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Dame Ellen Pinsent School

Dame Ellen Pinsent School

Chipmunks

Welcome to Chipmunks class page.

Welcome to Chipmunks class. We are a class of 13 children and we follow the Woodlands Pathway.

Miss Prottey is our class teacher and our wonderful teaching assistants are Gemma, Nichola and Stuart.

 

Summer 1

Welcome back to Summer Term in Chipmunks! We are continuing to learn about Birmingham and the UK but this term with a focus on food. We will be teaching lots of important life skills such as hand washing and how to safely prepare and cook food. At the end of the half term, we will be working towards turning our classroom into a restaurant and inviting parents and carers into school to be served by the children so look out for further information on this.

 

Spring 2 summary ...

It has been another short but busy half term in Chipmunks! As our topic is Birmingham and the UK, we have been focusing on bus travel in the local area. The children have been practising road safety and handling money when they recently walked to the bus stop to travel on the number 18 bus to Broad Lane Cafe. The children were each given £2 to choose and order their own drink and snack which they loved.

  

  

Chipmunks have also been very active when learning how to play badminton in PE. They have improved their accuracy when hitting the shuttlecock over the net towards their partner.

And finally, the children have been working on their subtraction skills this half term by playing lots of games. The children have been using a number line to count back, and some children are even starting to solve simple column subtraction questions! Well done, Chipmunks!

 

 

 

Spring 2

Free Rabbits Animal illustration and picture

Welcome to Spring 2! Our new topic is Birmingham and the UK which is going to give us lots of opportunities to visit the local area. We are focusing on the number 18 bus and seeing where it can take us - our first trip will involve walking to Taylor Road, paying the bus driver, taking the bus for 10 minutes and then ordering food in Broad Lane Cafe. Our trips will also be a good opportunity to practice road safety which is obviously a very important life skill.

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Our class text is The Lion on the Bus. We will be using the Talk For Writing approach to learn the story so we can retell it confidently. By the end of the half term, Chipmunks will be able to rewrite their own version of the story but changing the animal characters.

The Lion on the Bus: A brilliantly funny picture book adaptation of the  classic nursery rhyme Wheels on the Bus : Jones, Gareth P, Harter, Jeff:  Amazon.co.uk: Books

Spring term will also be a very active one for Chipmunks, as we will be starting to learn badminton (Tuesdays) and tag rugby (Thursdays) in PE. We also will start Forest School on Wednesdays so remember to bring wellies and clothes you are happy to get muddy!

Riseley CofE Primary School - Forest School

Spring 1 summary ...

Wow! What a term it's been! Chipmunks behaved impeccably at our trip to watch Alice in Wonderland at the CBSO.

They also became golf pros at Shirley Golf Club after having weekly lessons. Look at them go!

 

 

Spring 1

Welcome to Spring 1! This half term our topic is Snow White and we will be starting our topic off with a bang by watching a performance on the first Thursday back from the holidays. We have more exciting theatre news with a trip planned for the whole of Woodlands Pathway on Thursday 18th January to CBSO to see a relaxed performance of Alice in Wonderland by a 10-piece orchestra!

Chipmunks have finished swimming now but we are lucky enough to be starting golf at Shirley Golf Club Wednesday mornings this term. We can't wait to share photos of any future golf professionals we may have here at Dame Ellen.

In Maths, we will be learning about length measurement in our Shape, Space and Measurement Maths lessons. You can support your child with this by using different items to measure the length of something e.g. how many coins are as long as this table? You could also introduce your child to a ruler or measuring tape and support them to measure how long different household items are. 

 

Autumn 2 summary ...

Chipmunks thoroughly enjoyed our Victorian Christmas themed Topic. We created lots of items to sell at the Victorian Fair and made a grand total of £59.70 by selling Christmas crackers, sweet bags and having a raffle to go to Spotty Pots in Studley. Well done Chipmunks!
 

  

 

Chipmunks also made us very proud during their performance at Holy Cross Church. They sang and signed Mary's Boy Child and some children also had some lines to read out. There was a fantastic turn out from parents and carers so thank you for your support - it meant a lot to the children!

 

Autumn 2

Welcome to Autumn 2. Our next topic is called 'Victorian Christmas'!

Free Santa Father Christmas illustration and picture

In English, we will be reading A Christmas Carol as our focus text and will be using Talk for Writing and Colourful Semantics to help us to retell the story.

In Maths we will continue our work on number by focusing on addition and subtraction. We will have a particular focus on money so any work you can do at home with recognising coins will be a great help. Maybe you could even have a trip to the shops and pay with cash to show your child how to count your change? 

Free Coins Money photo and picture

 

Swimming continues to be on a Thursday morning so please bring in a swimming costume and a towel. PE is on a Friday so come to school dressed in your PE kit and trainers/pumps.

 

Autumn 1 summary ...

Well, what a busy term it has been! Particular highlights have been going swimming each Thursday and our visit to Spotty Pots in Studley to paint our own ceramic tiles. Here are some pictures of our trip:

   

 

Autumn 1

This half term we will spend the first 2 weeks getting to know each other and our new environment and making new friends and relationships.

For the remainder of the half term our topic is ‘Painters'. All of our lessons, where possible, will be linked to the topic and we will be practising different art and painting techniques. At the end of the topic each child will produce a canvas and this will be displayed in our school art gallery

Homework will be sent home every week, 1 week will be English and the following week will be Maths.  You will also find the ‘Painters’ homework grid on the tab on the left hand side of this page. Please try to complete as many of the activities as you can during this half term, we would love to see your work!

There is also a copy of our class timetable for this half term if you click on the 'timetable' tab on the left.

We will share what we have been up to on our class dojo page each day so please join us there.