Clitheroe Pendle Primary School
Spring 1
Our new topic this term is called “Animals All Around.”
We will be exploring animals from all around the world, beginning with animals that live in cold environments and linking this to winter weather. As the term progresses, the children will learn about jungle animals, dinosaurs, and familiar animals from stories such as Dear Zoo and Elmer.
As part of our Geography learning, we will be focusing on the weather in the UK. The children will explore different types of weather and how the weather changes throughout the seasons.
In History, we will be learning about our school in the past. The children will explore old photographs and compare what school life was like then and now.
In Art, Reception children will be creating sculptures by designing and making their own clay animals.
Week 6
Today our children were absolutely thrilled as we got to see the King pass through Clitheroe. We practised our very best royal waves beforehand, ready for the big moment — and we were delighted to receive a wave back! A truly memorable experience for everyone.
In art, we continued our sculpture unit and created our very own clay animals. We began by designing them carefully, thinking about all the little details, before using modelling skills such as pinching, squeezing and squashing to bring our ideas to life. Now that they’ve dried, we’ve been painting them and choosing colours thoughtfully to complete our wonderful creations.
This week in Maths, the children have been busy spotting things that are the same and things that are different, and sorting objects by simple properties such as red/not red. They’ve also enjoyed creating their very own repeating patterns using colours, shapes, and everyday objects. It’s been wonderful to see their curiosity grow as they notice patterns all around them.
Week 5
Today we visited the library to change our books. The children enjoyed exploring the wide variety of stories and information books on offer. They were excited to talk about the books they chose and shared wonderful reasons for their selections. A lovely way to build a love of reading!
In maths this week, we have begun our unit on measures. The children have been comparing objects to find out which are the longest and shortest. Over the week, we will also be exploring width, height, weight and capacity through lots of hands‑on activities.
At the writing table this week, the children have been exploring our magic UV pens. They’ve been practising their writing and then using the UV light to reveal their hidden messages. It’s been super exciting and has encouraged lots of mark‑making and imaginative writing.
Week 4
This week we’ve been putting our phonics skills to work by writing short captions. The children have been thinking carefully about their letter formation and making sure their letters sit beautifully on the line. What superstars they are!
In maths this week, we’ve been exploring subtraction. The children have used part–whole models to help them take amounts away, and a number track to find one less than a given number. They’ve shown brilliant focus and growing confidence!
This week we loved exploring outdoors and using our imaginations with the sticks that had fallen after the storm. They quickly became magic wands, fishing rods, telephones – and even a lion’s cage inspired by our ‘Dear Zoo’ learning. The children showed such creativity and teamwork!
Week 3
In maths this week, we explored addition using part–whole models. The children built their own models with counters and enjoyed using simple stem sentences to explain their thinking, such as “1 is a part, 3 is a part, the whole is 4.” This hands-on approach helped everyone see how two parts come together to make a whole, building confidence and curiosity in early number skills.
In PE this week, the children explored travelling in lots of different ways, using different parts of their bodies to move, balance and stretch. They had great fun pretending to be a variety of animals — slithering like snakes, stomping like elephants and hopping like rabbits — all while building coordination, confidence and imagination.
Following our learning about the story Lost and Found, the children designed and made their own boats to carry a penguin. They carefully chose materials, explored different ways to join them, and then tested their boats to see how well they floated. We talked about which materials were waterproof, what helped a boat stay afloat, and what caused it to sink. The children loved investigating, predicting, and discovering through hands‑on exploration.
Week 2
We explored the beat in music today, clapping along to a range of different songs and discovering how the pulse holds everything together. They especially loved the track below and joined in with huge enthusiasm. It’s a great skill to build, so they might enjoy practising at home by clapping the beat to one of their favourite songs.
We practised partitioning numbers today using colourful counters. They loved dropping the counters on the floor and spotting how many of each colour landed — for example, 2 red and 2 blue making 4 altogether. It was a fun, hands‑on way to explore how numbers can be broken apart and put back together.
The children enjoyed reading Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers in literacy today. Inspired by the story, they got creative and made their own penguins in class, proudly bringing the characters to life through their artwork.
In Outdoor Explorers this week, the children have been busy creating their very own winter wands. They strengthened their fine motor skills by carefully winding wool around their sticks and practising simple knots.
Week 1
We’ve been busy counting and comparing in Maths. The children practised using the language of more and fewer while working with our penguin characters. They carefully placed a given number of penguins onto an iceberg, using 1:1 correspondence to make sure each penguin was counted accurately. Once their groups were complete, the children compared their icebergs with their friends’—discussing who had more penguins and who had fewer.
Our weekly ICT sessions have focused on developing confident mouse control. Children have been practising how to use the mouse buttons to select tools with increasing accuracy and create simple drawings with control.
Inspired by the poem Cold by Shirley Hughes, the children have been exploring the beauty of winter through art and poetry. They created their own mixed‑media winter collages, experimenting with textures and materials to show frosty scenes. The children used these to create their own poems, such as snow falling, ice twinkling, frost crunching. A lovely celebration of the season!
