Welcome to Oliver Twist class page!

Welcome to Oliver Twist Class

Welcome, and thank you for visiting our class page. Here, you will find information about our current learning, daily routines, key dates for your diary, and a snapshot of the exciting experiences taking place in our classroom.

Meet the Team:
Oliver Twist Class is taught by Miss Hollingsbee, with the support of our dedicated teaching assistant, Miss Crealock. Miss Banks also works with our class, covering lessons when Miss Hollingsbee is out of class.

If you need to get in touch, please contact Miss Hollingsbee via email:
📧 olivertwist@rrcoe.medway.sch.uk

At Rochester Riverside we provide the children with opportunities that engage, enthuse and spark curiosity. The children's interests are important to us and are at the heart of the learning opportunities provided. 

Our Riverside vision is behind everything we do as we explore together the fundamental questions of 'Who are we?' and 'How do we live?' 

Important Information

Don't forget to bring to school...

•      A named water bottle filled with water every day.  
•      Your book bag with your yellow reading record in every day. 
•      A spare change of clothes in a named carrier bag to stay on your peg.

Please put your child's name in all items of clothing. 

PE

Our PE day is Thursday, please come into school in your PE kit. Your child will stay in their PE kit all day.

Please ensure all jewellery is removed for PE on a Thursday.

Oliver Twist Timetable

 This timetable is subject to change. 

spring term ot class timetable 1 .pdf

Take at look at what we've been learning in Oliver Twist class...

Term 1 - "All about me"

Term 1

This term, our topic is ‘All About Me’. We’ll be spending time getting to know one another, settling into our new classroom, and building positive relationships as we create a warm and welcoming class community.

Our learning will focus on feelings and emotions, families, and understanding what makes each of us unique. We’ll be celebrating both our similarities and differences as we learn and grow together.

Weeks 1 & 2: Getting to know each other, sharing interests, exploring Oliver Twist class, and building friendships! 

Weeks 3 & 4 :  We’ve explored together, enjoyed ‘The Colour Monster’, learned why we’re special, and designed stained glass windows with a special visit from Mr Taylor. We demonstrated excellent pride and attention to detail with our colouring. Oliver Twist class have begun phonics and are already shining as phonics superstars!

Week 5 & 6 : We’ve had a fantastic time exploring our topic, ‘People Who Help Us’! The children have loved learning about the roles of nurses, doctors, vets, and firefighters, and enjoyed immersing into these roles in their play with their friends. They’ve been very creative making police cars and fire engines. Alongside all the fun, they’ve been working hard on their phonics and writing. A special highlight was a visit from Bumble, our Riverside tortoise, which the children absolutely adored!

Term 2 - "How do we celebrate?"

Term 2

This term, our topic is ‘How Do We Celebrate?’ The children will begin by exploring the signs of autumn, discovering autumn vegetables, and preparing a delicious homemade vegetable soup! We’ll then learn about the festival of Diwali, creating beautiful mehndi and rangoli patterns.

As the term continues, we’ll think about Remembrance Day, the importance of wearing poppies, and the people who have helped and protected us. This will lead into discussions about Children in Need and how we can help others. We’ll also share how our own families celebrate special occasions, learning about a variety of traditions and celebrations from different cultures.

Later in the term, we’ll explore the Nativity story from the Bible and prepare for our special Nativity performance, celebrating the birth of baby Jesus through songs, crafts, and festive Christmas activities.

We’ll also be learning about road safety and how to keep ourselves safe in different situations. Keep an eye out for photos and highlights throughout the term as we celebrate together!

 

Weeks 1 & 2: Over the past two weeks, we’ve been busy exploring the wonders of autumn! We observed seasonal changes, explored autumn vegetables, and even peeled, grated, and chopped our own ingredients to make delicious vegetable soup. We examined the texture of pumpkins and created our own imaginary fresh juice too! We also learned about Diwali, the festival of light, designing beautiful mehndi patterns and crafting our own diya lamps. Inspired by Bonfire Night and Guy Fawkes, we got creative with colourful firework art using different materials. To mark Remembrance Day, we made poppy-themed crafts to show our respect and understanding. Alongside all of this, we’ve been working hard on our phonics—blending sounds, writing new words, and practising reading them independently.

 

 

 

Week 3 & 4: Over the past two weeks, we have been raising awareness for children in need and taking part in lots of creative activities. We celebrated World Kindness Day and talked about what it means to be a kind friend at Riverside. As a class, we made our own “friendship pies” using ingredients such as smiles, laughter, love, and happiness. We also created thank-you cards for special people.
This week, we explored different celebrations and shared how our families and countries celebrate birthdays. We made playdough cakes, role-played birthday parties, and designed birthday cards. These activities supported our maths mastery work on sharing equal amounts. In Drawing Club, we have explored the story Elmer’s Birthday, using it to spark our imagination and help us develop our creative writing.
We have enjoyed learning outdoors and making crafts to help us remember new sounds like j for jellyfish and x for box. In maths, we have been practising using “fewer than” and “more than,” and in phonics we have been writing spelling words and even creating our own tricky-word watches to help us remember them.

Week 5 & 6: In Oliver Twist Class, we have been working hard on our reading skills, practising sentences and phrases, and applying our phonics knowledge to support accurate spelling. In maths, we have been developing our rapid subitising skills through a range of fun and interactive games. We have also been engaging in provision linked to our maths fluency learning, exploring parts and wholes using environmental objects and numbers.
Our creative work has included painting pictures with a purposeful focus. Christmas has officially begun in Oliver Twist Class, and the excitement is building! We have started a variety of festive crafts and activities, and we are very lucky to have our own Santa’s Workshop. Here, we have been busy elves—fixing and repairing toys, wrapping presents, and writing letters to Santa for our class post box. It has been wonderful to see the children fully immersed in their roles, working hard in our bustling workshop.
As a class, we have also been learning about how Christmas is celebrated in different countries around the world and discussing how it isn’t always cold during the festive season. We can’t wait to continue exploring more Christmas activities over the coming weeks!

Week 7 & 8 : We have enjoyed a fun-filled, festive and very busy two weeks in Oliver Twist Class! The children have worked hard practising, signing and performing their Nativity, sharing the Christmas story with confidence and pride. In Maths, we have been learning all about shapes. We went on a shape hunt around the school and created festive 2D shape pictures. The children have also immersed themselves in a wide range of arts and crafts activities, from drawing and creating their own stable Nativity scenes to making personalised elves, presents, gingerbread houses and calendars. The children worked incredibly hard on writing their Christmas cards, applying their excellent handwriting skills. We have decorated baubles and learned about Advent, exploring the meaning of each candle. We ended this busy term by enjoying festive party games together as a class family. The children also thoroughly enjoyed taking part in the Santa Dash, our Christmas dinner and the EYFS Christmas party. What a wonderful way to finish the term! 🎄

Term 3 - " Exploration leads to new discoveries"

Term 3

This term begins by encouraging children to share their hopes and aspirations for the new year, helping to build confidence, reflection and a positive classroom community. Our learning will then focus on our local area, with a special emphasis on Rochester Bridge, exploring how it has changed over time. This will link with our Drawing Club story The Three Billy Goats Gruff, inspiring children to design and make their own bridges to cross a river.

Children will learn about water safety through sessions with the RNLI, developing an understanding of how to stay safe near rivers and water. We will also explore winter and the weather, using iPads to photograph our surroundings and create observational drawings of the river. In PE, children will take part in teamwork river games, developing coordination, balance and cooperation.

We will also take part in the RSPB Big Bird Watch, encouraging curiosity about wildlife and care for the environment.

We will celebrate Lunar New Year, learning about Chinese culture and traditions. Children will try different foods, practise using chopsticks, explore Chinese writing, make lanterns and take part in lion dancing to build cultural understanding and respect.

As part of Understanding the World (Past and Present), children will learn about Charles Dickens, exploring who he was and his links to Rochester and our school. They will draw Dickens characters and listen to the story 'Oliver Twist'.

In the final weeks of the term, we will take part in Children’s Mental Health Week, exploring emotions through photographs and learning safe ways to talk about and manage feelings. We will also learn about online safety as part of Safer Internet Day.

In Religious Education, children will learn about the Creation Story, exploring the seven days of creation and discussing how we can care for God’s world. 

Week 1 & 2 : This week we began the new year by sharing our hopes and dreams and enjoyed reading and retelling The Three Billy Goats Gruff through role play. We took part in team-building activities, using creativity and problem-solving skills to build bridge structures from blocks, sticks, straws, cups and junk modelling materials. This linked to our learning about our local area, including Rochester Bridge, Cathedral and Castle. We sketched and painted our local environment and built our own Rochester Bridge. In maths, we made Numberblocks, matched and ordered numbers, and created cube staircase patterns to show one more. We have been looking at different shapes on our lightboard and practising our number bonds to 5. We have been learning about the RNLI, the coastguard service, and the special work they do. We have even used recycled materials to paint, decorate, and create our own lifeboats!

Week 3 & 4 : This week, we have taken part in the RSPB Big Bird Watch. We have learned all about different birds and their characteristics. We created our own binoculars using a variety of media and made bird feeders from recycled materials to help support birds and local wildlife. We then went outside with our recording sheets to take part in the bird watch, spotting and counting the birds we saw. In maths, we have been making “shape soup,” applying our learning of counting and recognising shapes and their properties using menu cards. We had a great time with our Year 5 reading buddies, sharing our love of reading, and worked together as a class in the cooking room to make our own tasty pizzas! We have loved learning all about Chinese New Year! The children enjoyed making their own lanterns, red money envelopes, and playdough dragons. We also worked together to create a class dragon for our EYFS Chinese New Year parade. To finish our celebrations, we had great fun tasting Chinese food and practising using chopsticks.

 

Week 5 & 6 : This week, we have been learning all about Charles Dickens and the history he made in Rochester. We enjoyed reading Oliver Twist and learning about the famous stories and characters. We had lots of fun drawing Charles Dickens and created pictures of Oliver Twist on tea-stained paper, using our phonics skills to describe him. We also made playdough dinner plates for Oliver and used feathers and watered-down paint to write on brown paper, just like people did in those times. In RE, we have been learning about the Creation story and how God made the world. We planted our own cress seeds to show respect for creation and made our own Creation books to retell the story over the seven days. In phonics, we have continued practising our sounds through fun games, including splat games and making digraphs with playdough. We had an amazing time on Friday celebrating NSPCC Number Day! We raised money for an important cause and took part in lots of maths activities, including making hats, designing T-shirts, singing Five Speckled Frogs, matching numbers, and going on a fun number hunt outdoors. We’ve had great fun making Valentine’s crafts for loved ones, baking and decorating heart biscuits, playing team games, and learning about e-safety by designing fantastic safe and purposeful online games.

 

 

Term 4 - “A Tale as old as time” 

Term 4 

This term our topic focus is “A Tale as Old as Time.” We will be exploring and reading a range of famous traditional tales through a variety of exciting activities. We will begin by looking at Jack and the Beanstalk, where the children will take part in hot seating activities to explore the characters, plant seeds and grow their own beanstalks.

We will also be reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The children will design and make their own chairs and beds for the bears using a range of different resources and materials. We will also make our own porridge and practise writing shopping lists for the ingredients we need.

When reading The Gruffalo, the children will label the key features of the Gruffalo using their phonics sounds. We will also learn about animals that live in woodland habitats and explore simple food chains. The children will have the opportunity to paint the Gruffalo and create their own models using playdough.

We will also read The Three Little Pigs, where the children will experiment with different materials to build houses for the pigs and explore rhyming words from the story.

Later in the term we will read Little Red Riding Hood. The children will create story maps and learn how to weave baskets. This will link to our learning in Personal, Social and Emotional Development, where we will talk about how to stay safe at home and in our environment and discuss the importance of rules.

Towards the end of the term we will read Peter Rabbit and take part in a special egg hunt. During this time we will learn about Palm Sunday, create Easter cards, make a healthy Easter snack and enjoy an “eggucational hunt” outside with our parents and carers.

In maths we will be focusing on the composition of numbers within 10. The children will explore doubles, wholes and parts, while also developing their subitising and number bond skills.

In PE our focus skill will be agility. In RE we will be learning about different types of weddings, parables such as the Good Samaritan and the Precious Pearl, as well as exploring miracles and learning about Palm Sunday. It is going to be a very busy and exciting term ahead.

Week 1 & 2 : Over the past two weeks we have had a wonderful start to the term. We began by reading Jack and the Beanstalk, where the children enjoyed hot seating the characters, painting their own beanstalks, planting beans and retelling the story. We also used magic beans for counting and created our own beanstalks and harps through threading activities. We have also been reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The children enjoyed retelling the story, making beds for the bears using different materials, making porridge and writing their own shopping lists. We also celebrated World Book Day with a pyjama day, sharing stories, making clay book characters and taking part in a fun gingerbread story dance workshop.