Treehouse Autumn 2025
What an exciting start to the year it has been in Treehouse class. Our pupils have been very busy getting to know each other, learning how to share the new classroom space and have been working hard to develop their learning.
Have a look at all the wonderful experiences we have had so far this year...
RE
We have started the year exploring Branch 1 of the RED curriculum, Creation & Covenant. First we explored what a covenant was and how this was a very big promise. Through the story of Noah's Ark, we recalled how God made a pledge to us all and sent a rainbow to remind us of this. We created our own rainbows and made our own pledges too.
We have reminded ourselves that Jesus in the light and through the Sacrament of Baptism, water is used, just like the flood, to cleanse sins. We are reminded through the Baptismal candle, that we must take His light out into the world; we made lanterns to represent this.
Throughout this branch, we have been considering God's creation and all the treasures we have been given to look after on our planet. We have discussed how we can help to look after the planet and how we can help endangered animals too.
The autumn term continued into Branch 2, Prophecy & Promise. Here, we discovered that Isaiah prophesied the birth of Jesus over 700 years before he was born—Immanuel (God-with-us). We then learned that an angel delivered a very special message to Zechariah: he and his wife, Elizabeth, would have a son named John. Elizabeth’s cousin Mary also received a visit from an angel, who told her she would give birth to baby Jesus. We followed each of these stories through to the birth of John, and then the birth of Jesus. As a class, we have loved playing with the small-world characters from each of these stories, and we have even built temples, houses, and created imaginary worlds for the characters to live in.
We made our own Las Posadas characters as we explored how people around the world prepare during Advent. We recognised similarities and differences between how we prepare and how others do. One of our favourite activities was creating our own angels for the school Christmas tree—these angels reminded us of the importance of quiet prayerfulness.
Literacy
Mathematics
Life Skills
We started our year by getting to know our new surroundings and familiarising ourselves with class routines and systems. We had to negotiate how we share our space and all of the provision within our classroom. This has meant we have had to work hard on turn taking and sharing as a core skill.
Throughout the day, we have always maintained a keen focus on being able to name our feelings and think about how we can express them safely. We have focused on the NSPCC Pantosaurus project and also talked about kind hands, kind hearts and kind words.
To help us focus on specific life skills, we have been learning how to brush our teeth and have incorporated that into our day. We explored the importance of handwashing properly and making sure we stay healthy.
Our next step was to think about how we can get ready for school every day and what we needed to bring in. As a group we created a list of things we need to have in school each day. One area that we decided to focus on was zips and buttons as we know these can be quite tricky.
Outside, we have been playing lots on our equipment and also participating in Forest school with Mr Smith.
As we returned from half term, we focused on how we could stay safe during Bonfire night. We looked at the dangers of fire and also fireworks. During Remembrance week, we considered the importance of democracy and everyone having the right to choose and how soldier have protected this right for us all.
Imagine & Create
Treehouse has been a very creative space these last few weeks. We have made wonderful RE displays with clouds, flowers and rainbows. We have painted, printed and used stencils to even create our own art aprons.
As we continued our autumn art topic, Explore and Draw, we examined different autumn treasures and explored various ways to re-create them. We have printed, sketched, painted, and even glued the objects to create artwork. To help us focus on detail, we felt the objects behind our backs and then had to draw them without seeing them.
In the build-up to Christmas, we have prepared lots of creative pieces to decorate our classroom, share with our families, and contribute to our RE branch.
People & Places
To get to know each other, we have been sharing lots of information about ourselves. We now know that all of our families are different and unique. We have drawn who lives in our house and we have even created aprons which express things that we like and our interests.
To understand more about who we are, we have been exploring where we are. First we looked locally where we live and our school community. We then discovered that we are part of a bigger city and also a country! This piqued our interest even further when we realised that the UK has four countries and they also have capital cities.
After half-term, we explored why we participate in Bonfire Night, which the children were very engaged with and wondered what could have happened if the plot had been a success. Next, we learned about the importance of Remembrance Day and how we honour the lives of soldiers each year - we dedicated our week to creating art work and sculptures to honour the service given by so many.
To begin to understand our own place in time, we started to look at what a timeline is. We now have a greater understanding of the past and the present. We have focused a lot on sequencing and ordering this half-term, which has helped us to sequence our own timelines from birth to now.
Explorers and Investigators
Our science topic of 'Animals and Living Creatures' has been a very exciting place to start science this year. Through the eyes of a scientist, we have been exploring what is alive and not alive. We even had a robot doggy in class and then a normal dog - we had to decide which was alive and which was not. It was so much fun!
Once we knew that some things were alive and not, we then went on to look at different types of animals and where they live. We decided that a penguin couldn't live at home with us because they have a different habitat than us.
We have been outside exploring different areas of our school to see what creatures we could find and considered why they live where they live. There were lots of creepy crawlies in dark places!
As part of being an explorer, we have been learning how to use the Ipad safely and we have even started to use them to take photographs.
In Autumn 2, we have started to consider the importance of different materials. We have made decisions about the qualities of different materials and which ones are best to make certain objects. We have tested materials to see if they can be changed or manipulated. We also went on a hunt around school to find different examples of materials such as plastic, glass, fabric and clay.