This morning in crew we were thinking all things Earth Day. The seam running through our expedition this term is “protecting our planet” and so the timing of Earth Day during our expedition was absolutely perfect. We started our crew session with discussions about what we can do to help protect our planet – thinking about turning off lights, picking up litter, using reusable water bottles and using the same shopping bags all the time.
We then started to think about what the ways that we were going to try and really make a difference. Thinking of four ways we are going to try and help the planet.
This afternoon, Class 5 fully embraced their role as artists as we continued exploring our guiding question: The Blue Planet: How Can I Impact the World?
We began by reminding ourselves of our exciting final product — a reusable water bottle featuring our very own artwork. The children were buzzing with purpose, knowing their designs will help promote looking after our planet 🌍
✏️ Inspired by Beatrix Potter
We started by learning about the wonderful Beatrix Potter — a famous artist and writer who loved sketching animals using pencil. We noticed how carefully she observed real creatures and used soft, delicate lines to bring them to life.
Inspired by her work, we practised using our art pencils to create a range of tones, from light shading to darker, bolder marks. We then explored different patterns and textures, thinking about how these could help add detail to our own artwork.
👀 Thinking Like Artists
Next, we became art critics! We carefully studied a selection of model sketches and asked ourselves:
How has the artist used shading?
Where are the darker and lighter areas?
What techniques do we like and want to try ourselves?
One of the examples was Mrs Parsons’ own artwork… but the challenge was set — could we do even better?
Finally, we took our sea creature outlines and began transforming them into beautiful, detailed pieces using all our new sketching skills.
The concentration in the room was incredible — children carefully adding shading, experimenting with tone, and bringing their sea creatures to life. Every piece is unique, thoughtful, and full of creativity.
We are so proud of the effort and artistic flair shown today — we can’t wait to see these designs printed onto our reusable water bottles! 💧✨
The whole of EYFS last week were well and truly hooked, lined and sunk into our new summer expedition “Seaside Explorers, what happens where the sea meets the shore?”
The children explored various sea creatures introduced to them through our hook text, “Commotion in the Ocean”. Each crew were given a sea creature to investigate and research, using the internet and supporting non fiction texts. The children then compiled fact files about their given sea creatures and created a large scale piece of artwork between them working collaboratively. They had lots of fun doing this and found out the most amazing facts! Each crew have employed all of their artistic talents to really think about how the creatures look and bring out the best in their features.
Both Nursery and Reception classes presented their sea creatures and fact files to each other in our weekly community meeting. They were so excited to share their interesting facts and spoke thoughtfully and beautifully about their creatures and the new knowledge that they now have! We can’t wait to dive deeper into our thrilling summer expedition. Just look at the quality and craftsmanship of our work, the children really were Go for it Gorillas!
This week in Key Stage 1, we came together for a short community meeting built around the beautiful book Find Your Happy. Through this story, we explored something really important: understanding our feelings and knowing what to do when they feel big.
At school, the children are very familiar with the ZonesofRegulation, which help us to recognise and name how we are feeling:
Blue Zone – sad, tired, or unwell
Green Zone – calm, happy, ready to learn
Yellow Zone – excited, worried, or a bit wobbly
Red Zone – angry, overwhelmed, or out of control
During the community meeting, we talked about how we all move through these zones every day—and that’s completely normal. The key message we shared is that all feelings are okay, but we can learn ways to help ourselves feel safe, calm, and ready again.
Using Find Your Happy, we explored how the character experiences different emotions and discovers simple strategies to feel better. We then practised some of these together:
Breathing techniques – “smell the flower, blow out the candle”
Relaxing our bodies – tightening and releasing muscles
Thinking of something that makes us smile
These small strategies can make a big difference, especially when children are feeling in the yellow or red zones.
How you can support at home
You might like to continue these conversations at home by:
Asking your child which “zone” they are in
Talking about what helps them feel calm or happy
Practising simple breathing together
Reminding them that it’s okay to feel all emotions
By using a shared language between school and home, we can help children to better understand themselves and build the skills they need to manage their feelings with confidence.
Our key message
We reminded the children that being in the green zone all the time isn’t the goal—because that’s not realistic for any of us! Instead, it’s about learning how to recognise our feelings and find our way back to feeling safe and ready.
We are so proud of how thoughtfully the children engaged with this important message. Ask them about how they “find their happy”—you might even learn a new strategy yourself!
Last week Nursery were exploring and for most being introduced to the real meaning of Easter for the first time. We told a child friendly traditional tale of Easter and the children explored themes of whether the treatment of Jesus was fair and kind? Were the people who hurt him “Loving Lions”? They were hooked into the story, using a Good Friday version of pass the parcel. The children pulled out items that were significant to the story and suggested what they maybe… They had some great ideas, grappling that a bamboo cross was “a sign” or “an arrow”. They suggested that the piece of red material was “a towel” or “scarf” and that a crown made from pipe cleaners was “a hat” or a “hula hoop”. They correctly identified bread and fish and stones.
The children carried large construction tubes, testing their gross motor skills, around the outdoor area including up and over the hill. They worked in pairs mostly, being teamwork tigers. The tubes symbolised Jesus cross. The children offered some wonderful ideas around this activities, understanding that Jesus must have been “tired”, “aching”, “sore” and they found it “tricky”.
Throughout the week the children had the opportunity to create an Easter crown using craft materials.
To activate and construct the idea of Easter being a time of new life, the children took part in some planting. They each took turns to plant their own cress seeds, learning what things plants need to survive and grow. The children really enjoyed this activity and were able to explain that plants need “sun”, “water”, “air”, “soil” or “muck” to grow.
Our maths work also centred around traditional Easter and new life last week too as the children recapped on repeating patterns using traditional pictures and baby animals.
Last week Nursery brought case study three of our expedition to a close by thinking about “Where will your vehicle and imagination take you?”
We all bordered the “Imagination Station Train” and pretended as we chugged along the tracks and pulled into lots of imaginary worlds. The journey began by being modelled to the children, encouraging them to think of far away or imaginary places, such as Lollipop land or Chocolate World. As the children became immersed in their play, they began to suggest stops of their own such as Dinosaur Land, The Jungle, Mermaid World, Unicorn Land and Sweetie Town.
The children were then asked if they could go in any vehicle, to any place – Where would it be? How would they get there? And most importantly what would their vehicle be powered by? The children made some wonderful suggestions using their imagination and knowledge, built up from throughout the expedition, really consolidating their learning. We really have been on the move!
In provision the children also explored, used their imaginations and translated their learning to create their own imagination station journeys.
