Yorkshire Air Ambulance Land Art.

Nursery were visited on Wednesday 24th May by an expert visitor, Holly, from the Yorkshire Air Ambulance charity. Holly talked to the children about the role of the Air Ambulance and itā€™s Crew, whilst telling us interesting facts such as; it travels at 160mph, the helicopter costs Ā£19,000 per day to run, there are two of them across the region and patients are treated on board just like a regular ambulance.

Nursery created their own air ambulance land art today, (after modelling and the use of a photo as a stimulus) using large loose parts in the outdoor area. They worked as a team to decide which materials to choose and which materials were most suitable in terms of shape, colour and size.

I think youā€™ll all agree the children have created some amazing land art in the shape and tones of the Air Ambulance. Such beautiful work! They have also learned key words such as Landing Skids, Propellers, Rotors and Ambulance body.

What direction are we heading?

As part of our expedition on Transport this term we have been looking at maps. Today during a maths related activity, Nursery were exploring a familiar route. First they learned about what a route is and then they used a map to guide them and thought hard about positional language including; forward, left and right. They walked the route and then explained how they got back to Nursery talking about familiar landmarks and beginning to use key words above. Well Done to our little Orienteers!

WonderDome

What a way to start our new case study! Exploring space in the WonderDome. We can’t wait to use what we have found out to help us answer our guiding question – where could your journey take you?

Celebration Crew

What a lovely celebration crew this morning. I was so impressed with the children who achieved awards this week for lots of different things – following HoWLs, showing incredible effort and one for being kind to all of his peers!

We loved hearing what each class had been learning this week – thank you Travis M, Lillie-May G, Reid H, Teddi S, Emily W and Rudy W for sharing your learning so confidently.

I wonder who we will be celebrating next week?

Mrs Parsons xx

The Kingā€™s Pants!

This week Nursery have been enjoying two days of exploring and being immersed in our own micro expedition ā€œWhatā€™s a Coronation all about?ā€ based upon our text ā€The Kings Pantsā€ by Nicholas Allan. We learnt that King Charles, will be King Charles the third, as there were two other Charles that were Kings before him many years ago. We have listened to royal military marching music, looked at Royal Guards and observed what musical instruments are played during ceremonies. Then we practised and acted out our own parades.

Our thoughtful Thursday Crew was based around if we were a King or Queen for the day, what rule would we make? Some of the responses included ā€Have chocolate for breakfastā€, ā€Only eat healthy foodā€, ā€Clean all of the house everydayā€, ā€Be kind and gentleā€, ā€Donā€™t drive the bikes too fastā€, ā€Try our bestā€, ā€Help our friendsā€ and ā€make everyone laughā€.

We thought about how we would like to celebrate and talked about parties that may be happening this weekend. Nursery made cupcakes and decorated them for a special surprise!

Our cupcakes were decorated with Red, White and Blue sprinkles – Just like the Union Jack.

Outdoors we took part in a Coronation Hunt, looking for key items and symbols of royaltyā€¦ we enjoyed dashing around to find them and learnt lots of new words linked to the coronation, such as Septre, Red Arrows, Carriage, Bearskin Solider, Union Jack, Parade and Coronation.

Finally our Big Surprise was a ā€Right Royal Tea Partyā€ with a special visitorā€¦see if you can spot him? We had juice in china tea cups and had special treats including our own cupcakes that we created. Itā€™s been a very fun week and we have certainly worked hard, to get smart. Nursery would like to wish King Charles lll a very happy coronation! Long live the King!

Reading at The Laurels

A few children from Year Two spent the afternoon reading, colouring and even had a little sing song with some of the residents from The Laurels. It was lovely to see how much everyone involved enjoyed their time together – we are already counting down to our next visit!

Mrs Parsons xx

Final Touches and Bear-ginng our farewells!

The finishing touches have been added to our bear cub, with Olivia completing his head and each child from the foundation stage putting their hand print on his back as part of our community crew. All that remained to do, was for the logos to be attached and the bear to be varnished before Crewso began his journey to Leeds to join the Leeds Bear Hunt for the summer.

Crewso said his farewells to Norton and began his journey all shiny and proud, to represent the children of Norton Campus!

He was excited to meet his new temporary crew when he arrived in Leeds, stopping for a minute to take in the view of the River Aire across Rose Wharf in the sunshine. Then he happily climbed the stairs and joined his pack ready to be situated in his new home somewhere in Leeds City Centre. Heā€™s going to let us know exactly where he is soon, so that we can all go and visit him! Have fun Crewso! #leedsbearhunt #leedsbearhunt2023 #leedshospitalscharity

Itā€™s Bearly Believableā€¦

But yes, Norton Infant School has itā€™s very own Bear Cub – Crewso!

A short while ago, I launched a competition to design a limb or part of a large fibre glass bear cub in aid of raising funds for Leeds Childrenā€™s Hospital, who are currently supporting one of our families. Below is Bruce, who has found the very first bear on the Leeds Bear Hunt Trail, at Leeds Hospital whilst receiving his treatment.

We have received some beautiful, thoughtful and intricate entries for the competition from most year groups across the campus and I am very proud to announce the artists taking part in the design and decoration of our very own bear cub areā€¦. Ava from 6SO, Evelyn from 4TE, James from 3LG, Olivia in Class 4, Isla in Class 2, Alarna in Class 1 and Lily-Mai in Nursery. As the project forms part of a legacy from our 2022 Foundation Stages Autumn Expedition of ā€œHow do we care for the bears?ā€ Every child in the Foundation Stage and Nursery will be contributing their hand print to the final design also.

The artwork on the bear has commenced and each child has been carefully following their designs to produce an outstanding piece of art, which will be displayed in Leeds City Centre over the summer. Everyone is invited to visit our bear and take part in the Leeds Bear Hunt and feel proud that we have contributed to this fantastic event in aid of such a worthy cause. These children are activists making a difference to their community and we are incredibly proud of them. With teamwork and collaboration anything is possible! Here is a sneak peak of what has been happeningā€¦.

Keep your eyes peeled for the finished bear over the coming week, before it makes itā€™s trip to Leeds for itā€™s temporary home over the summer during the trail. After the trail has finished the bear will return to us at the Infant School to live in our EYFS outdoor space as itā€™s forever home. There will be more fund raising events happening throughout the rest of the school year, to contribute towards the sponsorship of our bear cub, to raise money for the Leeds hospitals charity. As always your support is greatly appreciated and we are truly thankful that we can make a difference together as a community. For more information follow #Leedsbearhunt #Leedsbearhunt2023 #leedshospitalscharity