Sharing our Stories: 06/10/2023

6th October 2023Geoff Hewitt

Beautiful Work This Week

At The Coalface: A Plover Expedition Story

Beautiful Curation in the XP Ideas Cafe!

Top of the Blogs

Crew MW’s School Trip @ Carcroft School

Beautiful Work from Scarlett @ XP Gateshead

Year 3 Glow Day Crew Maths and Science @ Plover

Rainforest Research @ Norton Juniors

Reading for Pleasure @ Green Top

Class 2 Make Bird Feeders @ Norton Infants

This Week in PE @ XP

Share your stories with us!

We now have a new dedicated news email so that you can send your stories, updates or ideas about potential news articles directly to us in Comms. 

It might be something you or your students have achieved, a charity you’re supporting or anything at all that deserves a wider audience.

Write to us at [email protected] –  we want to hear about it, write about it and celebrate it!

Class 2 make bird feeders 🐦

6th October 2023Rebecca Kendrew-Jones

This week as part of our expeditionary learning we have been using our fine motor skills to make bird feeders. The children loved carefully threading the cereals onto pipe cleaners, bending them into a shape and hanging them in our outdoor areas. It’s been great fun checking each day to see how much the birds have eaten. Well done Class 2!

Thoughtful Thursday – Life skills.

5th October 2023Sarah Winkley

Today Nursery dedicated their “Thoughtful Thursday” Crew to learning the life skill of putting on their own coats. These skills are essential for teaching independence, boosting confidence and developing gross motor skills in young children. We have a special song for doing just this in Nursery, which we practised and then I modelled step by step, just how it was done. The children also learned how to turn their sleeves the correct way after removing their coats, as this is a real issue for little people as they often end up inside out, making it tricky to put it back on. We practised several times.

At “playtime” significantly less help was needed to help the children put on their coats. It is a skill which we will continue to practise in school and I hope the children are encouraged to do this idependently at home also. Well Done Nursery! You are “Go for it Gorillas” and “Persevering Parrots” also.

We are Gruffalo’s, Gruffalo’s, Gruffalo’s!

4th October 2023Sarah Winkley

This week Nursery have been creating Gruffalo’s hats, (as part of our second case study “What do you see if you take a stroll in autumn?”) using a variety of 2d shapes. Nursery have been learning about matching shapes and using language such as “Pairs” and “The same”. The children have thought hard about the names of the shapes and how many of each shape they will need when creating their Gruffalo’s faces to match the model… They have done a wonderful job so far, here are a few!

Woodland Animal Hunt.

4th October 2023Sarah Winkley

Last week the Nursery children were learning about the different kinds of animals that live in woodlands, through our story “The Brave Little Owl” written by Penny Little and Sean Jullian. We are very fortunate to have a beautiful wooded area within our school grounds, just behind Nursery. So we went to explore the woods and see if we could spot any autumnal animals on a woodland animal hunt.

Children checked off the animals from their list and named them. We also found some natural treasures within the woodland such as feathers and dandelions which sparked some curiosity and interesting questions. Well Done Nursery.

Crewso Returns!

4th October 2023Sarah Winkley

Last week we welcomed back two very special individuals. Crewso, the Early Years Crew Bear, who had been enjoying his summer in Leeds. He has been meeting new children and soaking up all of the local History of Leeds and surrounding areas within Leeds City Museum. Crewso had taken part in the “Leeds Going On a Bear Hunt” initiative to raise money for the Leeds Children’s Hospital, a cause very close to our hearts and community. However, when Crewso heard through the grapevine of the return of one our reception pupils, Bruce, he knew it was time to come home.

We would like to thank all of the families who took part in the Leeds Going on Bear Hunt, in Leeds this summer. We would be delighted if you would share your photos with us, by sending them to your class teacher via Dojo. We would also like to thank all of the EYFS children and children across the campus for designing and creating such a beautiful bear to help share our story and supporting such a worthy cause. We are Crew!

Feed the birds 🐦

4th October 2023Elouise Chadwick

Today we have made bird feeders to put around our school grounds. We have been discussing the importance of taking care of the birds, especially at this time of year. Well done Class 1 👏 It was great exercise for our finger muscles too! 😊

Class Two Field Work to Squirrel Wood

29th September 2023Rebecca Kendrew-Jones

Today Class Two completed their field work at Squirrel Wood. The theme of the visit was one of our favourite stories, The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson. This is a key text in our current expedition case study titled ‘What do you see if you take a stroll through the deep dark wood?’

Here’s what we got up to…

We started the day with a short bus ride to Squirrel Woods. It was very exciting sitting with our friends. Once we had arrived we walked to a clearing in the woods where we would complete our activities.

Our first activity was a scavenger hunt. Our task was to search for things that could be the body parts of the Gruffalo such as his ‘terrible tusks, terrible claws or terrible teeth in his terrible jaws!’

Next, we discussed the different habitats of the animals in the story. Our challenge was then to recreate them in the woods. Look at our fantastic Gruffalo dens, treetop and log pile houses.

After that it was time for a snack break with warm popcorn and apple juice. We circled up around the fire pit and watched as the flint and steel created a spark to light the fire. It was very exciting watching, listening and waiting for the corn kernels pop.

While we were eating our snack some children volunteered to have a go at using the flint and steel to make a spark.

After this it was time for our final activity which was the one the children loved the most… using clay to make our own woodland creatures! Some children decided to press their clay against a tree to create a face which they then added features too. Look at our amazing work!

Before we knew it, it was lunch time. So we finished off our fieldwork with a picnic in the sunshine.

What a lovely day full of great memories, happy children and fun in the woods.