Class Blogs | Norton Infant School

Finding Our Happy – Supporting Emotional Wellbeing in KS1

15th April 2026Laura Parsons

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 Zones of Regulation, 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!

Thank you for your continued support.

Easter Traditions

23rd March 2026Sarah Winkley

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.

Where will our vehicles take us?

18th March 2026Sarah Winkley

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.

World book day in EYFS

11th March 2026Emma Powell

Last Friday we celebrated World Book Day. It was a fabulous day and children were all very excited to dress as a book character and design a hat inspired by a book of their choice. We had some amazing creations that will be talked about for a long time to come.

We started the day with our community meeting where we paraded our amazing hats and costumes. We then went back into the classroom to take part in different activities linked to some of our favourite stories. We created Hungry Caterpillar repeating patterns, built houses for The Three Little Pigs and spent time listening to some of our favourite stories.

Mindful Monday

9th March 2026Sarah Winkley

Today in Crew Nursery kicked back with a follow up activity to world book day. They each attempted a Fairytale character Hide and Seek. The children looked for traditional characters and counted how many times they could spot them. Most children attempted to write numbers or make marks to represent what they had found. Amazing work and lots of fun!

World Book Day 2026.

9th March 2026Sarah Winkley

On Friday Nursery celebrated World Book Day. Children were so excited to come to school in fancy dress as a book character or with their home made Dr Seuss inspired crazy hat. All children and hats looked absolutely amazing!

We celebrated with a a host of book inspired small world activities where children could create their own stories around their favourite characters.

We made bookmarks to help keep our place in our books….

Finally we used our tales tool kit writing frame to help us tell stories by cutting and sticking characters and drawing our own settings. These were amazing, the story language and creativity that the children used was fabulous.

Oh What a Wonderful World Book Day!

6th March 2026Elouise Chadwick

The children arrived looking absolutely amazing in their costumes, and the hats were truly sensational. A huge thank you to all of you parents for the time and effort you put into helping the children prepare for today – it really made the day extra special.

We started World Book Day just as you might expect… with our heads in a book! The children enjoyed some quiet reading time before we gathered together to share and admire everyone’s fantastic costumes and creative hats.

Throughout the day, the classroom was full of exciting book-themed activities. In the construction area, the children took on the roles of the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf, building houses and acting out the story together. We also created Hungry Caterpillar repeating patterns, made our very own beanstalks, and even had a go at writing our own stories.

It was a joyful day full of imagination, creativity, and a love of books. Well done to all of the children for their enthusiasm and fantastic participation – we are very proud of them!

Thank you again for helping to make our World Book Day so special.

📚 World Book Day 2026 📚

6th March 2026Lauren Gate

This year our World Book Day had a Dr Seuss theme – a cat in the hat inspired crazy hat! Boy did the children deliver!! We had everything from gardens to space helmets and minions to globes – the children’s hats absolutely blew our socks off! 👒🎩

In crew this morning, Y2 created their very own crew murals inspired by their favourite books. We took time thinking of a way to represent our favourite books, drawing them and then sticking them all together to create our collaborative artwork.

We also spent some time with The Cat in the Hat himself this morning – we watched the story and then had a go at drawing our very own Cat in the Hats. What a great day!!!

RE- Holi Festival

6th March 2026Anna Wojcik

This week our school assembly was all about the wonderful festival of Holi. We learned that Holi is a colourful spring festival celebrated by many people around the world.

During the assembly, we listened to the story of Holika and Prahlad, which teaches an important lesson about good winning over evil.

One of the most exciting parts of our assembly was when we got to throw colourful powder to wish good luck and happiness to everyone. It was so much fun seeing all the bright colours everywhere! We also decorated a tree using bright spring colours. It looked beautiful and reminded us that Holi is also about welcoming spring, new beginnings, and spreading joy.

A Cup of Compliments

4th March 2026Lauren Gate

Over the last few weeks in our “Wise Wednesday” crew sessions, Crew Hamilton have been thinking all about our mental health and having a positive mental attitude. This morning we spent our crew session filling each other’s cups with compliments. Some highlights included: