Foundation Stage | Christopher Pickering Primary School

F1’s homemade ‘clay’

By Mrs C SILVERWOOD4th December 2025

This week our afternoon children have had fun measuring out different ingredients to make our own air-drying ‘clay’. We used 2 cups of bicarbonate of soda, 1 cup of cornflower and 1.5 cups of water.

When we had mixed it up together, Mrs Silverwood heated it up on the hob. She had to keep stirring it all the time until it turned into a ball of thick paste.

You will have to wait to see our fantastic decorations though, as it is a surprise for Christmas! However, they are looking very pretty!

To finish our book The Gingerbread Man, the children decorated their very own yummy gingerbread men and what a treat it was! They have really loved the story, and ending it with real gingerbread made it even more magical.

With careful piping, colourful sprinkles and plenty of chocolate chips, the children created brilliant (and delicious!) gingerbread characters, just like the bakers in the tale. A sweet, sparkly, fun-filled way to celebrate the end our story!

Reindeer Riders in F2!!

By Leonnie Carrick20th November 2025

Today’s balance bike session was full of festive fun as we transformed into speedy Christmas reindeers! With jingles in our imaginations and Christmas cheer in the air, the children hopped onto their bikes and got ready for a magical ride.

We set up a special festive course, with cones pretending to be Christmas trees, and the children zoomed, weaved and flew around them just like Santa’s team. There were giggles and lots of confident riding as our little reindeers dashed through the “forest.”

IMG_7099 : Here is a fab video of some of the children having a go riding over the ramps!

F2 SNOW DAY!

By Leonnie Carrick20th November 2025

As soon as the children arrived at school today their faces lit up and everyone was buzzing with joy at the sight of the playground covered in white fluffy snow!!

We wrapped up warm and headed outside as quickly as we could. The children had the best time building snowmen, making snow angels, and enjoying friendly snowball fun with their friends. We talked about how the snow felt crunchy under our boots and how cold it was when we held it in our hands. We also noticed all of the autumn leaves slowly falling off the trees leaving bare branches!

After all that chilly play, we headed back inside to cosy up and warm ourselves with a lovely hot chocolate.

Owl nest crispy buns in F1

By Mrs C SILVERWOOD20th November 2025

When we first looked at the different objects in Mrs Silverwood’s bag, we thought we were going to eat some breakfast because we knew that it was a box of cereal. However, Cally said we needed a bowl and some milk but they weren’t in the bag!

When we found a bar of chocolate, Jacob told us that we couldn’t be having breakfast, “because chocolate is for pudding”. He was right!

The children decided we needed to mix the chocolate into the cereal but the hard chunks just went round and round in the bowl. Nothing happened. That was when we realised we needed to melt the chocolate to get it to stick to the cornflakes, so we could make crispy buns, and to melt it we needed to make it warm.

We took turns to make the mixture and spoon it into our cupcake cases. It was all quite tricky to do and we had to concentrate. We decorated our crispy buns with chocolate ‘sticks’, which Brody thought looked, “very yummy”, to turn them into nests. Finally they needed an owl to fly down and sit in them. Just perfect.

The only thing we needed to do was to let the chocolate cool so that it went hard again, then to take them home and eat them! Mmm, delicious!

It’s snowing!

By Mrs C SILVERWOOD20th November 2025

F1 loved experiencing the snow this morning. For some it was the first time they had EVER seen any snow! It was so exciting!

We had a good chat before we went outside about the clothes that we were wearing. Blake knew that his mummy had put his scarf on today because it was cold. Jacob told us that our hats would keep our heads warm. We definitely wouldn’t be wearing shorts and t-shirts today, like we did in the Summer!

The water in our tray had frozen solid! Musa shouted, “ice!”

Everyone’s hands got so cold from touching the ice and snow. It was great fun but we all needed warming up! There was only one thing for it…

HOT CHOCOLATE!

We had a mysterious visitor in F2!!

By Leonnie Carrick17th November 2025

This week, F2 had a very exciting surprise waiting for us! We received a mysterious postcard but it didn’t say who it was from! The children were full of ideas and questions, so we decided to become detectives and go on a hunt around the classroom to search for clues.

Our first clue appeared in the home corner, where we spotted flour sprinkled everywhere and a baking tray with a strange outline. Who could have made such a mess? We followed a trail of tiny footprints across the classroom until we discovered a basket filled with curious objects such as a rolling pin, some ginger, a bag of flour, and (most excitingly of all) some delicious gingerbread biscuits!

The children quickly began to make predictions. Could it really be… The Gingerbread Man?

We kept searching until, at last, we found him hiding in the library, holding his very own storybook! The children were delighted. We all sat together and enjoyed reading The Gingerbread Man for the very first time and, of course, we couldn’t resist tasting a gingerbread biscuit while we listened!