Foundation - Dabchicks

Summer 2010.

For the curriculum overview for the Summer term, please click here.

Potato Day

On the 23rd June the Dabchicks harvested their potatoes. We estimated the number of potatoes that there would be. We had children estimating numbers ranging from 3 all the way to 100. Mrs O’Dell estimated 15, she was the eventual winner. As each potato was discovered Mrs O’Dell handed them to a child.
Once the potatoes were harvested we lined them up in size order. Reece was given the smallest potato and Darcy was given the largest.
We discussed how we could cook the potatoes. The children suggested chips, boiled with butter, mash with butter, jacket and roasted.
Because we had so few potatoes we decided that we would boil them and add butter.

The children loved them and thought they were tasty.

A visit to the Police Station.

On the 22nd June the Dabchicks visited Bideford Police Station as part of their topic ‘People Who Help Us’. They visited the CCTV room and saw people walking along the quay and saw the pool in the park. The children had their fingerprints taken and received a certificate with them on. They dressed up in real police officer uniforms and saw the police van.
On the way back we waved at the CCTV cameras hoping that the Magpies would see us.

Spring 2010

For the curriculum overview for the Spring term, please click here

Knowledge & Understanding of the World

At the end of January the Dabchicks will be taking part in the RSPB Small Schools’ Birdwatch 2010.

The children will be taking part in a number of activities; learning the names of different birds, what they look like and what they eat. We will be making some fat balls and binoculars.
Each child will be involved in counting the birds that visit the Foundation Stage garden. We will link this with our maths work.

Physical Development

At the end of this term we will be performing a short dance routine to the rest of Key Stage 1. We will be using the text ‘The Mousehole Cat’, a Cornish traditional story as a stimulus. So we will be building upon the gymnastics skills that we learnt last term (moving at different levels) and including moving to a beat.

Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy

This term we will continue to use numbers up to 10 and introduce the children to numbers up to 20.
The children will be choosing their own methods to record the number of birds that they see as part of Small Schools’ Birdwatch 2010. We will be gathering all of the information in the form of a pictogram. Questions will be asked e.g. which bird was seen the most? Which bird was seen the fewest amount of times?
We will introduce the concept of addition as combining two groups of objects and subtraction as taking away.
The children will be making their own treasure maps; this will support their use of directional language. They will have the opportunity to programme a Bee-Bot Robot to move around various themed mats.

Marie Curie Cancer Care Mini-pots of Fun Day - 24th February 2010

To help raise money for Marie Curie Cancer Care the children in Foundation Stage wore something yellow. They also brought in a daffodil that they had been growing at home over the winter months. The children sorted the pots into height order; Lewis suggested that we put the tall plants at one end of the table and the shorter ones at the other end.
Darcy’s daffodil was the tallest.
The children had to decorate a cardboard jacket to go around their daffodil. Scarlet won a prize for the best design.
In the afternoon the children went on a sponsored walk to ‘Smugglers Cove’ where they searched for treasure.