Nature Club!

By Jodie Buss11th May 2023

Another beautiful week in Nature club! The children have loved going on ‘shopping hunts’ (as they like to call them!) recently and gathering and exploring what the outside has to offer us for free! We have loved the last few sessions taking part in ‘nature shopping’ and becoming more aware of the world outside around us and the signs of change and growth. We collected bits that caught our interest… through smell or colour or texture and loved discussing what we had found. We wanted to keep these precious finds so decided to laminate them and create ‘nature windows’. These came out beautiful and the children were very proud of their natural masterpieces!

By Jodie Buss11th May 2023

Nature Club!

We had a fab time this week in our after school Nature Club! We went on a nature shopping trip, looking for different weeds and plants and signs of Spring/ Summer! We loved identifying plants and weeds we recognized around school and looking up the ones we were unsure of. We collected some weeds and leaves and decided in celebration of the weekends events to create crowns fit for King Charles! We looked absolutely fabulous in our ‘nature crowns’ and they smelt tremendous! Long live the King!!!

 

F2 Easter Bonnet!

By Jodie Buss30th March 2023

A BIG thank you to parents for all your help and support with the AMAZING Easter bonnets! The children looked fabulous and loved showcasing them to their friends and especially to you in their Easter Parade!

The children were all fantastic and loved dancing and strutting their stuff, parading their fabulous hats for everyone to see! We had some amazing creations… from pirate rabbit’s on boats, to Easter tiara’s! They were all fabulous!!!

Thank you for your continued support, what a lovely afternoon we had showcasing them off on the stage!

Happy Easter!

Oh… and check out some of  our amazing poses below…

 

    

F2 Orchard Visit

By Jodie Buss29th March 2023

Wow! What a lovely morning F2 had at our local Pickering Community Orchard!

The weather held out for us and we definitely felt like Spring was on it’s way! We loved our leisurely walk round our community and looked for signs of Spring all around us!

When we arrived at the Orchard we were greeted and shown around the grounds… through the allotments where we spotted all types of different vegetables! Even some from this terms story ‘Oliver’s Vegetables!‘

We took a woodland stroll and spotted lots of signs of Spring- flowers beginning to bloom, animals beginning to emerge and the whole garden become more alive! We named daffodils, moss, bird nests, ladybirds, woodlice, spiders, earwigs and identified some local trees!

We also loved exploring the Orchard, where the apples are not quite ready yet, but the trees are beginning to bloom! Feeling the branches, trunks and leaves was great fun and we loved thinking of words to describe the different textures.

We were very intrigued at the bee hives, where the Orchard make their very own honey!  We talked about the process of how the bees make the honey and could see the bees leaving and entering the hive… busy at work!

We can’t wait to visit the Orchard soon… for some of our Forest School sessions….watch this space!

 

The Festival of ‘Holi’!

By Jodie Buss8th March 2023

Holi

What a day F2 have had celebrating the exciting and fun festival of Holi in religious studies!

Today our children all came to school wearing brightly coloured clothes ready to celebrate the festival of colour!

We have been discussing the traditional Hindu festival all week and the events that take place during this time of celebration. We spoke about the celebration welcoming in the beginnings of Spring and saying goodbye to the end of Winter. We talked about what the celebration meant to some people and how the festival symbolled new life, beginnings, love and hope!

We looked at where some people went to worship during this festival time and how some people celebrated with parties, paint throwing and dancing!

In the afternoon we had our very own paint throwing celebration! We created Rangoli patterns with Chalk, danced to some traditional Hindu music and raced our very own colour run across the field, flying our colourful flags and musical instruments! The afternoon was full of music, dance, creativity and merriment and the children definitely enjoyed experiencing this festival, labelling it their ‘favourite day at school’ to date!!!

 

 

The Hub

By Jodie Buss22nd February 2023

Connor had great fun today with our bubble machine. He tried to pop them and enjoyed chasing them around.

All the children danced around and we counted all the ones we popped.

Our machine made us all happy today and we cant wait for it to be back on tomorrow.

 

 

Valentines Stay and Play

By Jodie Buss8th February 2023

Love is in the air…

A BIG Thank you to all our parents and carers for again supporting us in a very successful and enjoyable afternoon at our ‘Valentines Stay and Play!‘ What a fabulous afternoon it was! Valentines is more than just a card…it’s a smile to a friend, a hug to someone upset…or an act of kindness to someone who needs it. This week we have loved celebrating acts of kindness and happiness and talking about the things that we love. What better way to show off all of the above by welcoming everyone into our classroom for the afternoon!  We loved getting creative making our very own LOVE potions with petals and citrus fruits! And using the pipettes to squeeze and add ingredients into our perfect concoction of kindness! We had some very creative ‘love bugs’ and amazing Valentines cards and messages! Thank you again for supporting us… until next time!

The Foundation Stage Team

Mud GLORIOUS MUD!

By Jodie Buss12th January 2023

F2 had a glorious morning getting muddy- mixing, pouring, scooping, digging, painting, sweeping and making! In F2 we have been reading the story of ‘The Three Little Pigs’ and loved making ‘dirty waffles’ for the pigs and ‘Wolf soup‘! We made some brilliant recipes, measuring and weighing our own collected ingredients!

Some of us enjoyed painting with mud! We mixed our own mud paint, making sure not to add too much water or mud getting the right consistency…we didn’t want it too watery! This brought up lots of topics for discussion about what the paint needed to feel and look like! If it was too watery what could we do to change the consistency? And if it was too solid… what could we do to change it? By the end of the session we had made the perfect mud paint!!!

Alongside mud painting some of us just enjoyed JUMPING UP AND DOWN IN MUDDY PUDDLES! These were moments of pure joy and happiness! After our P.E session yesterday on ‘jumping’ we were experts at it! Talking through the steps on how to jump- bend the knees and push!

Huffy Scientists!!!

By Jodie Buss12th January 2023

This week in F2 we have been reading the story ‘The Three Little Pigs!‘ We have loved this story, especially acting out characters like the wolf! And we have been huffing and puffing all about the classroom!

This got us thinking?

Could we really blow down a house? And what are houses made from? We had great discussions about the materials used to build a house and whether these materials were strong or weak? Could they withstand the ‘huff and puff’ of a wolf? After many discussions, we decided to put it to the test. As a class we predicted what we thought would happen to the different houses we made, from the different materials we picked (sticks, bricks, straw, plastic, metal, wood). We made a tally chart, ticking or crossing if we thought the wolf could blow it down! In order to get enough ‘huff’ we used a hairdryer to give us enough blow- this brought up lots of discussions about how the hairdryer worked and electricity! Together the wolf and the children ‘huffed and puffed’ and attempted to blow down the houses! We then assessed our predictions and whether we had predicted right, filling in our tally chart to evaluate!