Reception 2
A warm welcome to Goldsworthy Class 2016-17
Fun at Forest School !
Summer time is our favourite time at Forest School. This week the children had lots of fun cloud watching, bug hunting under the logs, sweeping the nets for bugs and shaking the tree to find out what bugs were living there. During our time there they learnt some important facts about various insects.
Our new summer topic-
Pirates and the Sea
To start our new topic off with a bang we had a pirate dress up day, where the children were invited to come to school dressed in pirate attire.
As part of their pirate activities, the children sang songs, made their own treasure maps, decorated their 'ship's biscuits' with pirate designs of their choice and took part in a pirate ship problem solving activity.
What an exciting day!
How to make a chair using newspaper !
With the help of Mrs Suer (teaching the children) and Mrs Michie (organising the event), the children learnt how they could make items of furniture using newspaper and a STIXX machine. The children listened so well and were totally enthused about it...it was truly amazing !
The paper was rolled, put through the machine to stiffen it and then the sticks were tied together to make a shape.
Summer Term topic-Out of Africa
During this term the children learnt about some of the different animals from Africa. For instance, they learnt some interesting facts about what the animals eat, their general survival and how camouflage helps them in the wild.
Our visit to Colchester Zoo
As part of our topic we went to look at some of the animals at Colchester Zoo. The children were all very excited as we left school by coach. The children saw some very interesting animals, had a train ride and they learnt some interesting facts about camouflage. However, for most the favourite part of our visit was that the children got to feed the giraffes and elephants.
Feeding the giraffes and elephants,seeing zebras, feeling the animal skins and furs and looking at the wolves
World Book Day 2nd March
The children and teachers came to school dressed as a character from a favourite book.
Reception had a very exciting afternoon, as Mr King began by reading them a Mr Men story.
The children in Goldsworthy were still very excited as they were joined by the children in Warhol class (Year 6).
Mr Ferguson (Willy Wonka) and Mrs Rossiter (Bottomley Potts) shared the reading of Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy.
After, the children in Warhol class worked patiently with Goldsworthy class to identify rhyming words and write about their favourite part from the story.
What a wonderful afternoon !
Mr Ferguson dressed as Willy Wonka and Mrs Rossiter as Bottomley Potts
Spring 2 topic-Growing
Welcome back after the half term.
Maths Week
The children thoroughly enjoyed Maths Week. Everyone worked hard on activities centred around our maths book, 'The Bell Rings'
Spring 1 topic- Witches and wizards
The children are very excited as they take part in role play,'making potions'.
Mrs Back-to-front comes to entertain the children!
Christmas dinner
The children and adults wore their Christmas jumpers for Christmas dinner.
Autumn 2 topic- Space
Diwali
The children learnt about the Hindu celebration, Diwali, the festival of light.
The children made diva lamps with clay and decorated them carefully with glitter paints.
The children made barfi sweets with condensed milk and coconut.
The children made rangoli patterns. They explored the texture as they mixed sand and coloured paint together.
Rangoli patterns
Welcome back after the half term break!
Our topics this term
' Do you want to be friends? '
' Why do squirrels hide their nuts? '
Our autumn walk
We went to the park to search for signs of autumn.
We were looking for changes.
What did we find?
The children noticed that the leaves were starting to change colour...from green to red, yellow, orange, purple and brown.
They noticed that lots of the leaves and twigs had fallen from the trees and were lying at the base of the trees.
They saw that there were lots of berries on the bushes.
They picked up acorns and pointed out that they too had fallen from the trees.
We saw a squirrel collecting nuts and imagined where he was nesting.
We guessed where he may have hidden the nuts.
Dan the Skipping Man
'Dan' came to school to show the children how to skip. What fun they had !
2015-16
A HUGE welcome to Goldsworthy class
Our first time all together as Goldsworthy class
New topic- Fairy Tales and Castles
Welcome back after the Easter break!
We have been learning all about castles and the people who lived in them.
To help us with our learning we visited Leeds Castle.
We looked around the castle grounds at the main gate, portcullis, murder holes, the Barbican, towers, battlements and some very noisy ducks!
Inside the castle we walked through a secret door. We saw armour and weapons used by the soldiers
We saw arrow slits, a candle holder, the queen's 'show off' bed, her bath and the yellow room
We saw 'King Edward III and his horse'
After lunch the children took part in a play-Sybil (Lucas) the Cygnet
All the actors together!
We even had time to visit the play area!
Finally, we watched part of the bird show and EYFS even became part of it. What a fantastic day!
Easter Hat Parade
The children brought their beautiful creations in to school to show off in our hat parade!
Making chocolate nests
Forest School
Den building
Armed with some den building materials, the children set about making a den (one that would stand up without them holding on to it). What great teamwork- they all worked really hard!
St Patrick's Day
What fun we had on St Patrick's Day. We learnt all about St. Patrick and the things that people do to celebrate this special day. At assembly we watched some spectacular Irish dancing. We enjoyed doing lots of artwork in the classroom. We made pots of gold, leprechauns, shamrocks and lots more!
World Book Day
We all dressed up as a book character.
Can you guess some of the characters we chose?
The children thoroughly enjoyed the stories read by Miss Owen and Mr King
The Three Little Pigs
Our class book for the day was the Three little Pigs. In the morning the children heard the story and took part in some role play. They re-enacted it and used face masks, hand puppets and sequencing cards to help re-tell the tale.
They enjoyed making pig masks and pigs, using junk modelling. We talked about the building materials which the pigs had chosen to use for their houses. They really enjoyed re-creating the pigs houses, using different materials, all the while discussing which house would keep the pigs safe from the Bad Wolf.
In the afternoon, we joined up with half of Mrs Michie's class, Matisse. Matisse had worked hard during the morning writing the story of The Three Little Pigs (but they had each put a twist in to the tale, creating their own stories).
Goldsworthy class had the job of helping Matisse class to illustrate their stories. They all worked so hard and so well together...it was wonderful!
Mrs Michie was dressed as a rabbit, from The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland
Before we went into our assembly in the afternoon, we heard a few of the amazing stories
Are Eggs Alive? - our new spring topic
Our trip to Godstone Farm
As we are learning about farm animals this term we decided to visit Godstone farm to see the animals and learn somethings about them.
We had a ride in a tractor, driven by Farmer Fay. On our bumpy journey we saw the chickens, the pigs and the donkeys and we heard the noisy turkeys.
In the Small Holding Area the children were very gentle, as they stroked the hen, cock and the rabbits
Next, we saw sheep, lambs, goats and kids in the barn
We saw lots of pigs and piglets
This pig loved to pose. He liked the attention!
We saw rhea outside
and ducks
and llama
We had our pictures taken outside
We had fun in the soft play area indoors too. Mr King really enjoyed the slides!
Before we went home we had a photograph taken of us altogether. It was Mr Hudson's last school trip.
Chinese New Year
We learnt all about Chinese New Year-this is the year of the monkey! The children took part in some role play to retell the story of The Great Animal Race. We learnt lots of interesting facts. For example, that Chinese people think that red is a lucky colour and gold means wealth.
We made our own passports and used tickets to board the plane to China. As we flew over China we saw some places of interest-The Great Wall, The Terracotta Army, Shanghai.
Whilst we were in China we visited a Chinese restaurant. The children chose the name-The Golden Dragon. In the restaurant, as we listened to some Chinese music, we tasted some Chinese food, just to see if we liked it-prawn crackers, soya sauce, noodles, vegetable spring rolls.
Our aeroplane trip to China
Our food tasting in 'The Golden Dragon'
Jump Rope Day for The British Heart Foundation
The whole school took part in this very active day.
Just after our special British Heart Foundation assembly, led by Miss Foley, we went outside to warm up. We practised our skipping activities-we skipped on our own and in groups and soon we were all so warm that we forgot how cold it was outside.
Throughout the day we learnt all about eating healthily and how important it is to do regular exercise to keep our hearts healthy.
Our first spring term topic- Dinosaurs
The children have been learning all about dinosaurs...the names of some of them, what they looked like, what they ate and why they are now extinct. They have been very excited and can't seem to get enough knowledge about the dinosaurs.
Dinosaur explorers
We are palaeontologists!
At our dinosaur workshop we all pretended to be dinosaurs. We pretended to have sharp teeth and claws.
Our roars were amazingly loud!
The children learnt about dinosaur fossils
Dinosaur poo and dinosaur footprints!
The children became palaeontologists themselves
Welcome back!
Thank you to all our parents and carers for your very generous gifts and kind Christmas wishes.
A happy new year to you all!
Winter Wonderland topic
Christmas party!
Our Arctic Vets
Checking patients in and making them better
Christmas Jumper Day at Longlands
Don't we look Christmassy?
Christmas lunch
We had a delicious dinner in the hall together.
The Nativity Play
We sparkled as stars! We sang our songs brilliantly, especially our special early years song, Follow Me.
Squirrel watch
The children learnt that the birds and squirrels were collecting food in preparation for the winter. We decided to help them by leaving nuts and bird feeder bags outside the classroom. We hoped to catch a glimpse of them as they took the food.
A completely empty bag...we think there are some hungry squirrels in the neighbourhood!
More emty bags...just lard balls left for the birds
Caught in the act...one of those very hungry squirrels
Autumn term topics-'Ourselves', 'Nursery Rhymes' and 'Autumn'
Diwali
The children learnt about the Hindu celebration of Diwali, the festival of light.
The children made rangoli patterns. They mixed sand and coloured paint.
The children made barfi sweets with condensed milk and desiccated coconut.
The children made clay diva pots and decorated them with paint and glitter
We dressed up as super heroes to raise money for Children in Need
The local firefighters came to our school to talk about how they help people in the community
We had an outdoor autumn tidy up. We planted winter pansies outside the classroom.
We have begun to develop our new growing area...we planted Calluna (coloured heather) in our new coloured pots.
As part of our Autumn topic the children have been on a number of autumn walks.
Autumn in the sunshine
Autumn in the rain
In the Mud Kitchen
The children had lots of fun making delicious 'soups' and 'cakes'
