Spring 2, Week 2 – 06/03/2026
Spring 1, Week 2 – 16/11/2025
Cygnets have started 2026 with their enthusiasm and enjoyment of learning growing all the time. We have now started to learn Phase 3 sounds, which are digraphs and trigraphs. We are so proud of how well every single Cygnets is doing in knowing their sounds! Now we are practice being digraph detectives – making sure that we can spot them in words. This is something that you can try at home too!
This week in our new topic, ‘Let’s Explore’ we have started to think about explorers – what an explorer uses, and what they might need to pack with them on an adventure! We wrote lists using our phonic sounds! Next week we will be thinking about maps – and how they can help an explorer.
In Maths, we have been impressed by the children’s skills in subitising – knowing how many there are without counting. Last week we made some subitising superheroes, making our own dot patterns to represent different numbers. This week, we looked at ordering numbers and that when you order the numberblocks – they make a staircase! We used the numberblock ‘diddly diddly doo’ song to help us other towers and pictures of the numberblocks.
Finally, we have enjoyed exploring the colder weather, looking at how trees change in the winter. We are hoping for some snow soon, but in the meantime, this week we investigated what materials would make the best raincoat, to keep Ben Bear warm. We decided that soft plastic would be the best materials from those we had.
We are looking forward to our trip around Cropredy coming up soon – finding out more about our fantastic community!
Autumn 2, Week 4 – 28/11/2025
What a busy time we are having in Cygnets at the moment! Between Nativity practice and lots of learning our days are whizzing past.
After our visit from Dr Linney, the following week we were visited by the Oxfordshire Fire Fighters! We looked at all of the equipment that a firefighter uses and that are on the fire engine. We heard the sirens and saw the flashing blue lights. We loved hearing all about how firefighters help us and learned that in an emergency we dial 999. After we drew some pictures of a firefighter and their equipment. This week we read ‘Clothesline Clues to Jobs People Do’ and were detectives working out what each persons job was. We then had a go at writing our own clues – Can you work out from the clues below what their job is?
In Phonics we cannot believe it but we have learned EVERY phase 2 sound! Now we are practice using these sounds in CVC words. We are writing lists, and listing to every sound that we can hear. You can see some of our amazing writing below.
In Maths we have been learning about how parts make up a whole. Just like our hand is part of our whole body, numbers can be separated into parts too. We made stampolines, just like the numberblocks – of different arrangements of blocks for 3 and 4. We are getting great at subitising too!
Finally, we have been learning our lines and songs for the Nativity. We cannot wait to share it with you in 2 weeks!
Autumn 2, Week 2 – 14/11/2025
Autumn 1, Week 6 – 10/10/2025
Over the last two weeks, the Cygnets have continued to impress all of the Cygnets staff by showing great enthusiasm for all aspects of their learning. In Forest School this week, the children enjoyed making conkers spiders and planting acorns. It is great to hear some of the conversations and teamwork skills taking place down in the forest too!
Last week we read the book ‘From Head to Toe’ by Eric Carle. We were able to name lots of body parts, and then using our rapidly developing Phonics skills, we labelled our bodies, trying to record the first sound we could hear. Some of us could even hear and record some subsequent sounds! This week we continued to use the same book, to be able to share our understanding of the text. Our topic learning for Marvellous me has also been linked to the book, with us thinking about our senses. We learned a song to help us remember our senses, and which part of the body was linked to each sense. Then we thought about what our favourite things are to see, hear, taste, touch and smell.
This week we also visited St Mary’s Cropredy for our first service at school. All the children behaved beautifully and sang the hymns tunefully. When we returned to school, we used some apples, carrots and other food items to make Harvest prints, thinking about what we are grateful for. Mrs French’s week was made when one child shared that they are grateful for her – which we all very much are!
Autumn 1, Week 4 – 26/09/2025
Another two weeks has zoomed by in Cygnets, and all of a sudden, we have completed almost a whole month of school! A highlight of our week is Forest School, where children have been enjoying exploring our amazing Forest School. In this week’s session, the children used crush berries to paint and enjoyed making clay creations.
In class we have been delving into our topic of ‘Marvellous Me’. We read the story ‘It’s ok to be different’ by Todd Parr. Using bright coloured paints we made self-portraits, looking carefully in the mirror to see where on our face our eyes are in relation to our nose and our mouth. Not only have we been thinking about what makes us special, but we have also been thinking about people who are special to us. We drew pictures of our family, friends and our buddies as people who are special to us and that we like to spend time with.
Our Maths learning the last two weeks has also been lots of fun. After meeting Grandpa Fantastic, who is not a confident counter, we helped him to remember that when we count, we say the number names in order, and we also need to make sure that we count accurately too – not counting the same thing twice! This week we met numberblock 4 and practiced making collections of 2, 3 and 4.
Autumn 1, Week 2 – 12/09/2025
It has been an amazing start to the Cygnets time in school. Miss Godsell, Mrs French and Ms Hampson have been so very impressed by how well the children have taken to life at school. From learning our school rules ‘Ready, Respectful, Responsible’, learning the routines of the school day such as assembly and lunch times, and making new friends – our class continue to impress!
Last week, in our first days of Cygnets, despite the wet weather, we enjoyed exploring both our indoor and outdoor classroom. We explored our new school vision ‘Building Bridges to a Brighter Future’ by looking at lots of different kinds of bridges and what might go over or under them. After a visit to the railway bridge outside of school, we drew pictures of bridges, thinking what we might make them from, and why. You can see some pictures of them below. Miss Godsell challenged us to build bridges from different construction materials too. We had to see if they were strong enough (and big enough) for Sitting Spider to cross.
This week, we have continued to embed our routines and started our Phonics learning with the sounds ‘s,a,t,p’ and blending lots of different words. This week we have also been practicing writing our names – it would be great if children could continue to do this at home. In Maths we have met the numberblocks 1,2,3 and playing ‘the spotty game’ – looking at a number of dots, and saying how many there are – without counting! This is called subitising and we will continue to work on this skill all year!
Finally, this week we had the pleasure of meeting our wonderful Year 6 buddies, ending the week with a reading session for our Buddies to meet our grown ups. We are already looking forward to lots more fun together!