Our Blog

May 27th 2023 - Therapy putty, balance bikes and doubles!
 
We have had a great time this week testing out our new ‘therapy putty’ with very special exercises which strengthen our finger muscles. Even Mrs V thought the exercises were very challenging! We worked hard and had to put lots of effort in to do the exercises well. It was also a week when two new balance bikes arrived! These were funded by the PTA - thank you PTA! We all had lots of turns and, although it was tricky for some, we persevered and got the hang of it! Reception children have been learning all about doubles in maths! They are very good at showing doubles with their fingers and telling me doubles all the way to double six! They enjoyed sorting dominoes into ‘doubles’ and ‘not doubles’. 
May 5th 2023 - Coronation Celebrations!
 
We had a fabulous day dressed in red, white and blue and celebrating the King’s Coronation! We all took part in a competition to paint a portrait of the king wearing his crown. We made our own crowns and decorated crowns in red, white and blue pom poms and jewels. We made lots of red, white and blue patterns with lots of different materials. We all enjoyed printing the Union Jack flag too! In the afternoon we all went outside to join the whole school fete! We threw wellies as far as we could with Mr Gibbs, played ‘splat the rat’ with Miss Crankshaw, decorated cakes with Sarah, made windmills with Dani and played skittles with Mrs Nelson. We all had a great time!
April 28th 2023 - Jack and the Beanstalk
 
This week, we have been reading different versions of Jack and the Beanstalk! We love joining in the story! The Reception children have been busy drawing story maps and putting actions to the story too! We have had great fun learning parts of dialogue from the story when different characters meet each other for the first time! We hope you like our Reception story maps!
April 21st 2023 - A busy first week back!
 
This week has been so busy with threading, cutting, painting spring trees with blossom on, sequencing pictures of Nursery Rhymes and listening to lots of different versions of Jack and the Beanstalk! We hope that you enjoy the pictures which include a few from before Easter too.
March 24th 2023 - Spring!
 
This week, we have been learning all about spring! We have been looking out for signs of spring everywhere we go. We have spotted shoots peeping out of the ground, buds coming on the trees, flowers appearing, baby animals in the fields and more minibeasts in Forest School! We even went on a trip! We put on our coats and wellies and all the other children in the school waved goodbye to us! We walked across the BIG field and up and over the BIG hill! We were looking for the sheep and the lambs! We changed the words to 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' to 'We're Going on a Sheep Hunt'! We are SO funny! We had to go through long, wavy grass and thick, oozy mud! Finally we got the field and watched the lambs with their mummies. We noticed that all the mummy sheep had two baby lambs. We noticed that they were drinking milk from their mummies and some people said that that was just like they did when they were a baby! We all spotted their long waggy tails and how the liked to jump around the field! Everyone took clipboards so that we could watch the lambs and draw them - we had to remember that they needed four legs! We had such a great time! When we got back to school, Mrs Wrixon met us at the front door and said that she'd missed us! So, we went around the whole school saying, "We're back!" in our big voices! Everyone was pleased that we'd had a good time and asked us lots of questions about our adventure!
 
Back in the classroom, we looked very closely at daffodils with magnifying glasses. We named the parts of the flower (stem, leaf, bud, petal) and counted the petals. We noticed that all the daffodils had six petals in the shape of a star! We looked inside the 'trumpet' of the daffodil and saw that there was some pollen in there. We talked about how the pollen is collected by bees to make into honey. Our drawings will be on our 'Spring' wall in our classroom! What changes can you see when you are out for a walk?
March 10th 2023 - Another busy week!
 
This week we have continued our fine-motor skills development by using our scooping scissors to pick up pom poms and put them on a pallete! We have also used giant kitchen tongs and large balls to practise our opening and closing hands. Everyone enjoyed challenges to develop our 'pinchy fingers'. It was very fiddly to peel the small stickers off and stick them in the squares. We continue to develop our scissor skills and, as you can see, we are making great progress! In maths, Pre-School have been builiding towers using the language of tall and short. We have also been subitising when playing dominoes! Reception have also been measuring how tall classroom toys are using cubes.
 
We thoroughly enjoy building vehicles with our big blocks, sometimes we build a bus or a fire engine, and other times a boat or an ambulance! We made our own playdough too, but we still don't have a recipe that we like and it is crumbly one minute and too wet the next! We had lots of fun with the bouncing putty! It bounced everywhere!
 
Have a look at our Forest School gallery to see how we explored mud this week!
March 3rd 2023 - Pedaling trikes, yoga and more!
 
We love to be physically active when we play! We spend time outdoors whatever the weather! This week we have had a focus outdoors on pedaling the trikes. Our School Councillors have written a letter to Mrs Browne to ask for some smaller trikes and balance bikes as some of our children can't yet reach the pedals. In the classroom, we've been practising our yoga moves to develop our core strength, balance and co-ordination. We've all enjoyed playing in the mud kitchen and rolling balls down the tubes on our water wall.
February 24th 2023 - Fine-motor Skills Fun!
 
Every week we have a number of activities which focus on fine-motor skills. Fine-motor skills falls under the curriculum area of Physical Development. This week, we have also used our planning for the children as an opportunity to ensure that we learn too! We have taken all of our activities 'back to the basics' and explored the fundamental, step-by-step skills that the children will need to be proficient scissor users! We have started by providing lots of activities for children to practise the action of opening and closing their thumbs to fingers on both hands with their thumbs facing up to the ceiling. This means that we have had lots of fun activities with kitchen tongs, scissor scoops and tweezers! Watch for these activities in future blogs, as we will need lots of opportunity to practise squeezing, strengthening our muscles for good hand control and eye-to-hand co-ordination! We are all very keen to try the scissor skills activities which have been led by an adult. We have spoken about sicssor saftely and practised holding scissors. We have then practised snipping - playdough and straws were great fun for this and we ended up making lots of birthday cakes! Towards the end of the week, we were certainly ready for more challenge and we introduced 'fringing' activities by snipping or snipping along a thick line for those that felt ready to try. Many of us were ready to use our 'helping hand' to hold the sugar paper. It was thumbs up in more ways than one!
February 3rd 2023 - What a busy week packed full of learning!
 
This week we have been busy learning inside and out! We have been doing lots of sensory mark-making in sand, paint and shaving foam! We made our own dough to exercise our finger squeezing, pinching and rolling muscles! We have been building bridges, towers and skyscrapers and balancing people on top! The obstacle course outside has been tricky and so we have been learning to balance ourselves too! We have practised putting our arms out to help! Reception maths has been super fun as we learn the 'count all' strategy! We are all exhausted! Back for more on Monday, everybody!
January 27th 2023 - We're Going on a Bear Hunt!
 
This week, we have thoroughly enjoyed our focus story, 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' by Michael Rosen. We have acted the story out, played with our small world 'Bear Hunt' kingdom, read stories in our Bear Cave, and drawn and painted story maps! We hope you like our learning!
January 20th 2023 - Chinese New Year!
 
This week, we have been celebrating Chinese New Year and learning about Chinese New Year traditions! We cleaned the home corner, decorated trees, made lanterns, had a go at Chinese writing and much, much more! Our favourite part was forming a band, banging drums, ringing bells and parading around the whole school for our lantern parade! The Year 3 and Year 4 children clapped in time with our drums! We didn't think we could all fit in Mrs Wrixon's office to shout 'Happy Chinese New Year!' - but we did! If you have time this weekend, maybe you could make some noodles for dinner or try some spring rolls! If you do, don't forget to try to use chopsticks and send a picture to Mrs V!