Reception- Owl Babies
This week, Reception class' learning has been inspired by the beloved story Owl Babies, which linked wonderfully with our discussions about how each of us is special and how important our families are to us. Across our provision, the children are busy exploring the story through hands-on creative activities while working hard on their fine motor skills. They are experimenting with painting techniques using sponges to create realistic feather textures on their owls, and they are practising their pencil grip and control by carefully drawing patterns on owl templates. In our creative area, the children are enjoying making their own owls using collage materials, and they are bringing the characters Sarah, Percy, and Bill to life by crafting them out of playdough and additional resources to retell the story. To build up their hand strength and precision, they are having great fun using tweezers to pick up and feed worms to the owls. We are so proud of all their hard work and creativity.
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Year 3 - Live Author Session
On Tuesday, Year 3 class took part in a live author session on Zoom provided by Picture News. We heard from a number of authors including Jon Lock and Nich Angell, co-creators of the Tiny Hercules book series, and Dadbot author Jack Noel. During the live session, the children had the opportunity to ask questions and take part in challenges, but their favourite part was drawing Tiny Hercules and then creating their own character.
Reception: Aliens Love Underpants
We have had out-of-this-world fun in Reception this week exploring our story of the week, Aliens Love Underpants! The children have been thoroughly engaged in reading and retelling the hilarious tale, bringing the story to life across all areas of our provision. Taking inspiration from our handwriting sessions, the children have been busy making marks and practising their letter formation directly onto cut-out underpants. Over in the malleable area, little hands were hard at work shaping, squeezing, and decorating their very own playdough aliens, while our creative station saw vibrant alien portraits painted with endless imagination. In maths, the children put their counting skills to the test by matching and placing the correct number of stars onto different spaceships.
Reception: Handwriting
Our Reception children have been working so hard in their handwriting sessions! To get ready for writing, we start each session with a fun hand workout—doing thumb pushes, palm crouches, finger taps, and finger lifts to build up those vital fine motor muscles. The children have been putting a huge effort into using a comfortable tripod grip as they explore basic pre-writing shapes, laying fantastic foundations for forming their letters. We are so proud of their focus and determination!
Ready, Set, Read in Year 4
Today we took part in the Ready, Set, Read! Live Author Sessions - Ages 7-9: Inside the World of Stories. It was a free virtual primary live lesson hosted by Picture News as part of the National Year of Reading. We had the opportunity to join live chats, draw a character from a book - Tiny Hercules and find out so much from various authors who joined the session. Being able to explore the creative process behind storytelling, really got the children's imaginations going and they absolutely loved taking part.
Reception: Mark Making
This week, our Reception children have been hard at work strengthening their fine motor control and perfecting their mark-making skills through a creative activity inspired by Elmer the Elephant! To build early writing skills, the children were challenged to decorate Elmer with various patterns using felt-tip pens, allowing them to practise key pre-writing strokes: drawing straight lines for grids, fluid wavy lines for movement, and anti-clockwise circles and dots, which are essential building blocks for forming letters like a, c, d, and o. The children showed great concentration and pencil control as they explored different shapes and colours to complete their vibrant patchwork designs.
Year 1: English
Year 1 have been trying really hard with writing their sentence snakes. This is a grammar focus lesson. Today we focused on adding -s or -each to words to make them plural. They have to count and organise the words in my sentence. Then they practise their own sentence orally before going away to write it. They have been trying really hard to also remember capital letters, finger spaces and full stops.
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Year 5 - English
In English, we used drama to explore the feelings of a person exploring the surface of Mars. We first considered the positive and negative emotions of being the first to step upon a new planet far from home, exploring and collecting scientific data. Then we acted out the role of the astronaut, considering how those emotions can be shown through action and dialogue.
Reception: Elmer
The Reception classroom has transformed into a vibrant hub of creativity and self-expression this week, with pupils diving headfirst into the wonderful world of David McKee’s iconic storybook character, Elmer the Patchwork Elephant. The children have engaged in open, thoughtful discussions exploring their personal likes and dislikes, using Elmer’s journey of self-acceptance as a springboard for understanding empathy, inclusion, and identity. Creatively, the setting was a hive of activity as children constructed their own patchwork collages and explored multi-coloured patterns. The hands-on learning extended into physical exploration as well, with pupils measuring and experimenting with elephant footprints to build spatial awareness, comparative vocabulary, and early mathematical understanding. We are looking forward to the grand finale later this week, as pupils assemble and decorate their own custom Elmer crowns in preparation for a class parade. The upcoming parade will give the children an opportunity to showcase their artistic achievements, march to rhythmic music, and proudly celebrate their individuality together as a class.
Year 2 English- Gruffalo Granny
This morning, Year 2 were delighted to enjoy a special livestream of The Gruffalo Granny, read by the wonderful Julia Donaldson. We won’t give too much away for those who haven’t read it yet, but we absolutely loved seeing the mouse getting up to his usual tricks! We also enjoyed a fantastic illustration lesson from Axel Scheffler, where we followed along and had a go at drawing our very own Gruffalo Granny. The children were fantastic illustrators and thoroughly enjoyed bringing the character to life! What a lovely way to celebrate one of our favourite storybook characters!
Year 2 English- Analysing the Features of the Example Text
Year 2 have been busy in their English lessonS this week. They have been familiarising themselves with a text based on a book called ‘The River’ by Marc Martin. Today, they had to analyse the text for features such as verbs ending in -ed, noun phrases, words to show the passing of time and repetitive phrases. We were particularly impressed with how many -ed verbs they managed to find! Year 2 will soon be using these same features in their own writing. Keep up the good work!
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Reception: The Colour Monster
The children have been completely captivated by The Colour Monster story this week, diving headfirst into the rich world of feelings. Through the story, they have learned all the different names for our emotions and spent time discussing when and why someone might feel them—from feeling bright yellow happiness when playing with friends to quiet blue sadness when missing someone. Channeling this understanding into their creative work, the children have begun to design their own unique monsters, carefully colouring and describing them with fantastic vocabulary to match their personalities. To top it all off, some of the children have developed their fine motor and observational skills by drawing their very own versions of the Colour Monster, demonstrating both impressive artistic talent and a wonderful growing emotional toolkit.
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