Today, Reception have taken part in an exciting workshop led by creative arts practitioners and illustrators, Sarah and Molly. They told us all about Hay festival, what will happen on the day of the visit and that we would be making special red hats to wear.

After listening to the story I want my hat back by Jon Klassen, the children became the different characters, retelling the main events.

They then used felt pens, pencil crayons and paint to create collaborative red art work.

The focus for another activity was light and shadow, so the children were challenged to cut out different shapes and explore layering on the light boxes.

The children had a really creative day and are really looking forward to visiting Hay festival next month.

This week we have been scientists, exploring, making predictions, investigating, testing and adapting ideas. The theme for Science Week was change and adapt so the children explored a variety of activities. Here are just a few.

Observing frogspawn and tadpoles from the pond.

Exploring bubble wrap frogspawn and thinking about the life cycle of a frog.

Investigating how to rescue the dinosaurs from the bucket, changing the level of the water using stones.

Using different sized vehicles on the ramp, changing the surface and the height.

Exploring different materials using the magnets.

Creating a new animal, thinking about what it would look like, where it would live and what it would eat.

The children have had a lovely World Book Day, dressed up as their favourite book character.

They shared their special book, discussing why they like it. The children created their favourite character using loose parts, play dough or construction. They became story tellers, orally telling stories or using story props to change traditional tales.

The whole school had a special assembly which included a book quiz. The children became authors and illustrators, making exciting book front covers. At story time, family members joined us to listen to a class story. What a fun day!

The Reception children have been exploring Old Bear’s toy room. The toys sent us different problems to solve and the children have been busy making predictions, investigating and explaining what happened. They have been exploring floating and sinking with Duck, testing different ramps and surfaces for Rabbit, exploring with magnets for Bramwell Brown and investigating which materials will not blow away for Little Bear who had lost his trousers on a windy day.

Reception have been busy in the outdoor area. They have been retelling stories, drawing story maps, writing, building words using their phonic skills, subitising dice patterns and ordering numbers.

The Reception children have been enjoying lots of exciting Christmas activities. Here are just a few!

They helped decorate the school Christmas tree and then worked collaboratively to create their own trees using loose parts.

With Class Two, we visited St George’s Church to search for clues about the season of Advent.

The children created Nativity scenes using loose parts.

A special visitor arrived and the children enjoyed opening their gift.

The children have really enjoyed writing Christmas lists on their new writing board, kindly given to us by Newcastle Children’s Centre.

What a busy time! Happy Christmas everyone.

Reception have been learning all about Healthy Heroes. In a workshop led by the School Nurses, they focused on healthy eating, the importance of drinking lots of water, getting enough sleep, being active and being kind to ourselves and to others. The children really enjoyed playing the active movement game and filling the kindness bucket with kind words and actions.

The hall is filled with amazing cake creations for today’s bake off. Emma and Donna had the very difficult task of judging so much so there were multiple winners in the age groups they each judged for.
The cakes will be on sale at Friday’s Christmas fair…we hope you can join us for some scrumptious cake and a drink.

In Class One, we had fun celebrating bonfire night.

At Forest School, the children made friendly fireworks for our forest friends and enjoyed being exploding rockets.

In Funky Fingers, we created firework patterns using felt pens, chalks, by spraying water and also on the bikes.