns and moving their bodies to music! On Friday we had a lovely music session which linked to the story of Sleeping Beauty. The children learnt a song and performed it with actions. We also made the most of the wind during forest school and used ribbons to investigate wind direction.
Week Commencing 13th January 2025
This week in Literacy we have continued to explore the story of ‘Little Red Riding Hood.’ The children enjoyed role playing specific parts of the book and together we wrote a letter to the grandmother, warning her about the wolf’s terrible plan to eat her! Reception then wrote their own thought bubble from Little Red Riding Hood’s perspective.
In Maths we have continued to learn about numbers 0-5, recognising how larger numbers are made up of smaller numbers. Then we finished the week with consolidating our knowledge of one more and one less. In Phonics, we have been busy learning 4 new sounds: ur, ow, oi, ear. We have enjoyed learning the caption and action and listening to the story that links to each sound. They worked hard to sound out new words and to write their own sentences independently.
In our expressive art and design lesson, the children learnt about observational drawings. They looked carefully at a vase with flowers, taking their time to include all the finer details of the different shapes and colours. In P.E the children enjoyed learning about different dance movements. They explored different ways to move their bodies and particularly enjoyed being a human bop it. The children had to twist, spin, shake, bend and bop their bodies to the music.
Have a lovely weekend everyone!
Week Commencing 6th January 2025
Welcome back! We've enjoyed starting some new topics and units of work this week as we ease into the Spring Term. Our new class topic is 'Once upon a time...' In Literacy we've started to explore the story of Little Red Riding Hood with a focus on characters and settings. The children created a shared painting of a forest after some discussion about whether or not Little Red's mum should have let her walk through the forest on her own.
In maths we are diving deeper into our understanding of numbers to 5 through recognising different representations of the numbers, building the numbers using resources in lots of different ways and developing an understanding that numbers are made up of other numbers. Nursery have been playing lots of dice games to help them recognise dots on a dice quickly without counting.
Mercury class also enjoyed a lovely PE session with our Hunts coach again on Tuesday which gave us a busy but fun start back to school!
In our circle time sessions this week we have been discussing keeping clean and the importance of washing our hands, brushing our teeth and brushing our hair.
We are looking forward to another busy week next week!
Week Commencing 16th December 2024
This week in Mercury class we have enjoyed celebrating the build up to Christmas. The children have completed lots of lovely Christmas crafts such as making gingerbread men puppets, Christmas wreaths and tree decorations. They had another lovely PE session with Hunts SSP on Tuesday and have worked so hard on their balance and coordination skills over the half term. They should be really proud of their progress. We enjoyed our weekly visit to the library where the children choose a new library book each week and we always share a lovely story together. On Friday we celebrated reward day! The children decorated Christmas biscuits by cutting out fondant stars. We enjoyed eating them at snack time and the children also have one to take home. They were treated to watching Stick Man and Room on the Broom in the afternoon. What a lovely way to spend the day!
Wishing all our families a lovely Christmas full of love!
Miss Bleakley and Miss Connor
WC 9th December 2024
Mercury class have been so busy this week. In maths nursery have been building on their number skills by practising recognising numbers and counting accurately. They have also been singing number songs such as Five Little Speckled Frogs. Reception have been consolidating some of their learning from this half term, including subitising, adding and subtracting groups of objects. In Literacy this week we have continued our nursery rhyme unit. The whole class have been sharing and learning nursery rhymes and thinking carefully about what makes a good performance. Reception have even been changing the words to 'Twinkle Twinkle.' You can view their performance on Tapestry.
In PE the children have been focusing on balancing and using their core strength. Their sports coach from Hunts SSP was really impressed with their balancing and behaviour! The children also enjoyed a Christmas themed performance from Genr8.
On Thursday we enjoyed making our Christingles in the morning and learning about what each part represents in the Christian faith. The children stood beautifully in church to light their Christingles in the afternoon and we were so impressed with their singing! They also enjoyed a puppet performance put on by the church! On Friday Miss Bleakley was really impressed with Reception's stories about a polar bear! Keep up the super work!
WC 2nd December 2024
What a busy week in Mercury class with our Nativity performances on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday evening. The last few weeks have been filled with rehearsals and lots of singing and I'm sure you'll agree they were amazing! We are so proud of every single one of them!
We've also been busy learning and performing nursery rhymes this week as part of our literacy sessions. Nursery have been talking about their favourite nursery rhymes and sharing them with the rest of the group. Reception have been thinking carefully about what makes a good performance.
In maths we've been consolidating our knowledge of numbers to 5 and 10. We've been writing them accurately and nursery have really practised recognising numbers to 5 consistently.
We've been very busy with our phonics skills this week too. Nursery have been exploring rhyming words and have played phase 1 phonics games together. Reception have been learning new sounds qu, igh, ee and oa! They are doing so well and their reading is really coming on. It's lovely to see them accessing different books and stories. We have enjoyed visiting the school library to change our library books and always enjoy sharing a story together in there. On Thursday we went for a walk to the local church after learning about Christian weddings. We met Rev Nikki who talked us through all the different parts of a Christian wedding and we did some role play! She also treated us to a glass of squash!
W.C. 25.11.24 - Mercury Class Update
This week we have started to feel very festive with lots of play rehearsals taking place and Christmas decorations being made. We have still managed to find the time to squeeze in lots of learning though and as always, the children have worked very hard! In maths, we started off the week by continuing our work on 2D shapes. The children loved going on a shape hunt inside the classroom and outside. Once everyone had found a shape, as a group, we discussed its properties, using mathematical vocabulary to describe the sides and corners. We were amazed to hear some children comparing different shapes by describing how they are similar and different to one another. We finished the week with exploring the concept of time when thinking about day and night. The children explored key events in their daily routine using language such as ‘first’, ‘then’, ‘after’, ‘before’, ‘morning’, ‘today’ and ‘tomorrow’. The concept of time can often be difficult for children to understand so this was a good place to start!
In literacy this week, we have continued to explore non-fiction texts and the children have been busy creating their own about tigers. As we have learnt previously that non-fiction texts must only include factual information, the children started off by gathering facts through videos. They chose their favourite facts to write first and then they wrote headings and drew pictures that were appropriate to their writing. We have been working really hard on our letter formation this week as it would be wonderful if you could continue practising this at home.
In phonics we have been continuing to learn phase 3 sounds (sh, th, ng, ai) learning the caption and action for each one. As all of these sounds are digraphs, it was a perfect opportunity to recap what digraphs are, recognising how they have two letters that make one sound. All of reception did a great job adding sound buttons to words to show the difference between a single letter sound and a digraph. At the end of each session, they wrote a given sentence using the new sound learnt. A particular tricky one this week was, ‘The thick fog,’ which demonstrated the difference between the ‘th’ sound and ‘f’ sound.
We hope you all have a wonderful weekend avoiding those nasty germs,
Miss Connor & Miss Bleakley
