Otterbourne Church of England
Primary School
With God's love, all are encouraged to thrive
TRUST
RESPECT
DETERMINATION
TRUST
RESPECT
DETERMINATION
TRUST
RESPECT
Blog
29.11.24
We are well into the preparations for our Nativity this week. The children have all tried on their costumes and we are now rehearsing our stage presence! At this point in the preparations we are imagining the worst but it always comes together and this year will be no exception! I have to say that this is one of the nicest nativities I have ever done - it's called Snuggle Up Stable. The songs are gorgeous and we have added Makaton actions to every song which the children have been fantastic at remembering! See you all in church at 9.30 on Friday 6th December 
In Numicon we have been adding two shapes and saying out loud the number sentence e.g. 3 and 4 makes 7. We always do the practical first before saying the sentence so it really sinks in.
We have still squeezed in Bug Club and learnt the sounds /b/ and /f/. We've continued to revise all sounds and our four tricky words: to, go, no and the. Tricky words just have to be remembered and not sounded out.
The children have shown great engineering skills with paper cups and lolly sticks. There have been some extraordinary buildings and a maze that was a big collaborative effort.
In our creative area the children have been so careful mixing orange and green. On a paper plate they had the yellow and red paint or yellow and blue paint. They carefully added red to the yellow and blue to the yellow to make different shades with they painted on the outside of the plate.
Forest School was the highlight of the week. When we arrived in the woods there was the most enormous puddle of varying depths. There was splashing, jumping, kneeling, lying down and general puddle madness. Wellies were full of water and hearts were full of joy! The photos tell the story....
The box of Christmas things came down and the tree has gone up in readiness for December on Monday.
18.11.24
Another week has flown by in Otters!
On Monday the children showed great resilience during their flu nasal sprays - well done to everyone! Some of the children also had the chance to visit an ambulance for their diabetes checks, which they approached with a lot curiosity and even more bravery. Monday lunchtime saw the much anticipated inter-house cross country event, where our Otters teamed up with their Year 6 buddies for support. Congratulations to Fia and Arthur for winning their races! A big round of applause to all the Otters who participated with huge smiles on their faces - even after slipping in the mud! True sportsmanship in action!
This week in phonics, we have learnt two new sounds "r" and "h", along with three tricky words, "the", "no" and "go".
In Maths, we have been continuing to work on number recognition and have been learning to subitise to 3 (recognizing quantities without counting).
On Wednesday we were thrilled to welcome Arielle to Otter Class. She has settled in beautifully, been a friend to all and brought our total number of Otters to 25.
Thursday brought a delightful surprise - a (brief) snow flurry! We didn't waste a moment and headed outside in our wellies and warm coats to enjoy the snow. Later, during Outdoor Learning, the children explored where animals might build their homes in the woods during cold weather. They created fantastic nests, carefully considering how to keep the animals safe and warm.
On Thursday, we were lucky to have a special visit from Pranav's mummy, Mrs Joshi, who read the children the story of Rama and Sita to help us learn more about Divali. The children loved the story and had the chance to try some delicious sweet and savory Divali snacks. They were very tasty and most of the children came back for seconds! Thank you Mrs Joshi for such an engaging and delicious visit!
The Otters have also been hard at work learning 6 new songs for the forth coming and much anticipated Nativity! They have not only learnt the new songs, they have also been learning the Makaton signs to accompany the words. No mean feat! We can't wait to share it all with you.
Have a wonderful weekend and we shall see you back again on Monday.
8.11.24
We had such a fun start to the week this week!
The children (and adults) could barely contain their excitement at the enormous layer of leaves that had fallen from our garden tree during half term. The leaves were dry and crisp and prompted a spontaneous leaf fight! We also buried a few children (not faces), rolled around in them and then did lots of sweeping. Luckily Mr. Hiscocks brought his leaf blower in after school and got rid of them because there were too many for us to gather!
In homes around the world, Diwali was celebrated last week during half term. As part of our Diversity Aspiration, we introduced this festival to the children and were able to share that Pranav and Arvaan celebrate this festival at home. One family is Hindu and one is Sikh so although they both celebrate Diwali they have a different story associated with it. Arvaan's mummy came in on Tuesday and shared the things that Sikh's do to celebrate Diwali. She read the story "52 Princes" which is the Sikh story of Diwali. We looked at some clothes and lots of photos of Arvaan's recent trip to India for a wedding. He was able to visit the Golden Temple, a very sacred place.
Diwali begins with a clean and tidy to sweep out the evil. We swept up leaves, cleaned the bikes in the car wash and we turned the water tray into a laundry where we washed the numbered t-shirts and then hung them on the line in the right order.
We created Rangoli patterns using loose parts, chalk, felt tips and even the wooden blocks.
The children loved the cool feel of the clay when they made diya lamps for their candles. We are leaving them to dry and then we will paint them beautiful colours. Diwali is called the Festival Light as light drives out evil. The diya candles are lit in homes to bring in light.
We decorated our home corner for Diwali with scrunched tissue garlands in yellow and orange. We had fairy lamps, diyas and some lovely Indian clothes to wear in our role play.
In forest school we read the story of "Owl's Lesson" from our Percy the Park Keeper anthology. The children hunted for unusual sticks. They were not allowed to be just straight ones. They used lots of lovely language to tell us why they had chosen them. Freddie found a stick that was a bolt of electricity, Arvaan found an antler shaped one and Ella found one that was a mini tree.
We have a new outdoor stage area for the children to use. We are hoping to discover some hidden talents and maybe make our fortune signing them on early 
Unbelievably we have started to learn the songs for our Nativity. Eek - It is only four weeks away!!!!!!
The children also made beautiful, collage poppies for the poppy wreath that Y6 will put out after the Remembrance Service on Monday.
It's also been a pumpkin-tastic week! We have wrapped them in elastic bands (Funky Fingers) and painted them. The children have also just loved looking at all the different, colours, shapes and sizes. Watch out for more pumpkin fun next week.
Have a lovely weekend x
25.10.24
We made it! What a fantastic start to school these children have had. They have learnt so much, especially about independence. It is rare now that we help a child with coats, puddle suits and wellies.
Through runny noses, coughs and tummy bugs we have had a busy week learning about circles and bubbles!
Drawing Club was another retro favourite "Magic Roundabout" with Zebedee and Dougal. The episode was all about Bubbles. Our words were DRUMMING, SHY, ARRIVE, PACING, GREETING, AGITATED and RACING.
This inspired our week of bubbles and circle. We had bubbles in the water tray, a car wash with soapy sponges and lots of handwashing
We have cut out circles to make snakes, painted some Kandinsky inspired circles for a whole class collage, turned circles into round things like a sunshine, ball, apple etc. In forest school we filled round hoops with different leaf colours.
The children were challenged to free the conkers from a block of ice using salt. They found this VERY challenging because it wasn't instant! A few children remained who ended up dropping the block from a height to crack it open. It was fascinating to see how impatient they were. We need more tasks that require a bit of perseverance.
In forest school there were so many bugs to be found. The children loved rolling over the logs to see what was underneath. A few of the girls made a slug collection and found a home for them on a mossy log. The toad was still hiding under his big log. We found that you need 8 children to hug the large oak tree. We had plenty of time to revisit some of the activities from this past half term such as leaf kebabs and mushroom hunting. We noticed that many of the ground mushrooms were rotting away and we compared this to the fruit in the compost bin.
In Numicon we sequenced numbers to ten and matched them up to the Numicon shapes. We have also explored size order when cutting out pictures from our favourite Oak Tree story.
Have a restful half term because the run up up to Christmas is crazy!!
18.10.24
A very gingery week was had by all!
The Gingerbread Man was our traditional story for Drawing Club. The children loved the story and got louder and louder in their voice of the Gingerbread Man running away "Run, run as fast as you can! You can't catch me I'm the Gingerbread Man!" Our words were LEAP, ACCELERATE, PURSUE, CUNNING, SOGGY, MOCKING, and DISAPPOINTED. There were fantastic drawings and codes for the Gingerbread Man, The Cottage, The Stinky Cheese Monster and The thing you turned into if you touched the Stinky Cheese Monster!!!! It all got very cheesy and stinky...
The children loved making real Gingerbread Men. Every child had a task to do from the recipe. There was measuring, butter chopping and egg cracking tasks to do. The Gingerbread was delicious, it puffed up beautifully in the oven but a few stuck to the tray so I told the children they had jumped out of the oven when I opened it- hence the broken arms and legs
We enjoyed Wild Worship with Mr O'Dowd's Year 5/6 class. They planned and led the worship in the meadow and woods. Mr O'Dowd said the Otter's were fantastic and they earned two fish for Oscar.
In PE we did a Let's Move dance session based on Room on the Broom. The children listened so carefully to the instructions and worked well individually and in pairs.
As part of one of our diveristy aspirations we looked at the Jewish festival of Harvest called Sukkot. The children created a Sukkat shelter outside. The roof was made of leaves and branches so that Jewish people could look up at the stars. We decorated the Sukkah with paperchains and ate our snacks outside.
In Forest School the children had a big explore. They tested how many children it took to hug the giant oak tree. We listened to a Percy the Park Keeper story about the angry rabbit. The mushrooms had changed since last week and were looking quite soggy. The common toad was still hiding under his log (same as the last three weeks) and there were lots of worms and slugs as it was so damp. The children loved making "leaf kebabs", threading leaves onto sticks. It took a bit of time for some children to master this but everyone managed it by the end.
Another fantastic week x
11.10.24
Well, it's happened again! Mrs. Bertacchini has managed to take the most unflattering photos of me AGAIN this week! It's up to you to pick the worst :-D
Its been another busy week with Drawing Club. Our story was Room on the Broom. The children loved the story and we even squeezed in the animation during a wet play. Our challenges involved drawing the dragon and a super duper broom for the witch. Our words this week were WHOOSH, SPLAT, SCALY, HORRIBLE, PASSENGER, ADDITION, FIERY and SWOOP. We've used these words a lot! It was lovely to hear that children have been using Drawing Club words in the correct context at home!
In Bug Club phonics we have learnt three new sounds - i/ n/ and m/. It has been so exciting to begin reading by blending the sounds in words such as pat, sip, mat... And it's not even half term yet :-)
At Forest School we continued to find lots of different mushrooms and fungus. One of them was even purple! The children then set about doing leaf identification. There were lots of oak, field maple, birch and beech leaves found which the children correctly identified. We continued to read our giant Percy the Park Keeper book. This week Percy talked about his favourite place in the park. The children then had to find their favourite part of the woods. Under the giant oak tree was the most popular with its huge trunk and enormous leaves and acorns.
Our Curiosity Cube "rotting fruit" experiment has now finished as the crawling maggots needed to be disposed of!!!!! The tomato skin kept the fruit intact but where the bite mark was it was full of blue and white mold. The apple and pear cores just turned to soggy mush. It has been really good for the children to see what happens to the fruit in the large outdoor compost bin.
Baking our own bread, just like the little red hen, was the best part of the week. The children loved being able to use the words from Drawing Club from last week to describe the process. After the first rise they enjoyed knocking down the dough after Jamie Oliver showed us how to do it with a fist. Each child moulded their own roll and they were left over lunchtime to prove for the second time. Unfortunately, the rise was so great that they stuck to the damp paper towels that were covering them. After a bit of snipping the rolls went into the oven. Apologies if there were traces of paper towel left... it was extra flavouring :-)
Playdough has been very popular this week with lots of cakes, bread and biscuit making. Definitely not for consumption though.
In Numicon we have been exploring repeating patterns which the children enjoyed. Some even moved onto creating more complex patterns than the basic 1,2,1,2,1,2 type.
Harvest Festival has been high on our agenda this week with the children singing our song and learning the Makaton signs. They were absolutely extraordinary in church today and earned FOUR, yes FOUR, fish for Oscar Otter. They walked over so sensibly, sat beautifully and sang out clearly to a packed church. We were so proud of them.
Only two weeks left this half term and we've still got loads to squeeze in. Have a restful weekend x
4.10.24
This week saw the children begin to learn their first letter sounds in Bug Club. They have been taught s/ a/ t/ and p/ with a revision session today. After learning 4 sounds we were able to make words (sat, pat, sap, tap) and READ them!! Whoo hoo.... the children were so excited when I told them they were readers 
In Drawing Club we enjoyed the story of The Little Red Hen. Our words were BAKING, CONCOCTION, INGREDIENTS, COLLABORATE, UNHELPFUL, RISING, SUFFING and JUST DESSERTS. A few children got their "just desserts" (no sticker) for not "collaborating" during tidy up... they were "unhelpful"! The small world set up was a farm. You can see the before and after pictures in the slide show showing just how much fun the children had!
We've been printing with leaves and trying not to mix the paints up - this has been tricky!
With our Numicon sets we have been comparing the shapes and looking at the shapes "in between" two other shapes. This was more taxing than I thought it would be so it took an extra bit of revision. The children are all really good at setting up the Numicon shapes each session. They lay them out in a numberline from 1-10. When they put them away in their little box they are also covertly learning their number bonds to 10 (blue 10 in the box first, followed by the purple 9 and orange 1, then the dark green 8 and the light blue 2 etc...)
In forest school we were going to look at leaf sizes but got distracted by worms, a toad and some fungus. The children then went hunting for unusual things instead. Moss and lichen still feature heavily on the "excited to find" list.
Big boxes were used in so many ways outside. The children loved hiding in them. We replaced cars with conkers down the chutes and the children had to work out that the guttering slope needed to be higher so that the flatter conkers went down better. Good problem solving. Exercise Club outside proved popular with press ups on the wall and floor. This helps with upper body strength to support children with pencil control.
We have been learning about the Jewish Festival of Rosh Hashanah. So, today we had an additional snack of apples dipped in honey followed by pomegranate seeds. Everyone tried them - well done 
Finally, happy birthday to Ella, Rosie and Lula who turned 5 this week 
Have a super weekend,
Mrs Hall x
27.9.24
A wet and windy week in Otterbourne but it didn't deter us from getting outside!
Our forest school session was based in the school field and it poured with rain. The photos don't really show how heavy it was. Thankfully it wasn't cold so the children had a super time collecting different shaped leaves and then leaves that were brown yellow, red and green.
Our Bug Club no word book was ironically called "A Wet Walk". The children were great detectives looking carefully at the pictures as we played games. They have also listened carefully to different sound excerpts such as animals in the park, rainforest, farm etc.
We began our Numicon maths lessons. We familiarised ourselves with the shapes and colours and learnt to put them in sequence from 1-10.
Our role play was a Harvest vegetable shop. The children have begun to learn a song for the Harvest service. A few children chose to print with some vegetables but that quickly changed to hand printing which was way more fun (and messy)!
Our small world tray transformed into a gorgeous woodland theme with badgers, rabbits, deer and hedgehogs.
In Drawing Club we have used a children's TV programme video. I was taken back to my youth with an episode of Bagpuss :-) The children enjoyed drawing Bagpuss, Emily, the shop window, a vehicle and a robot - all lined to the story. We shared some super new words: extraordinary, misplaced, gorgeous, feline, discovered, snoozing, awakened and alert. Its amazing how many times we can drop these into conversation in the week!
We learnt about our class bins: general, recycling and compost. The children put their fruit and vegetable waste in the brown caddy and take turns to put it into the large compost bin outside. We set up a little experiment in class to watch a tomato, apple and pear rotting. After one day the cut tomato had white mould on it and today the pear had a small patch of blue mould. We enjoyed watching a timelapse video of a rotting apple.....:-(
Have a super weekend,
Mrs Hall
20.9.23
You'll get used to this phrase as I use it regularly.... It's been another busy week!
In Drawing Club the children have enjoyed an oldie but goldie "Meg and Mog". We drew Meg, her house, inventions to catch mice, cheese-mobile and cheese eating monsters....! The children have very vivid and funny imaginations - especially the boys with ideas for what their number and letter codes do! The girls are playing it a bit safe :-) It has been a really nice start to the day with LOTS of talk and laughter.
Our topic themed focus this week has been about our families and what different families can look like. We read The Large Family stories about an elephant family with a mum, dad and three children and we shared a book called "And Tango makes Three" about two daddy penguins who adopt and look after an egg. We looked at our own families and how many people there were. The children couldn't believe that Mrs. Hall taught five children from a family of twelve in a previous school! The children used "loose parts" to make family pictures. Loose parts are buttons, stones, shells, sea glass, glass nuggets, wooden rings etc. They are brilliant for creativity but a nightmare to tidy :-D
In Funky Fingers we have been pushing pipe cleaners into colanders. This helps with our finger and hand muscles.
We also began phonics!!!! Introduced the children to Bug Club, our phonics programme, and we have played games, sung the alphabet song and been detectives with a no word book. Mrs. Hall is an expert at reading books with no words! We introduced the children to Adam Ant and Colin Caterpillar (the names made the grown ups giggle).
Mrs Bertacchini began doing her weekly music session on Wednesday and she said the children were so good that they got a fish for Oscar Otter.
In forest school the children remembered the lichen and moss from last week and were super excited to bring it to share in the story circle. We had a remembering challenge: each child had a pot and had to collect 5 things to put in it - a small stick, brown leaf, yellow leaf, feather and acorn. Mrs Hall left her things on a log in case they forgot and needed a reminder but they mostly remembered. All rules were remembered and the children were super speedy returning to the circle on two whistle blows!
We finished the week looking at the life cycle of an Oak Tree. Everyone curled up like an acorn, grew roots and then shoots before becoming saplings and great trees. It was 3 o'clock on a Friday and one little acorn fell asleep. Mrs. Hall is either very dull OR we've had a tiring week!
Have a lovely weekend x
13.9.24
What a week!
The children have come in every morning and amazed us with how grown up and independent they are.
On Monday we eased into the day by locating lockers and putting stuff away. We visited the library so that book bags weren't empty. The children all posed for their photos which are up around the classroom already. There was lots of Challenge Time - we call it this to encourage the children to push themselves a bit as the year progresses - if something is a challenge it's good for us! Lunchtime was fantastic.... there are so many steps to learn such as lining up quietly, getting a coloured wrist band, not losing the wristband in the 30 metre walk to the kitchen hatch, collecting cutlery to balance on their tray and finally choosing salad and dessert! All of this before they even eat anything. And then a whole process of taking the tray to a different hatch, putting cup in one bowl, cutlery in another bowl, waste food in the bin and tray in a pile. It's no wonder they are tired :-)
On Tuesday we shared the Colour Monster story and identified all of our emotions. This year we have introduced a new programme called "Drawing Club". I was lucky enough to do the training in July and was absolutely buzzing with excitement. Drawing Club is a true adventure and perfect for Reception. Based around the Golden Blend of picture books, tales and animations, it involves a short period of Time Together as a whole class followed by time with children exploring their ideas and creativity that can be adapted to how you believe is best. The children had LOTS of ideas about things that made them happy, sad, angry, scared, calm and loved. We refer to these emotions as colour all year. We also squashed the blackberries and did some purple paint pictures. Younger brothers and sisters went on a sibling hunt and had a big cuddle and a photo. Older siblings were very sweet! We finished the day with some yoga which the children all joined in with.
On Wednesday the children drew their own Colour Monster jars deciding what things made them happy, sad, calm etc. The mud kitchen was refilled with soil and herbs were added to the playdough and mud kitchen to add a bit of "flavour" to our concoctions.... In the afternoon the children enjoyed Under the Sea Yoga and calm time. Lots of new rules to learn about tidy up time and sharing responsibility for resources. This has been quite a tricky concept to get for some!
On Thursday the children did the first page in their Drawing Club Adventure Journal. Effectively they joined the club. They designed their own monster and added two secret codes - a letter and a number (or a squiggle). The secret codes took the monster on an adventure by making things happen e.g. turning invisible, flying like a rocket, being able to bounce really high, shrinking... This simple code has encouraged early mark making and we have had lots of imagination being used. In the afternoon we changed into puddle suits and wellies ready for outdoor learning (forest school). The children were really good at being independent and got a fish reward for Oscar Otter. We walked to the woods, sat in a log circle and learned the rules to keep safe. Our rules are: Don't pick, Don't lick, Be sensible with a stick. They also learned that one whistle blow is stand still and two whistle blows is straight to the log circle. The children were AMAZING! We had a really good explore, then sat still and quiet to listen for sounds - car, plane, children in the playground, birds and trees rustling. Next stop was the recently mown meadow. A huge muddy puddle was calling out to us and in we went but as soon as the puddle was disturbed so too was the revolting eggy smell 
So glad the children went home in their kit!
Today we have had another busy day. In Drawing Club we learnt some new, BIG words - discombobulated, shimmer, sobbing, ineffectual, evaporate, timid, tranquility. We made up actions to help us remember them. The children drew and wrote secret codes for a storage solution for the colour monster's jars. We learnt the three school values - TRUST, RESPECT, DETERMINATION and used these words when we talked about behaviour in Challenge Time.
Throughout the week we have enjoyed a snake book and rubber snakes, junk modelling, water play, mud kitchen, role play and lots more.
Roll on next week!
Mrs Hall x
