Crookhill Primary School

After looking closely at butterflies, Reception realised that butterflies have symmetrical patterns.  We have been making our own symetrical patterns.

We have made our own butterfly pictures.

Then we made symmetrical patterns in PE.  We pretended that there was a mirror down the middle of our groups and we had to copy our partner so that we looked identical.

This week Reception took their weekly trip to the Forest School. It was a very cold day so we had to wrap up very warm.

To help keep us warm we built dens making sure there were no gaps.

We lit the fire to cook some warm food and boil some water to make a delicious hot chocolate. We have some super helpers in Reception.

The hotdogs and hot chocolate were just what we needed to end a frosty day at Crookhill Forest School.

On Monday we had a visit from Zoo Lab.  As part of our topic we looked at mini-beasts.  We had a chance to hold a land snail.

After we held the snail we were introduced to the cockroaches.

Eileen told us that cockroaches are usually really fast, but hers were not they were very slow and clung to her arms!  After we stroked the cockroaches we met Tara the Tarantula.

Tara was not allowed out of her box because she is covered in special hair.  If she gets scared she releases her spiky hair to scare away the enemy and we didn't want to get any in our eyes or on our skin! After Tara had been put away we were introduced to Mr. Tickle.

He was still asleep so we were very quiet as we didn't want to wake him!

Finally we were shown a hermit crab.  We were not allowed to hold the hermit crab in case he nipped us.

We thought that was the end of our workshop but Eileen had one last surprise for us.  Chorizo...

She really liked us.  Reception were very brave and we loved every second of it.  Thank you Zoo Lab for coming!

Today Reception class had their first visit to the Forest School since July.

Before we went we read the story Zog which is about dragons in a forest school. We loved the story so much we thought we would go looking for our own dragons. We quickly got ready and set off to hunt for dragons.

However, we got a little distracted and thought we should flatten the mole holes down first. It was lots of fun.

Some of us decided the best way to find a dragon was to catch one. We spent the afternoon building a variety of traps.

We are looking forward to coming back next week to see if we have caught a dragon.

After our 'Little Nativity' we got dressed into our lovely party clothes.

Once the music started there was no stopping us!

We danced...

and danced...

and danced!

Until it was time to play games.  We played Corners.

Musical Bumps.

And Pass the Parcel.

We had lots of delicious party food.

  We just about had time for our traditional Conga around the WHOLE school.

As we have been looking at the First Christmas story and practising our Nativty lots, Reception decided that we should build a stable for Baby Jesus in our Outdoor Area.

First of all we needed straw.  Without being asked Reception thought it would be best to get in a line and each have a turn of grabbing some straw and sprinkling it on the floor.

While some children sprinkled straw on the floor to make it cosy for the Baby King others decided to put large sticks around the edge so no creepy-crawlies could get to him.

Once we had all decided we were happy enough with the floor we stood back and realised we had missed something.  A roof!  We thought we definately needed a roof to protect Jesus from the wind and rain.  Some of us thought we could use beautiful materials for the roof.  So off we went to find them.  When we found the right materials for the job we got to work again.

We just about managed to get the roof up, with a little help from Mrs. Adams.  Some children found a basket for Baby Jesus to sleep, while others went to find animals for the stable.  While we were building our stable the children found time to practise our Nativity songs.

You can just about make out the animals in this picture.  They blend in very well with the straw!

Well Done Reception.  I am sure Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus would have loved this stable.

Over the past term Reception have been looking at Festivals around the world.  Lately we have been looking at Christmas and winter in our country.  On Wednesday Reception invited their parents into class.  We had lots of fun 'Winter activities' for them to join in with.

We made winter magnets.

We made snowflakes and decorated them with glitter and sequins.

And Reception also helped to rescue animals that had got stuck in some ice!!!  They discovered salt helps to melt ice quickly, so we rescued the animals in no time! 

On Thursday Year One and Reception had a very exciting trip! Everybody was very excited to go, especially Reception as it was their first school outing.

When we arrived the rain was falling but the children didn't mind as Reception were greeted by a conductor and a very old bus. Year One had a tram waiting for them.

We had an action packed day ahead of us so Year One and Reception both went their seperate ways.

First of all Reception headed to the Pit Cottages, when they got there they participated in a variety of activites. Year One repeated these activities in the afternoon.  They had to bake Cinnamon Christmas Biscuits, make paper chain decorations and play fun, Victorian Christmas games.

First of all Year One explored Beamish town.  They found an old fashioned sweet shop.  The sweets were delicious.  Some children bought some broken biscuits.  The children liked the story of the delivery boy dropping them on his way. After that Year One visited Santa.  Reception visited him in the afternoon.  The children who visited Santa were very excited to see him. 

The children all received a magic gold coin and a small gift.  The children in return promised Santa they would be extra good and leave him and his reindeers little treats on Christmas Eve.

Reception and Year One were very excited to eat their packed lunches.

After we spent all of our pocket money we headed back to school. 

Reception and Year One were so well behaved, we hope there will be lots more trips planned soon.

Today, we kick started our Creativity Week off with a special production of Jack and the Beanstalk.

Looking pretty normal so far?

We were all very excited to see Buttercup.  She had some super dance moves.  We liked the way she moooooooooooved!

Can you spot what flavour milkshakes were on offer?

It all still looked like the original Jack and the Beanstalk UNTIL...

They climbed the beanstalk and ended up in...

NURSERY RHYME LAND!

Oh no it wasn't just any old Jack and the Beanstalk, it was Jack and the Beanstalk with a twist!  All the nursery rhyme characters came to life! 

Everybody loved it including Miss Welsh and Miss Teasdale who couldn't resisit joining Numpty in a bogey on down with Squire Bogey!

But in true panto style it all had a happy ending.

Please look in the gallery for more pictures and keep checking the website next week for more Twisted Tale fun from Creativity Week.

This week we have been focusing on 'Friendship'.  We thought about what qualities we like our friends to have and made 'Friendship Flowers'.  We then decided to draw ourselves and write why we are good friends.  After this we each had a leaf with our own pictures on it and our friends had to write something positive us!  We put these up on the board to make our 'Friendship Garden'.

We have been learning all about Diwali.  We read the story of Rama and Sita and then retold the story using puppets.

We decided to decorate candles as Diwali is the Festival of Lights.

We have been learning about Bonfire Night.  We made rockets using junk modelling materials.  We then made firework pictures using glue and glitter.  We splatted the paper with glue and sprinkled the glitter on. 

We had a fabulous time at our disco.  Can you tell who we are?

Reception have been making all kinds of repeating patterns.  They have used different things from around the room.  Take a look at our patterns...

On Thursday our parents were invited to have lunch with us.  There was a delicious menu of chicken pie, mashed potato, vegetables and jacket potatoes. 

We hope you all enjoyed your lunch!

Today we have been exploring ICT.  We used the mouse to draw a picture of our faces.

We then worked with an adult to write our names using WordArt.  We chose lots of different colours to make our display nice and bright.

As we have been learning all about ourselves, we decided that we would decorate biscuits to look like us. 

We used icing pens to decorate the biscuits.  It was very tricky!  They needed to be squeezed really hard.

Once they were decorated we all had our photos taken.  We took them home to eat!

The children came back to school the next day and told me they were very yummy!

This week we have been learning all about ourselves.  We have glittered our names and painted our faces.

We have also been making our bodies using clay.  It was a bit tricky to roll the dough at first but we got there in the end.  We used tools to add our features to our face.

This week we read a story about sticky, sticky jam.  We decided we should make our own jam sandwiches.

Today Reception class finished off their work on Healthy body and healthy mind by reading the book 'The huge bag of worries'. We read the book and talked about all the small things that worry us. We wrote down our worries but we didn't have a huge bag to put them in so we made one.

Gary spent ages trying to weave the string through the holes we had made but it was fabulous when we were finished and held our worries beautifully.

Some of the children decided they would like something to catch worries in so we collected lots of natural materials like willow, long grass and feathers and made a huge dream catcher, which will only let nice thoughts into our classroom.

Reception class are now well prepared to have happy healthy minds now they have somewhere to put their worries and a fab catcher to collect scary or bad thoughts. Well done Reception you have worked really hard this week!  

This week Crookhill pupils are learning about healthy lifestyles. How to keep a healthy body and a healthy mind.

Here are a few of the things Reception class have been getting up to.

We began the week talking about basic hygiene and how to keep clean. We looked at cooking different healthy food and made a delicious healthy pizza using vegetables and low fat cheese. It was delicious.

We also made fruit smoothie ice pops. Very healthy.

We had a fantastic assembly! Why not watch it with us? It's great!

Reception have been learning about weights and measures for the past 2 weeks. We began by looking at objects and deciding which was the heaviest and the lightest.

We used the bucket scales to see which objects were the heaviest. We found out that some objects are just to big to weigh in this way.

In the outdoor area we made a see-saw using tyres and wood to see if taller people were heavier than shorter people.

We have also looked at measuring objects using different measures. We began by using cubes to see how much taller or shorter we are than our friends.

Reception class made their weekly trek to the campsite this afternoon. We collected lots of natural materials on the way down to the site to use in an environmental art picture.

Some of us made pictures using the things we found.

Can you guess what this picture is???

Some of us found dinosaurs in the woods and decided to build a dinosaur world.

The rest of us cooked popcorn for the rest of the class. It was poptastic.

To protect themselves from the Crookhill villain Reception class have designed some beast protector bandanas.

We spent a long time planning and decorating our bandanas. We hope they will protect us when we visit our traps to see if we have caught it.

Don't we look fab? Hope they work!

We had a very surprise visitor in Year 5 today!  Captain America came all the way from Washington DC to see if we could help with a very serious problem...he hadn't forgotten how to jump!  This was causing major problems as villains keep escaping him!

Captain America asked if we could help him, he neeed to know what was the best angle for him to jump at, and what was the best position to jump from building to building!

Of course Year 5 jumped at the challenge!  We grabbed our protractors, metre sticks and rulers and headed to the hall to do some investigating.

Captain America then returned to see what we had found out and if we could help him!  Luckily, we found out that jumping between a 40 and 70 degree angle was the best, and really bending our knees and swinging our arms.  We went even further if we had a running start!

Captain America was very happy with our results, he reminded us to stay safe and stay in school!  Great advice Captain America!

Captain America also helped Reception with their shape hunt with the star on his chest!

Miss Howson

Today, Reception class have been out on the field trying to build an array of traps to try to catch the beast of Crookhill. We pulled in some extra manpower by inviting our paretns who I have to say are VERY competitive.

We split off into groups to try to build our traps. Take a look at the trememdous efforts put in by the children and their parents.

Our winning trap was made by Sophia and her family. It was ingeniously made using only sticks and long grasses to tie them together.

We would like to say a BIG THANK YOU to all the parents who came to join us. We would appreciate you leaving your comments about the afternoon below.

There will be a photo album appearing on the gallery soon where you can see pictures of all the parents hard at work. I'm sure you'll all like to see them!

Reception class have been designing a potion that they can use in a fairy story they are writing themselves.

We wrote lists of all the ingredients we would need and talked about what our potions would do. Some of us made potions to make us fly, turn invisible and even be more healthy.

We were careful to put in the right amount of the ingredients. A whole tub of glitter later and we were set to get mixing our potions!!!

We all made labels for the potions to they would not get mixed up!

Reception class are busy learning about lots of traditional tales. Today we chose 'The 3 Little Pigs'. Can you guess what we are building?

Reception class are learning all about Fairy and traditional tales. One of our favourites so far is Hansel and Gretel. The children think the house looks delicious.

We decided we were going to make our own yummy house.

Mrs Grant helped us to bakes the walls and the roof.

We left them overnight to cool and firm up. They were perfect this morning when we got to school. Rachel and Miss Teasdale helped the children to decorate the house with chocolate and a huge variety of brightly coloured sweets.

What do you think of our finished house??? We shared it all our between us and it was as delicious as it looks.  

On Tuesday afternoon, Class 1 and Reception took to the field in search of some famous vilains. We started at the campsite where we found our first clue. The children were better at working out the answers to the clues than some of the adults.

When we had worked out the clue we wrote down our answers on clip boards. We were very good at it.

Crookhill were in for a treat this morning as they were transported to the Magic Kingdom to listen to the Music Workshop perform music from some of the greatest Disney movies. We were given clues about the movies ranging from Snow White which was the 1st feature length film to come out of Disney Studios to a finale of Toy Story.

In true Crookhill spirit we joined in and even got to sing into the microphone.

Some of us were dressed as characters from the film. Can you tell which Disney Movie we are from?

If you look closely you will see Bashful, Sleepy, Happy and Grumpy. Can you tell who is who??? We played our parts well.

The whole school (especially the teachers) thoroughly enjoyed being whisked away into the magical world of Walt Disney. We can't wait for the music workshop to come back again!  

As today is Shrove Tuesday it was essential we made pancakes. In the true spirit of the day we didn't buy new ingredients, we used up what was left from our cooking yesterday.

We mixed the ingredients to make a delicious batter. Mrs Grant was amazing at helping us to flip the pancakes.

When we had flipped them and they were cooked properly we choose some delicious toppings to finish them off.

Yummy!

When Reception class got to school today, they found a beautifully wrapped parcel with a note from Percy the Park Keeper. He needed our help and who better than Reception? Percy had been out collecting slugs and snails for his nocturnal woodland friends but couldn't remember which one of his friends would like to eat them.

Our task this morning was to research which nocturnal animals ate slugs and snails. We looked in books, asked people in school and used the internet. We found that badgers, moles, owls and many more all eat these delicious slimy friends.

This afternoon some of us went down to the field to search for the moles in the mole holes. We didn't find any moles but we did find lots of juicy fat worms.

We dug up the mole holes to see what else we could find.

We put the snails and slugs by the large rocks in the corner of our field. We think the moles and badgers will find them there.

The children who were left in the class made us some delicious hedgehog rock buns for us getting back.

They were delicious when they were cooked.  

To celebrate the year of the rabbit Reception invited Year 6 class to their Chinese New Year Party. Reception class have been learning all about Chinese New Year for the past 5 weeks and have ended their topic with a party.

We wrote invitations and made posters to invite people to the party.

Today the children came to school dressed in fabulous costumes for the occassion.

Before we could have our celebration we had to prepare the classroom. We know that Chinese people clean their houses before Chinese New Year to send away the bad things. We had fun dusting and washing the tables with lots and lots of water. The floor has never been cleaner.

We spent the rest of the morning decorating the classroom with red signs and decorations that we bought last week at Stowell Street. We made tissue flowers to remind us of the spring and we cooked a delicious banquet with Mr Moore in preperation. We played Chinese games. Our favourite was picking up the marshmallows and smarties with the chop sticks. Very tricky but we mastered the art of chop sticks.

The year 6's joined us for the end of our party as they have been learning all about China.

Check out the gallery for more photos.  

Today Reception have been working on their outdoor culinary skills. On today's menu we had hotdogs with or without ketchup!!!

While we were waiting for the very large pot of water to heat up we decided to decorate our campsite. We collected lots of interesting objects from the woodland areas and tied them with string to make a natural door way into the woodland.

Look closely and you can see feathers, holly, leaves, funny shaped sticks and many more things. Ask your children what they found.

When we were tired of exploring we relaxed with our hotdogs. They were delicious.

Today Reception and Year 6 visited Stowell Street for a Chinese banquet. Both classes have been learning all about China and Chinese New Year. We went to Lau's Buffet King to sample some delicious Chinese cuisine.

The staff in the restaurant were really impressed by our fantastic behaviour and attitude to trying new things.

Can you believe some of us had more than 3 plates of food and then pudding?

Some of us were very brave and tried to eat using the chop sticks.

The year 6 children were great and helped the Reception children to fill and re-fill their plates.

After our delicious banquet we went into the Chinese Supermarket to buy some decorations for our classrooms and to take home.

Take a look in the gallery for the rest of our photos.

This afternoon. Reception and Year 1 took a visit to the campsite. Today we were toasting marshmallows.

We had to be careful to sit far enough away from the fire to keep safe but close enough to toast the marshmallow. The hardest bit was trying to get it inside the chocolate biscuits when they were toasted.

Delicious but a little tricky to eat!

Have a look in the gallery for more photos.

Today Reception class, class 1 and 2/3 were visited by 'Team C'. They have been to see us lots of times but today they brought two friends with them - 'Mel' and 'Dee'.

Today we were taught how to make musical melodies. We got the opportunity to play lots of instruments...

and dance to songs with some interesting actions.

Reception class have decided that cooking indoors is fun but it could be more fun if we cooked outside on our campfire.

We started off simple and made nan breads. We had to roll the mixture into a ball and then we flattened it in our hands.

We were very careful putting them onto the hot tray. We learned lots about keeping safe and how to handle the hot cooking equipment. They tasted delicious when they were cooked.  

Today Reception class have been continuing learning about Chinese New Year. We enjoyed the bought fortune cookies so much we thought we should have a go at making our own.

We started off by thinking about what could be written inside our cookies. We thought we should write down things we could do to make sure we were a good friend.

Mrs Grant made some beautiful fortune cookies. They were very tricky and she had to be very fast to seal the fortune in the cookie.

Don't they look fab?

We shared a cookie with a friend and snapped it together. They were delicious.

Today we have made Chinese lucky envelopes. We made them red because the Chinese believe red is a lucky colour.

When the envelopes were made we put a gold coin inside each one. We are going to take them home tomorrow and give them to someone we love.

Reception class got into the spirit of Chinese New Year by cooking some delicious Chinese food. Densie helped us to make some egg fried rice. We worked hard making sure the carrots were chopped up very small.

We had to beat the eggs making sure there was no shell in.

When the rice was cooked and the frozen peas were added we mixed it all together. We made mini omlettes with the eggs and sliced it up to finish off our dish.

SIMPLE! We are very proud of our dish and can't wait to try more when we visit the Chinese. Everyone thought our dish was delicious.

Today we have made Chinese lanterns. We know that traditionally the Chinese used to use lanterns before they had street lights. They now use the lanterns as part of their Chinese New Year celebrations. We have made some and added them to our Chinese role-play.

We decorated them with lots of red pom poms and gold glitter. Red is thought to be a lucky colour.

They are now hanging from the ceiling and look beautiful. They have definately brightened up our classroom.

For the next few weeks Reception class are going to be learning all about Chinese New Year. We started today looking at the Chinese calendar and working out which animal we were born under. The children thought it was very funny that Miss Brown was a rat and Mrs Grant was a dragon.

We tried some Fortune Cookies this afternoon and some dried fruits that were bought from the Chinese Supermarket.

Do you think we liked them?

Hmmmm we're not too sure on the dried fruit but we loved the fortune cookies.

Check the website to see what else we will be getting up to.  

After a fantastic morning we ended the day with our Christmas Party. We got dressed in our best party clothes and got ready to show off our fantastic dance moves. We played lots and lots of party games.

Some of us found love on the dance floor...

and for some of us it was just a bit too much.

but one thing is for sure... we all had a fantastic afternoon.

Thank you to all the parents for sending in our delicious party tea. I think we are going to be eating sausage rolls for a few more days yet!

Take a look in the gallery for more of our fab photos.

Today Reception and Key Stage 1 performed their Nativity 'Old Uncle Sam' for their parents and grandparents. Old Uncle Sam looked after all the sheep on the hills of Bethlehem but one day he loses one. This was the where our Nativity began.

We have all worked so hard to learn the songs and remember our lines especially our two narrators, Rohan and Abby and Old Uncle Sam played by Oscar.

Despite the disruptions in rehearsals with the snow, school being closed and many children being off sick, the children we had today put on a fabulous show and sang beautifully.

We are very proud of you all. Well Done to Reception and Class 1. Photos will be posted in the gallery nearer the end of the week but here's a few to remind you of how fabulous they looked.

.

Thank you to all the parents and grandparents who came to support our youngest children and a big thank you to Miss Welsh and her Mum for making amazing costumes. .

Due to the snow, we have had to cancel the Reception class trip to Beamish. If you have already paid, you can be reimbursed at the school office.

Thanks

Miss Brown.

Reception class are learning all about hibernation this week. When they came into the classroom they found some nuts and a letter from Sammy. He had left lots of clues for the children to follow. Sammy had found nuts all over the school but couldn't carry them all so he needed our help. We found nuts in the school kitchen, in Mrs Willoughby's office, in Mr Parkin's cupboard, in the library, the ICT suite and in Nursery. It took us ages to find them all but we managed.

We sorted out all the nuts and put the ones we thought Sammy and his friends might like to one side for later.

This afternoon, we made some feeders to hang in the trees to make sure the animals have enough food to eat.

We threaded popcorn and cranberries onto some string. It was very tricky using the small needle.

We took the feeders outside in the pouring rain to hang them in the trees.

Take a look at our Windy Day...

Windy Day video

Take a look at these...they're fantastic!
Well done everyone!

Little Henry Hedgehog 1

Little Henry Hedgehog 2

Little Jamie Bird

Today Reception came into their classroom to find it covered in glitter, gold and silver streamers and tiny fairy foot prints. We hunted high and low to find the Fairy but all we found was a very small letter.

Florence the Fairy from Crookhill campsite had noticed all the animals visiting our class and was a little worried about all the mess the animals were making. She asked us if we would make some nice warm homes for her woodland friends so they wouldn't have to come inside.

Take a look at our houses. Wouldn't you just love to live in a house like this?

After lunch we read a story all about 'Little Rabbit Foo Foo.' The children changed the story to make it all about our hedgehog.

We are working on getting the stories on the site as they are too large to upload. Watch this space.  

Reception class had another interesting morning. When they turned up for school this morning they found lots of paw prints on the floor and on the units. But how did they get there and who do they belong to?

We followed the paw prints back to the carpet area where we found a hole full of leaves and sticks and of course, paw prints!

We decided that because of the size of the prints and the fact the worm we found yesterday had been half eaten, that it must be a hedgehog. We know hedgehogs just love to eat worms.

We spent the morning making up stories about where the hedgehog came from and how it got to our class. Clink on the link below to read the story the raindrop group wrote together. Henry story - raindrops.doc 

We thought it would be fun if we made some baby hedgehogs to put in the nest the hedgehog had made to keep him company.

Take a look in the gallery to see us making our hedgehogs.

We are looking forward to see what is going to happen in our room on Wednesday.  

When Reception came into school this morning they were in for a bit of a surprise. They found lots of leaves, conkers, pine cones and feathers all over the classroom.

The children collected them all up and talked about how they appeared in our room. Tillie thought that Jack Frost had been into our class becuase the feathers were frozen. Abbiegail throught that the wind had blown them in because it has been very windy. Lots of us thought that a bird had flown in and brought all the leaves to make a nest with.

We spent the morning making pictures of what we thought the bird looked like.

After playtime some of us went outside to collect some more materials. Hannah said we should make a collage of all the materials so that is our job for this afternoon.

We were very lucky when we went into the cave. We found a bird box that had been blown out of the trees. We have brought it back to the classroom incase the bird who left the feathers comes back tomorrow. We had a little peek inside the box to make sure nothing was living there.

Friday saw the pupils taking over the school. The children took the registers in thier classes, led the house point assembly, blew the whistle at playtime and many other jobs. The teachers had a lovely relaxing day.

Reception class spent the afternoon teaching class 4 all about Forest Schools. They taught them all the safety rules we need to follow and taught them how to build the fence around the campsite.

Reception showed class 4 how to carry the materials properly.

We hope Class 4 are looking forward to getting back out to the campsite soon.

This week Reception class have looked at some traditional Romanian crafts as part of their community week. After voting as a class, weaving got the most votes. In Romania they traditionally do textile weaving. We thought we should start with paper to practice.

We had to concentrate hard to get the pattern right. It's a good job Reception class have lots of patience.

We are very pleased with our finished products.

We have also eaten our Romanian soup that Darius' mum made with us. Do you think we liked it?

Today Reception class were joined by Darius' Mum. She came in to cook us a delicious Romanian feast. We helped prepare all the ingredients. First of all we made some yummy meatballs.

They smell delicious!

It was fun peeling the garlic but it made our hands stink.

We also made some mashed potato and ate it with warmed tomato sauce. Most of us cleared our plates.

This week is 'community week' at Crookhill. Each class is looking at a different community within Gateshead and Newcastle. Reception class are looking at Romania since we have an expert in our class. We have started the week by looking at the Romanian flag and even made our own!

Some of us used art straws...

and some of us used crepe paper. It was tricky filling in all the spaces but we persevered until it was finished. Tomorrow afternoon Darius' Mum is coming into school to cook some traditional Romanian food. We can't wait.

Keep checking the site this week to see which community each class is learning about.

Today Reception class were in for a surprise. When they got to the campsite they found little pieces of a letter scattered around the campsite. We searched high and low until we found all of the pieces. The letter was from Florence the Chief fairy of Crookhill woods. She needed our help to build some new homes since a big giant had blown them all down.

We went straight into the woods to start building. Take a look at some of our houses.

Some of our houses had 2 storeys!

Reception class are reading a book called "Growing Good" in preperation for Bernard Ashley visiting in a few weeks time. The books is about growing all sorts of different things.

Today we focused on fruit and vegetables making our lovely new Reception class a very colourful mess.

We started by looking at a range of different fruits and vegetables then cut them in half to look at the patterns on the inside. We then used the right coloured paint to make some lovely patterns.

This afternoon we looked at lots of different fruits and made fruit kebabs. We have had a very healthy day.

We tried to use as many different fruits as we could.

Some of us only wanted to use one kind of fruit but it still looked and tasted delicious.

This afternoon, after we had decorated our biscuits, we had a visit to our Forest School site.

We each had a special bag, just big enough to collect some tiny natural materials.

We found conkers and their shells, berries, small sticks, acorns, feathers, different types of grasses and leaves and lots more interesting things.

We have brought everything back to our outdoor area to add to the materials we collected yesterday. We are looking forward to exploring and sorting them all tomorrow.  

Reception class are learning all about themselves this term. We started the morning by drawing pictures of who we live with. There are some beautiful portraits of their Mam's and Dad's. Watch this space!!!

This afternoon we finished baking the biscuits. Who knew flour could go so far?

We rolled the dough and then cut out the person shape.

When they were all cooked we decorated them with colourful faces and interesting patterns.

Today Reception class braved the wind and the rain to bring some natural materials up to our outdoor area. The children wanted to have their own branches and logs outside so we have mastered the timber hitch and dragged some up from the field.

Some of the pieces of wood were very long so we needed lots of people to help.

The girls were fabulous at tying their knots needing very little help.

Some of us have invented our own knots but they still worked!

Take a look at what Reception got up to last week when Miss Brown was away in the forest.

Here we are making a delicious apple crumble. It was yummy although most of it ended up trodden into the lovely new red carpet.

We had lots of fun playing with the parachute. We loved running underneath it and playing 5 little men in a flying saucer.

Miss Byrne made some playdough with us. It was the first time she had made it and it worked really well. We have been practicing rolling the dough in preperation for making biscuits when Miss Brown comes back to school.

On Monday, our new Reception children's parents were invited to join us for lunch in our new dining room. There was a delicious menu of pizza, chips, beans and a variety of salad.

Take a look at all the empty plates.

This terms music workshop was all about mini-beasts. The music team helped us to find patterns in music. We used our eyes to look for mini-beasts and then sang songs about each one. Each mini-beasts had a different beat. Look at the size of this spi-der.

We used lots of different instruments that sound like the mini-beasts we looked at. 

We had lots of fun making musical patterns. Take a look in the gallery for more pictures.