Let us begin by saying a huge well done to all of our nursery children who participated in their very first retelling of the Christmas story this week – you made us all so proud and I’m sure you made your grown ups proud too!

Earlier in the week, all of the children enjoyed a sporty day with Matty playing lots of different games and building their teamwork skills.

As the weather has turned a little colder, the children have enjoyed wintery activities in class including making snowmen in the play dough area. Here are a few examples…

We had a very magical end to the week in Winter Wonderland where we enjoyed a nice cup of hot chocolate to warm our hands whilst we watched the popcorn cook on the open fire, we went a bit ‘crackers’ singing Christmas songs and even met Santa Clause in the woodlands.

Preparations are underway for a very festive last couple of weeks…

We can’t wait to see what next week has in store!

Have a wonderful weekend,

Miss Dawson, Miss Baum & Mrs Troy.

As the weather turns colder, the children have enjoyed observing the frost and ice. This week we read ‘Jack Frost’ and had some lovely discussions about the changing seasons. Reception have been creating some lovely winter pictures inspired by the cover of Jack Frost and nursery have been making snowflakes using loose parts. All of this work is displayed in our corridor – see if you can spot it next time you’re in school!

This week we began our new RE topic: birthdays. We have explored how we celebrate birthdays – by giving gifts and cards, inviting friends to parties, playing party games, singing and sharing delicious cake! Barnaby Bear has been so lucky to have fabulous friends that have helped him celebrate his birthday in school this week.

As December has arrived, we have begun preparing for Jesus’ birthday with our story Advent calendar. We are looking forward to further exploring Advent and the Christmas story in the upcoming weeks.

The nursery boys and girls have done a wonderful job decorating our class Christmas tree.

EYFS

Once again we have opened up our new classroom extension! The children have loved exploring the new space.

This week Nursery and Reception have learned about Judaism in RE. They learned specifically about Hanukkah – the Jewish Festival of Light. The children learned that despite only having enough oil to light lamps for one night after the Maccabees rebuilt their temple, the lamps burned for eight days. Jewish people commemorate this by lighting the eight candles on the menorah throughout Hanukkah. They also exchange gifts and play games such as the dreidel.

Nursery 

Thank you to all of the grown ups who attended our first stay and play sessions! The children loved showing you all around our nursery and sharing what they have been learning so far this term. We already can’t wait for the next one!

Reception

In maths this week, Reception have been learning about properties of circles and triangles. They created artwork inspired by some of Kandinsky’s famous paintings using these shapes.

Here are just some examples of the fantastic finished pieces…

Reception are continuing to impress me with their phonics. Take a look at the lovely neat work produced in our dictation sessions – the children are putting their listening and segmenting skills to good use! Well done everyone.

I hope you all enjoy an extra long weekend,

Miss Dawson, Miss Baum & Mrs Troy.

We have loved being back in our classroom this week and what a busy week it has been…

EYFS

On Monday we marked the beginning of anti-bullying week by sporting our odd socks. We talked about how we, just like our socks, are unique and that it is okay to be different. We also read Elmer, a story which celebrates differences before decorating our own Elmers. The children chose various ways to decorate their Elmer including sticking, painting and colouring. Each one was different from the next but they were all fantastic.

This week we have focused on the importance of kindness and friendships. We used apples to demonstrate how being unkind can make us feel. We said kind things to one apple and gave examples of unkind behaviour to the other apple. Although from the outside they looked the same, when we cut them open we could see that one apple was bruised and rotten which represented how we can feel inside when others are unkind to us.

We have also been sorting examples of kind and unkind friends – Mabel enjoyed the sorting activity so much that she made some of her own!

We have also read Rainbow Fish this week and discussed when and how he was kind to others and when he was not.

Nursery

Nursery delivered their first assembly for their grown ups this week – a huge well done to all of the children involved (and Mrs Troy!) We are incredibly proud of how brave you all were to talk, sing and dance in front of an audience.

To celebrate World Nursery Rhyme Week, the children have enjoyed singing a rhyme a day as well as a selection of their favourite nursery rhymes.

The children enjoyed a ‘5 Little Ducks’ dough disco this week too.

Reception

As we have been focusing on friendship this week, we had a slightly different PE lesson. This week the children put their team work to the test as they worked together to move balls and hoops across the hall without dropping them. It was trickier than it looked but the children did a great job!

Reception are continuing to work their socks off in their phonics lessons. They have been practising reading their sentence of the week and will be completing their first piece of dictation work later today.

Our Pudsey activities began yesterday with our Pudsey play dough. The children are excited to take part in the sponsored dance-a-thon this afternoon.

We’ll all be ready for a good rest this weekend!

Miss Dawson, Miss Baum & Mrs Troy.

Nursery

As things have taken a spooky turn in Early Years this week, nursery have been singing ‘Incy Wincy Spider’. They have been using their dough disco moves to roll and ball the play dough to create some rather creepy spiders, some of them even had more than two eyes. (aaaargh!)

The children have also been pulling and ripping resources such as tape and wool to create some fabulous mummies. Take a look if you dare!

Reception

In maths this week, Reception have been building their vocabulary to compare capacity and mass.

As fun as it was to investigate which container held the most scoops of water beads or which objects were heavier than the others, the children couldn’t wait to get stuck in to the water beads during their free play! A very popular activity this week.

Reception absolutely loved getting the climbing apparatus out in PE this week. Miss Baum and I were so impressed with how sensible the children were and how they safely used the equipment. They put many of their skills to the test including jumping, spatial awareness and turn taking. Well done everyone!

EYFS

All of the children were so excited to put on their costumes and have a BOOgie at the Halloween disco. You all looked fantastic – what a great end to our first half term.

Miss Dawson, Miss Baum & Mrs Troy hope you recharge your batteries over the break,

S-ghouls out for half term!

It’s been a busy week in Early Years…

Nursery

Nursery have been singing ‘Dingle-Dangle Scarecrow’ this week and joining in with the actions of the song.

The children have explored printing with vegetables to create some lovely pictures this week. They used vegetables such as cauliflower, carrots and potatoes that were harvested by Gardening Club last week.

We have had a variety of pumpkins and squash in class this week for the children to explore. The girls enjoyed looking for pumpkins that were the same and investigating some that looked a little unusual. They talked about their colours, shapes, sizes, weight and texture.

Reception

Reception have been reading ‘The Scarecrow’s Wedding’ this week. They were able to retell the story using stick puppets before adding them to the farm small world to create their own scarecrow storylines.

The children have been using a selection of foods such as rice, pasta and lentils to create textured scarecrow pictures – it’s been a very popular activity this week but here are just a few of the gorgeous finished products…

Miss Dawson and Miss Baum are super proud of the effort and dedication the children have put into their phonics this week – keep it up!

A special mention…

Well done to Rosie who has earned her level 2 award in her swimming lessons. She was so excited to share her award with the rest of the class.

Finally, thank you to all of our families for the kind donations to The People’s Kitchen yesterday.

Have a lovely weekend,

Miss Dawson, Miss Baum & Mrs Troy.

As we move into October, we are beginning to feel very autumnal in Early Years. The children have enjoyed singing autumn themed songs such as “The Hedgehog is Very Prickly”. They even added their own verses including ‘the leaves are very crunchy’, ‘the conkers are very shiny’ and ‘the fox is very fluffy’.

Nursery 

Nursery have been exploring our school grounds on their autumn walk this week. They have collected leaves and seeds which they have brought back to class to add to the playdough and to create some loose part pictures.

Nursery have also been sorting leaves in the outdoor classroom. They were able to sort them into piles of different autumn colours like red, brown and yellow. Great work everyone!

Reception

In maths, Reception have also been sorting and matching. They began the week by sorting by a given criteria. They then moved on to looking for similarities and differences in objects that had been sorted to figure out how they had been grouped. This led to some interesting discussions as the children shared their reasoning.

During choosing time, Seren enjoyed matching the numerals to the correct amount of bees in a matching game. Not only did she do a fantastic job of matching, she showed off her counting in French! Very impressive, Mrs Biasi will be proud!

Well done to all of the children in Reception class who have had a very important job to complete this week. (Reception Baseline Assessments) You’ve been superstars!

Have a wonderful weekend,

Miss Dawson, Miss Baum & Mrs Troy.

To begin the week, we celebrated European Day of Languages. In Early Years, we learned all about Romania. We listened to some Romanian music, decorated our classroom with flags that the children had coloured and created our own plate designs as Romania is well known for its beautiful pottery.

Samuel proudly showed off his traditional clothing before his Mum came in to school to read a Romanian story book and share her delicious food. The children listened carefully to the story and used the pictures to talk about what was happening. Some children even picked out some words and correctly translated them – very impressive! The food was so tasty, it left us wanting more!

Thank you to Samuel and his Mum for helping us learn about Romania.

Nursery

Nursery have been reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears this week. They used the teddy bears to join in the story using their best Daddy, Mammy and Baby Bear voices. They have also been singing ‘When Goldilocks Went to the House of the Bears’, look at their fierce growling faces…

The children helped make porridge oat play dough this week, let’s hope Goldilocks doesn’t come and eat it all up!

Reception

Reception began their Sounds Write lessons this week. We are very impressed with the effort and dedication they have shown to become great readers and writers – keep it up!

Well done to all of the children in Reception and Year 6 who delivered a fantastic Welcome Liturgy for our All Saints’ family and friends. You all made us so proud!

We have been blown away with all of your hard work this week, we hope you enjoy a restful weekend.

Miss Dawson, Miss Baum & Mrs Troy.

After a day off for the Queen’s funeral on Monday, the children showed an interest in the Queen and her family. We went outside to collect natural gems such as leaves and twigs to create nature crowns. The children looked like royalty…

In RE this week, we have discussed the importance of our names and have talked about what makes each of us unique to one another and special to God.

Reception class met their buddies this week. They loved getting to know them and showing them round our classroom. I think Year 6 had just as much fun playing as our Reception children did!

In Nursery this week, we have been looking at our names. The children have been recognising and building their names with magnetic letters and some children have even begun to practice writing their names! Very impressive Nursery class!

Have a lovely weekend everyone,

Miss Dawson, Miss Baum & Mrs Troy