16.5.25

We have continued our learning about life cycles by introducing plants. 

On Monday we spent the whole day strimming, digging, weeding and then planting our garden and mud kitchen area. We started with foot-high weeds which were strimmed back, raked up and put in the compost bin. The lower mud kitchen pit had been so compacted that, after digging it over, Mrs Hall and Mrs B couldn't face the second pit! Maybe next week!!?

The children broke up the clumps and pulled up the weeds. We marvelled at some of the roots that were coming out - "they're enormous"! The children emptied four large bags of compost into our planters. This was a huge effort and everyone took a turn with a trowel.

Everything was prepped, then the fun began! The children planted a sweet pea tee pee, three tubs for butterfly/bee attracting flowers in the bug garden and in the mud kitchen we have basil, onions, lettuce, tomatoes, radish, beans and carrots.

Later in the week, we learnt all about sunflower life cycles and the children each planted their own seed to grow at home. At the end of the term, we want to see who did the best growing - no pressure on families!! We also planted Cosmos, Lavender, mint and chive seeds. The children are excellent caterers, filling up watering cans at the outside tap very sensibly. Arthur was super excited to have Water Melon for his snack already.  Then he realised it was full of seeds, and his excitement grew even more. He sat with a cup and removed every seed and planted them the next day!

We also visited the pond again to return our frogs and froglets. Keeping them inside speeds up the life cycle as it is a bit warmer than the pond water. We dipped again and found HUGE tadpoles and one froglet. They were much further behind our class ones.

The whole school got to enjoy chick hatching after our success with the new incubator and brooder. This time the eggs hatched during the week, so we were able to see Bantom chicks hatching.

We haven't had much time for anything else apart from Phonics and Numicon. 

We did have one tangent moment though as Freddie pretended to be an Anglerfish with a yellow flower weed dangling from his forehead! He was ferocious, so we looked up all about Anglerfish and other deep sea creatures.

9.5.25

It was time to say goodbye to the chicks on Wednesday. They were getting their wing feathers and loved jumping up and flapping. As a result the brooder was getting a bit too small for them. We had one final circle time with the chicks wandering aroung, fluttering and pecking food from our hands.

We have been learning about "oviporous" or egg laying animals. The children loved seeing different eggs as we looked at books and watched videos. We read the story of The Odd Egg and the children had to guess what would hatch. A few guessed correctly that an alligator was in the egg. We have drawn and painted turtles, snakes, ostrich, lizards and butterflies.

In Numicon we have been reinforcing our number bonds of ten (10+0, 9+1, 8+2, 7+3, 6+4, 5+5). The children loved making sets of ten using different classroom resources instead of Numicon. Alot of mess to tidy but some great number bonds!

We had a special VE Day, learning about WW2, making medals, flags and paper chains. We added to the field decorations when we went out for our picninc. Year R were lucky as we got to sit with our Y6 Buddy's. We played a couple of games of "pick up sticks" with pencils, which was fascinating to watch... there were the "bulldozer" children who had no hope of picking up a pencil without moving another one in the pile and we had the "strategic" children who looked carefully and thought about which pencil was easiest to get. 

In PE we rolled the balls, threw and caught balls with a partner. We focussed on accuracy rather that just "wellying" the ball!

 

2.5.25

We’ve had a “cracking” week this week with the arrival of 7 chicks. Sadly, one of the chicks didn’t make it as it’s legs and neck weren’t strong enough even after going to the farm hospital to be cared for.

The children have delighted in watching the other 6 chicks develop this week. We have egg-splored chick life cycles and compared them to frogs. The children have held them and used words to describe them. They have written Mrs B instructions for looking after them this weekend in case she forgets what to do!

1. feed them

2. give them water

3. clean them

The children made some egg-cellent shelters for the chicks. We set up a little village for them and enticed them into the shelters with food. It was so egg-citing to see them peck their way in and out. One chick even pecked the window!

All were given the opportunity to hold and/or stroke the chicks depending on how brave they felt.

When the chicks have had free roam of the carpet circle the children were egg-ceptionally quiet and respectful. We were really proud of them.

In amongst all of this fun we have been revising our tricky words and the last few Bug Club sounds. In maths we have been looking at the link between adding and taking away. Using Numicon the children are beginning to see the links e.g. 10-6=4, 10-4=6 and 4+6 =10, 6+4=10. This is quite hard but the children were definitely seeing the patterns.

One particularly hot afternoon the children cooled off under the trees dipping their toes in cold water!

We didn’t get to forest school as we had enough nature to look at in class this week.

The photos below are from this week AND last week so they show pond dipping.

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25.4.25

A short but jam-packed week! First thing on Wednesday morning, we went out for Forest School or "Pond School" as it was this week. We loved being able to use this part of our school grounds, but safety is the highest priority when we visit, so we started with our safety briefing! The children understood the spaces they could walk freely and look inside the trays we had used for our catch contents. They learned about the correct way to kneel on one knee to ensure a more secure position so we didn't fall in. Everybody did this really well! After a few net swooshes, every child emptied their catch into white trays so we could clearly see what we had found. Luckily this year there were lots of tadpoles (the newts had eaten them all last year), dragonfly larvae, water boatman and snails. We took some of the tadpoles back to class so we can observe them over the coming weeks as they grow and change. 

We have watched lots of videos and read books about the life cycle of frogs. The children are excited to see the bag legs begin to grow as our tadpoles change to being froglets. Fingers crossed for success!

Our incubator also arrived with Mrs Bertacchini this week. She had been looking after it over the Easter holidays. We have ten chicken eggs keeping warm. The timings are a bit out of sync as we had hoped for hatch day yesterday. Unfortunately, the chicks seem a little too comfortable in their shells! Thankfully today there are definitely cracks appearing but we'll have to film them emerging rather than seeing it :-(

Our froggy week has been punctuated with subtraction in maths, two new Bug Club sounds (ure and er) and two new tricky words (all and was).

 

 

4.4.25

What an egg-citing week it's been learning about the Easter Story.

The children have listened to and watched a variety of versions of the story and understand the significance of the cross on hot cross buns and in church. They made their own stick cross following our Monday Forest School this week. We collected lots of moss and sticks to create the Easter garden which is on display in the pollination patch at the front of school. The children enjoyed creating the garden with a cross and cave.

We made Cross biscuits, but the icing was a bit too runny, and the crosses got a bit lost, but the thought was there!

We made palm leaves and dressed up as the people of Jerusalem, waving our leaves for Jesus to arrive. We will be using the palm leaves in the Easter Service today too.

We did some science and maths with an egg rolling competition. The children chose which chute to roll their eggs down and we found that the steepest chute worked the best. This wasn't the case in class with cars - they crashed at the bottom if it was too steep! Sophie, Ezra and Jasmine were the winners.

It was a lovely end of the week showing off our Easter bonnets. We did a mid-morning parade around the playground for all of the juniors and their teachers to see. Later, we will parade for our families too.

Hoppy Easter to you all :-)

 

Did you guess correctly?

Mothering Sunday Gallery... Can you guess who is who????

Results on Sunday :-)

 

28.3.25

This week we concluded our eco warrior work by looking at plastic waste in the ocean. We read some amazing, but sad, books which told the stories of different sea creatures affected by waste. The children joined "The Clean Up Crew" after reading one beach cleaning story. They went out in the playground and litter picked. There was alot to do!

Our writing wall has been full every day as the children are growing in confidence with their sounds and handwriting.

We enjoyed Wild Worship with Red Kite Class. The children were exceptionally good and respectful. 

 

21.3.25

It's been a "RUBBISH" week! We have done lots of junk modelling whilst thinking about re-using our waste. The children found out about the four R's - Reduce, Re-use, Recycle and Repair. We found out about incineration of waste and the use of landfill. The children didn't like the idea of either of these so they were keen to ensure we sort our bins properly.

We have enjoyed the lovely weather and created some amazing hot wheel garages inside and outside. Most children also joined in with the cross country race today too.

Mrs Holland came in to read ne of her favourite stories " Peculiar Pet". The children then made their own pets just like the story. There were dinosaur pets and stone pets - one of them even had a carrot snack and a toy to play with!

Red Nose Day was very sparkly and the children LOVED the Otterbourne's Got Talent Show. Their favourite acts were the Rubix Cube competition, Magician and Guitar. 

 

14.3.25

We have watched and listened to sooooo many different versions of The Three Little Pigs this week. Our favourite version was "The TRUE Story of the Three Little Pigs". The children have compared the similarities and differences - for example, in one version with three fish and a shark, the fish said "not by the skin on my finny fin fin" instead of the pigs saying "not by the hairs on my chinny chin chin"!

The children have huffed and puffed houses down, built them back up, made wolf and pig masks and put posters all over the school warnng everyone about the wolf.

Dinosaurs have been popular and Mrs Bertacchini and I have learnt lots of fascinating facts as we created a dinosaur museum together.

 

7.3.25

We began the week learning a little bit about Ramadam and how Muslims fast during daylight hours. They also make sure that they demonstrate kindness through Ramadam so we have been doing the same!

World Book Day was great fun with amazing costumes and some lovely books that we shared through the day. We enjoyed the WBD assembly at the beginning of the day and seeing the whole school dressed up.

Today there has been a collaborative project building our own Marwell Zoo. It had a train, animal enclosures and a car park - all labelled by the children. There was even an ice lolly shop where you could buy a refreshing lolly!

 

The eve of World Book Day...

A bedtime story read by Mrs. Hall x

 

28.2.25

It was lovely to get back out for Forest School. The woods were much more usable! We enjoyed looking at the remnants of frost in the shady parts of the field. Our challenge was to look for signs of Spring. There were lots of buds, a few daffodils and new ground growth unfurled under trees. The children found lots of centipedes, slugs and worms. 

We did lots of revision of doubles and the children showed how amazing they are at phonics in our half termly assessments. 

We began our new BIG QUESTION: How can we help? First, we looked at the roles of certain "helping" jobs and the children were keen to share experiences of the dentist, doctors etc. It was good to learn that all emergency services can be contacted by 999 - even the coastguard!

14.2.25

A week filled with doubles and LOVE! Happy Valentines Day :-)

Thank you to Theodore's Gaga who came in to talk about life when she was a little girl. The children enjoyed finding out about how to light a fire.

 

 

 

7.2.25

We had an owl week this week. The highlights include dissecting owl pellets and identifying mouse bones - this was a HUGE hit and loved by all (especially Mrs Hall). We created puppets shows of owl babies, made nests, hidey holes and used our new bird hide.

The children were worried about foxes hurting the owlets so we also learnt a bit about foxes including how to draw them!

 

24.1.25

We continued our bird week as the children continued to paint, draw, observe and count. We made bird feeders to hang in the trees. The children created puppet shows for us to watch. Ther was also lots of writing as evryone was challenged to hunt for the birds around the room.

 

17.1.25

This week we have been thinking about birds. The children have loved making bird masks and listening to the story of "Two Feathers". We've made nests from sticks and moss and nests from playdough.

The window bird feeder is both a blessing and a curse! Just as we focus on quiet learning in phonics or Numicon, we get a bird visitor which causes an eruption of excitement amongst the children and adults alike. Today we saw a robin on the feeder for the first time. We were also thrilled to see a blue tit entering the bird box. We then went off on a tangent and watched two amazing videos about how blue tits build their nest and rear their young. The children sat for about 40 minutes as we stopped and talked about each part. As the last fledglings flew from the box the children cheered - it was gorgeous :-)

On our Be Bright Be Seen day, the children designed bright outfits for cyclists using highlighter pens. Just the pens caused much excitement especially after borrowing them from Year 6. 

When we were learning our Kinetic Letters before Christmas, one of the families was called the Window Cleaner Family. I'd been promising the children for weeks that they could clean the windows and write their letters. This proved very popular indeed. We may hire ourselves out to other classes!

We started a new PE Unit called Gym in the Jungle. The children loved being different animals, moving around the hall in different ways. This was our first time properly changing for PE and miraculously nothing was lost and every child had clothes to put on at the end. It was a military operation though!

We were gifted a beautiful wooden train track which was a highlight of the week. There is one "electric" train which was fought over every day until Mrs B came to the rescue and set up a sign-up sheet and timer. There was lots of name writing and negotiations going on and a lot less tale telling.

 

10.1.25

Happy New Year!

Even though it has been a four-day week we have squeezed 5 days of learning in :-)

"Who's that trip trapping over my bridge?" roared the children as we read The three Billy Goats Gruff in Drawing Club this week. We had some great new words including luscious, gruesome and bamboozled! The children made LOTS of bridges to get the goats to the luscious grass. 

Our new wall drawing area was a hit. It was filled with dinosaur houses and fairytales!

We continued to think about recycling as our class bins were emptied and we checked to see if they were being used properly. There was lots of discussion about types of plastic and types of paper. The rest of the week the children did a terrific job of using the bins carefully.

The ice in the water tray was well explored - plenty of cold hands and broken ice!

In Numicon we have looked at odds and evens and adding one more. The children recognised that when you add one more to an even it becomes odd and when you add one more to an odd it becomes even. By the end of the week the children could hold up the Numicon pieces for odd and even with ease. 

Before Christmas we were lucky enough to get a present under the tree from Santa himself! He gave the children a window bird feeder. We put it up and filled it on the last day in the hope that a quiet playground would start the birds visiting the feeder. When we got to school on Monday the feeder was empty! The children were THRILLED when a Blue Tit landed to eat the food and we could see him clearly from the classroom carpet. He stayed there for quite a while and visited several more times through the week :-)

20.12.24

The end of the first term! And what a term it has been...

We have had a brilliant final week before Christmas.

The children did baking with their buddies, making delicious cheese stars. We made in excess of 600 stars in just over 2 hours - no mean feat! As always the Y6 children made it fun and fair, involving Year R every step of the way. We ad a bit of a production line going by the end :-)

Christmas lunch was a fun event. The children got to sit with their buddies again and enjoyed a really lovely dinner. It was the best Christmas food I've had in school. Thank you to Lucky and her team.

Arthur and Hattie turned five, bringing the grand total of five year olds to five! We have quite a spring and summer heavy class this year.

Our Christmas party was hilarious. Toilet roll themed from start to finish. We played lots of games involving balancing, building towers, aiming and rolling. The best part was building snowmen. One child in each house was wrapped in paper and had a carrot nose added at the end. Then Mr Geraghty judged the best one. When the snowmen "melted" we had a huge snowball fight and finished the party with a game of snowplough which was just a ruse for tidying up the paper off the floor!!

We had our party food after lunch, so appetites weren't spoilt. 

On the last day we went to church to sing carols. 17 children stayed awake and five fell asleep.... exhausted!

When we arrived back at school, Father Christmas had been and left presents and snowy footprints by the tree. He gave Otter Class some bird food and a window-mounted bird feeder. We topped this up before we left, so the birds could acclimatise before January's noise returned.

13.12.24

A bit less of a frantic week with Nativity behind us.

We have had a rather topsy turvy week though with few resources to support challenge time. The children have found ingenious solutions to develop their play. 

Our Christmas cards are beautiful and the children can't wait to bring them home next week. They have also been busy practicing their handwriting for the middle of the cards too.

Jasmine's mummy gave us some spring bulbs that have been planted in the pots in our bug area. We will see what comes up in the spring.

On Tuesday the children loved making their Christingles. The orange represents the world, the red ribbon is Jesus' blood and God's love, the four sticks and sweets are the four seasons and the bounty God provides and finally the candle reminds us of God's light.

Playdough has been chocolate themed and the children made mini cookies for the elf.

There has been lots of collaborative work designing Christmas trees on large sheets of paper. This has been really popular!

6.12.24

We made it!! The Nativity was fantastic and we were so proud of all the children. With rehearsals in church and a dress rehearsal on Thursday there hasn't been much time for anything else this week. 

For safeguarding reasons there is just one group photo on the blog and I am saving the individual photos for you all. They will appear in the last blog of the term.

The children made the first hoop for The Twelve Days of Christmas window display. Each year this display appears on the window and different classes/groups design and make them. We used real pear prints for the pear tree and lovely feathers on the partridge. Mrs. Bertacchini and I made an alternative hoop which is up too... take a look outside Mr. Geraghty's window!

Ember the Elf appeared on Monday morning with a large advent calendar and a message to the children telling them she was looking for kind, sensible learners... Every morning the children have enjoyed searching for her. We were hoping she was a good elf but we were shocked to see the word she made with our Bug Club letters - it took the children a while to notice!

We took part in the tradition of Posada - Posada’ (Spanish for ‘inn’) is a Christmas activity which lasts from December 16th – 24th (we do it a little earlier) when small versions of Mary, Joseph and the Donkey travel around different classrooms and stay there for one night. Worship Council brought the figures to us on Monday and on Tuesday morning they travelled all the way to Squirrel Class in Year 1.

The class Christmas tree has been decorated multiple times. At home I was the parent who let the children decorate and then rearrange when they went to bed. This is not the case with the class tree 

Secret Santa shopping was great fun this morning. All of the children enjoying choosing the perfect gifts. I hope you all enjoy the surprise on Christmas morning. I'll be thinking of you. I still have some of the gifts my daughters gave me from their school Secret Santa shop 15-20 years ago.

Have a restful weekend as the festivities continue next week 

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.

15.11.24

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 Ariella 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 savoury 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 forthcoming 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 in 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