Yorkshire Air Ambulance 🚁

24th May 2023Elouise Chadwick

We’ve had an amazing visit today. Holly came to talk to the children about the Yorkshire Air Ambulance service. We learned all about where the helicopters live, how fast they travel and the places they might go to.

Isla shared the incredible news about her mum, who recently ran the London marathon and raised £1000 for this amazing charity 👏

A big thanks to all those who have kindly donated to the charity’s clothes bank. It costs £19,000 each day to keep this amazing crew going so every little helps.

Back in the classroom the children have enjoyed writing about what they have learned from our expert visitor…

Handa’s Surprise 🐘🍍

12th May 2023Rebecca Kendrew-Jones

Over the last two weeks children in EYFS have been exploring the story Handa’s Surprise by Eileen Brown. This links to our current expedition, exploring all the different ways we can travel, as Handa is a little girl who walks a long journey to her friend’s village with a basket of fruit on her head. Little does she know there are some cheeky animals who pinch her fruit along the way!

An exciting activity was using all of our senses to explore a pineapple, mango, avocado, orange and passionfruit that feature in the story. Afterwards we created beautiful work by writing sentences about what we found out.

Then we had great fun taking part in an African drumming workshop. Steve from Unbeatable Energy used percussion instruments to retell an African folktale about an Anansi spider.

He then taught us how to play African drums by tapping along to catching rhymes such as ‘juicy juicy mango!’. The children loved making their own music and dance moves and then performing this to their parents at the end of the day.

A big thank you to the parents who came to watch our performance. We loved that you had an opportunity play the instruments too! It was an experience the children will definitely remember. 🪘🎶

Travelling on foot around Norton village…

20th April 2023Rebecca Kendrew-Jones

This week we have been hooking into our next expedition titled ‘Would you travel by wheels, wings or other things?’. Yesterday the children explored the book Martha Maps It Out by Leigh Hodgkinson. In the story Martha creates maps of lots of different places including her local village. The children worked collaboratively to notice and discuss all the features of Martha’s map. We then used this as a stimulus to predict what we might notice when travelling on foot around our local area. Were they the same or different to Martha? The only way to find out was to go on a walk…

We walked a circular route around Norton village passing The Royal Hotel, Baps and Wraps, the park, windmill and Junior School playing fields. The children spotted and discussed so many other features of their local area including sign posts, bus stops, passing vehicles, wildlife, pets and people of different occupations. Some children enjoyed pointing out their own homes too!

When we were back in school we looked again at the predictions we recorded about what we might see on our walk. The children’s ideas were fantastic suggestions and we ticked off most of our things on our lists! Well done Class 2 ☺️

A London Bus came to Norton…

18th April 2023Rebecca Kendrew-Jones

Today the children in EYFS had the opportunity to explore a vintage London bus. Class 2 loved climbing up to the top deck and role playing being the bus conductor on board. What another great day in hook week, we’re loving our new expedition already!

Hooking into our next expedition…

17th April 2023Rebecca Kendrew-Jones

Today we have been getting excited about our summer term expedition. Our guiding question is ‘Would you travel by wheels, wings or other things?’. Can you guess which mode of transport we are creating here? The children loved using paper mache and working collaboratively to create their models.

Final Touches and Bear-ginng our farewells!

3rd April 2023Sarah Winkley

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. He’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

Farewell to our furry friends… 🐥

31st March 2023Rebecca Kendrew-Jones

Yesterday we said goodbye to the 13 chicks we have been looking after for the last ten days. The children have been fascinated watching them hatch and develop in such a short space of time. When they left yesterday most of the chicks had started to grow their wing feathers and some were even beginning to take flight!

The children in EYFS have helped with cleaning their brooder boxes, changing their water and replenishing their food. Best of all, they’ve loved taking it in turns to hold them. We have been so impressed with how kind and gentle the children have been when handling them.

The chicks were collected by The Happy Chick Company who will now take care of them on their farms where they will produce free range eggs for the supermarkets. We wish the chicks a very happy life roaming the countryside 🐥.