Writing session today. Focusing on describing the wolf from The Three Little Pigs is a great way to build vocabulary. By coming up with lots of descriptive words like “stray” , “sharp teeth”, “grey fur” and “big feet” they’re learning how to make their writing more vivid and interesting. Using those words to create their own sentence is an important step too, because it helps them apply what they’ve learned rather than just listing ideas. Activities like this build both creativity and confidence in writing.
Over the past three days, the children have begun writing simple sentences using colourful semantics. They started by describing pictures verbally, identifying key elements such as who, what, and where. This was followed by a shared writing activity, where the class worked together to construct sentences. The children then had the opportunity to write independently, using a help sheet for support.
This week, Crew McGlone have been focusing on the story of ‘Storm Dragon’ by Dianne Hofmeyr. We have really enjoyed taking part in a sensory story to help support us with the structure and sequencing of events in the story.
Our writing this week saw us create ‘I can see’ sentences using a stimulus of a depiction of the storm dragon. We talked about the different parts of the storm dragon we could see, some of us even challenged ourselves by adding in some detail to our sentences to give a clearer description. We even used our sentence building knowledge in provision when drawing our own pictures.
We have also absolutely LOVED using our imagination and leading our own learning when accessing provision – we have created shelters to protect us from the storm, large scale models of the storm dragon, small world scenes of the story, created our own role play sensory story, made a collaborative collage dragon, made models out of playdough, made our own spyglasses to search for storm dragons, and lots of things in between!
In writing today they made their own straw houses from The Three Little Pigs. They used clay, straw, and cardboard as the base. They had to use lots of different skills.
This morning, to help us improve our composition, we created a human sentence using a range of Year 6 grammar, punctuation and vocabulary. Starting with our subject, verb and object, we added adjectives, adverbs and parentheses to our sentence, ensuring correct punctuation was used.
In case you were wondering, the sentence read…The amazing city of Doncaster, which is full of friendly, kind-hearted people) welcomes everyone warmly and has many interesting landmarks.
During the Summer term, we place a strong focus on supporting our nursery children to develop their independence and resilience as they prepare for their transition into Reception. These are key aspects of the Early Years Foundation Stage, particularly within Personal, Social and Emotional Development and Physical Development.
Throughout the year, we have been working hard to strengthen the children’s fine motor skills, and this term we have introduced a focused activity known as “apron entry.” During this activity, each child is given their own clipboard and a shortened pencil, which helps to support correct grip and control.
The children are encouraged to draw an object, letter or shape from the board, with a particular focus in this session on creating circles of their own chosen size and quantity. This open-ended approach allows the children to explore their creativity while also developing important early writing skills.
It was fantastic to see the children’s growing ability to concentrate, as well as their confidence in using an effective pencil grip and forming recognisable shapes. These small but significant steps are helping to build the foundations for future writing.
A selection of beautiful work and provision from Crew McGlone this week, including name writing, sentence writing, expedition and independent learning in provision.
🌟 Amazing Young Authors: Celebrating Your Non-Chronological Reports! 🌟
Wow—what a fantastic job you’ve all done! 🎉 We are so proud of the brilliant non-chronological reports that have been published. You have truly shown what it means to be young researchers, writers, and creators.
🧠 What Made Your Reports So Great?
Your work included so many impressive features:
Clear headings and subheadings to organise information
Fascinating facts that taught your readers something new
Topic-specific vocabulary
Pictures, diagrams, or captions to help explain ideas
A neat structure that made your reports easy and fun to read
📚 Becoming Real Authors
By publishing your reports, you’ve taken an exciting step—you are now published authors! That means other people can read, learn from, and enjoy your work. How amazing is that?
Writing like this helps build important skills:
Researching information
Organising ideas
Writing clearly for a reader
Taking pride in your work
These are the same skills that real journalists, scientists, and authors use every day!
You should feel incredibly proud of what you’ve achieved. Writing a non-chronological report isn’t easy, but you’ve shown creativity, effort, and determination. Keep up the amazing work! ✨
