Who’s that Trip, trapping over my bridge?

21st May 2025Sarah Winkley

Last week Nursery continued to be geographers as they explored the final part of our first case study “Where in the world will this story take us?” The children explored rivers, comparing our local river in Norton; the River Went to the River Congo in Africa.

To hook the children into their learning and help them explore their local area they observed the “Adventures of our Everywhere Bear”, as he sent them a special dojo message with photos of his trek to the River Went, through the magical forest. They loved to see their special class mascot out on his own adventuring and exploring around our village. Many of the children recognising key landmarks on his journey.

The Everywhere Bear beginning his adventure.

The Everywhere Bears adventures led us to our key text of The Three Billy Goats Gruff as we immersed ourselves into the story, due to it being set over a river. The children enjoyed learning about the characters in the story and identified that the Big Billy Goat Gruff was a hero and the wicked troll a villain. They were delighted when the troll was tossed into the river! Here are a few of our representations of the Troll and the Billy Goats Gruff from our maths learning this week focusing on triangles and rectangles.

This got us thinking about how deep the river might be? We then compared the River Went to a much deeper and wider river – the River Congo. The children took a gallery walk of photos of the river, noting differences and similarities between the Congo and the River Went.

We then boarded our imaginary canoes in groups of three, dressed with our binoculars and went on a virtual tour of the River Congo. Thinking about and imagining what we would be able to see, hear, smell and feel. We were very surprised when we were chased by crocodiles and sea snakes! We had to paddle fast! It was very scary and exciting. Not something you’d usually see or encounter at the River Went, thankfully.

The children had so much fun and used the imaginary experience to talk about what they may sense by a river. Beautiful work Nursery and something which you may get to experience for real sooner than you know as part of our fieldwork – shhh!!

Getting Smart in Class 1

21st May 2025Elouise Chadwick

This week in maths the children have been working together to order towers of cubes from 1 – 10 on a number track. They worked collaboratively and accurately placed the towers into a staircase pattern. What a great job!

The children have worked as teamwork tigers in our construction area and continue to make models on a larger scale that are very impressive. All the little extra details always make me smile. This house has solar panels, a lift and a garden for the dinosaurs!

We have been getting creative and have been adding some extra details to our under the sea paintings. The children are really brining their pictures to life…

When the children lead their own learning in the classroom, our areas are always so purposeful. Children choose to read stories, write labels for their models and even practice their number formation. They really are showing me that they are ready for Year One! Well done superstars!

Run run as fast as you can…

21st May 2025Elouise Chadwick

This week, we have been immersed in our new text, ‘The Gingerbread Man’. We have followed a recipe to make our very own gingerbread men. The children enjoyed decorating them with icing, chocolate chips and smarties. I think you will all agree that they look delicious! We are pleased to report that we had no runaway gingerbread men! Instead the children took them home and enjoyed a tasty treat 🙂

A super week of learning in EYFS

16th May 2025Emma Powell

Wow……Nursery and Reception had so many postcard winners in our community meeting this week. Lots of kindness being shown by the youngest children in our school and some great examples of working hard and getting smart. Keep up the super work everyone.

Class 1’s Seascapes…

14th May 2025Elouise Chadwick

Last week, our story ‘The Little Mermaid’ took us under the sea. We decided to create some beautiful paintings of the sea. We used powder paints and took our time to mix different shades of blue. The children enjoyed completing this task and they worked conscientiously, taking their time, which resulted in work to be proud of!

Mindful Monday

12th May 2025Sarah Winkley

Today in our “Mindful Monday” Crew the children checked in with their zones of regulation to see how everyone was feeling, using our monsters to identify and name their emotions. We then took turns with a partner to draw something which happened during their weekend on whiteboards. I was amazed by some of the beautiful drawings in our crew circles, with the majority of children now using lines and circles with a clearer vision of their representations.

The children then took turns to talk about what they had been doing during the weekend with their partner and then recall this to other Crew members. The drawings really helped to bring their recounts to life and both Crews were very respectful of each other whilst they shared their stories. Well Done Crew Winkley and Crew Mortimer!

Castles fit for a future Princess.

12th May 2025Sarah Winkley

Thinking back to last week as we continue with our current case study; “Where in the world will this story take you?” The week began with a visit from a special owl, who dropped by with some postcard clues, which had photos of various castles and palaces from around the world on the front, where our mystery key character “C” may have visited? This helped to hook the children in to our next text Cinderella.

To excite and engage the children further they created beautiful crowns using creative materials during our “Tranquil Tuesday” Crew and off we went on an adventure to a castle to enjoy and immerse ourselves in our new key text, it was very exciting!

The children carefully observed the illustrations in the story and other texts about castles and used the inspiration to shape another piece of beautiful artwork for our final product. They also drew their own castles outdoors in their play and experimented with fairytale castle themed stampers indoors in our painting provision.

In our Maths learning the children explored 2d shapes, thinking about how they look and using words to describe their shape and properties during a dice game. I modelled to the children how they could use the shapes to build/ create a castle. Some of the children copied the examples or my model but most created the most beautiful 2d shape castles and named the shapes they had used, thinking about why they would be useful for certain parts of the building. Here are some examples; “The drawbridge is a rectangle because it’s long and can go up and down” or “These are my pointy roofs, they’re three triangles” and “My windows are circles”. Just look at some of our beautiful work.

EYFS Community Meeting

9th May 2025Emma Powell

We had a super start to our day celebrating with our Be Kind, Work Hard and Get Smart stars from Nursery and Reception this week. We heard some fabulous examples of children persevering with tasks and challenging themselves and each other. What a super week, well done to everyone in our Nursery and Reception classes.

VE Day Celebrations!

9th May 2025Sarah Winkley

Yesterday Nursery had brief history lessson, learning what VE Day is and why we celebrate it? The children joined the whole school for a special VE Day assembly and we had Crew’s dedicated to the celebrations where the children watched red arrow displays and VE Day parades. We all looked beautiful in our red, white and blue clothing with our lovely flags and home made accessories.

The children enjoyed colouring VE Day posters and celebrating with special red, white, blue buns kindly made by our school cooks – they tasted amazing!

Here are a few of our posters!