They have been role-playing in a Chinese Restaurant...

Including making currency and chopsticks...

The children have been building the Great Wall of China in various guises...

Creating their own Night Spirits, inspired by the story 'Ning and the Night Spirits' by Adriena Fong ...

And cooking delicious Chinese dumplings with their buddies...

During the first week, the whole school had a popcorn viewing of The Wrong Trousers, followed by a workshop run by Aardman Animations. The children's Gromit creations were incredible, and they have since inspired some writing and artwork, with a short animation to follow!

The children have been enjoying spending time with their friends and making the most of the beautiful weather we have been having too...

We have been sharing the story Cave Baby, by Julia Donaldson, from which the Reception children have built their own cave from which to re-enact the story, complete with cave paintings and a woolly mammoth. Meanwhile, Year 1 children have used the story to explore new vocabulary and practise turning simple sentences into super-sentences and writing in role as a character.

Well done darling Class, you are superstars!

In Maths, Reception children have been exploring mass, estimating and then finding out which items are heavier and lighter and using the knowledge of how much one item weighs to make a good estimate of how much another item might weigh. Great logical thinking!

Speaking of logic, we have had some new logic games bought for Darling Class, which the children are thoroughly enjoying... 

We have been learning to orally retell the story of The Gingerbread Man with actions and this has inspired some creative play and writing...

And outside, we have been making a library, car ramp stadiums and much more besides!

The children took part in an African Safari workshop, where they did giraffe-inspired yoga, learnt amazing facts about African wildlife and got up close with real animal artefacts donated to the project, including a python snakeskin, impala horns, tortoise shell and leopard skin.

The children were able to meet an amazing array of animals - among the favourites; the lynx, bears, meercats, ostriches, ring-tailed lemurs, giraffes, zebras, village weavers and of course, the red panda which had come out to see us...

There were lots of different farm machines busy working. We got to hear what each one is used for and even got to sit in the tractor- it was so high up and the wheels were bigger than us!

Inspired by the story 'The Boy who Sailed the World' by Julia Green, the children set about building their own boats. Selecting their own resources and following and adapting their own designs, they took to the water to set sail...

Reception children have been exploring measuring length using standard and non-standard units...

Outside we have been making tea...

 ... getting in a pickle...

making some willow hearts for someone very special...

 and creating and playing our own snakes and ladders game...

We have also been using picture stimuli in phonics to practise our spelling and sentence writing...

and as we lead up to Easter and learning about the Easter story, we have created our very own Easter Garden...

And this is all before the excitement of World Book Day!!!!

After sharing the story 'Mr Wolf's Pancakes', we made our own pancakes and chose our own toppings...

The results were delicious!!!...

Then, we had pancake races with our buddies...

And we have continued our pancake fun in the continuous provision...

Exploring the light spectrum...

Climbing onboard our spaceship and venturing into outer space...

Mission control...

Getting the engine working...

What is out there?

And a visit from St John's ambulance too!

We made 2d shapes using small sticks. 

We made triangles, squares and rectangles and talked about the number of sides and corners they had. We tried to make the shapes bigger and smaller by using more or less sticks. We demonstrated good fine motor skills when manipulating the pieces.

We enjoyed wrapping up warm and exploring outdoors. Getting the bikes and trikes out was so much fun, especially when we took it in turns to control the traffic!

We were really good at taking it in turns and sharing the bikes. Our peddling and steering around obstacles have both really imporved. 

Reception and Year One children went to Abbeyfield school to take part in a sports festival. We made and wore crowns and took part in lots of activities which involved running, throwing, kicking, jumping and generally having a whole lot of fun! We had a great morning despite the freezing cold weather but we all wrapped up warm and got fully involved representing the school brilliantly. 

We have been learning about the festival of Diwali and the story of Rama and Sita. We made diva lamps, which Hindu people light for Diwali to remember the lights guiding Rama and Sita back home...

We have also been learning about the police and have had a lot of fun being Police Officers, building a Police Station, taking messages, solving crimes, taking fingerprints and capturing criminals!

And, of course, we celebrated Odd Socks Day and all the fabulous things that make us different, unique and very, very special...

At the REME museum in Lyneham we learnt about soldiers who risked their lives for our country and lots of the children in Darling class were able to talk about the jobs people in their family do in the army now. We took on the backpacker museum scavenger hunt, obstacle course and had a great attempt at the STEM challenge to work together and create a moving vehicle that could transport a tank.

We also listened to stories about Guy Fawkes, why he tried to blow up the houses of parliament and why we celebrate bonfire night on November the 5th. As part of this we enjoyed creating talking about our own experiences of Bonfire Night and creating fireworks pictures on the ipads.

We have shared our own experiences of going to the doctors and hospitals and practised our listening skills as we heard about the experiences of others. 

We have enjoyed learning the song 'Miss Polly had a Dolly'.

We have also been practising some new vocabulary as we use the doctors' otoscope and stethoscope to help each other feel better, and we have definitely shown kindness and empathy as we have looked after our patients and written out prescriptions for their medicine...

From writing 'open' labels for treasure chests...

tomaps for pirates to follow...

then 'Danger' signs to warn others ...

...of the 'monsters' in the pit...

and, of course, things got very exciting as the adventure expanded and play progressed!

Playing with our friends...

Exploring patterns...

Here is a little glimpse of what we have done this week...

Complete with a 'walk the plank'...

 Water cannon...

Pirate grog...

and treasure maps...

With the pirate ship complete and ready to set sail, it was time to follow those maps...

use the lock and key and see what treasure there was...

The Reception children were eager to write a postcard to Mr and Mrs Grinling to share their ideas...

Nursery and Reception had great fun designing and creating their own lighthouses, modifying and extending their ideas as they went along...

We were all very impressed at the array of delicious food Mrs Grinling packed in the lunch basket for Mr Grinling, and some of the Nursery children were inspired to design their own favourite lunchbox...

We have been building palaces, both big and small...

A safe for the crown jewels, complete with a secret compartment chair for King Charles to store his food in...

Making coronation crown biscuits with our buddies...

Hand printing Union Jack flags...

Proudly showing off our wonderful crown creations...

Taking part in a coronation re-enactment...

Coronation Sports...

And a special coronation dance...

Here are a few pictures from this week...

Numbering the trains on the track...

Building an army barracks...

Having our own ideas and getting creative...

A sweet and chocolate dispensing machine 

a bed...

a musical shaker ...

an egg and spoon obstacle course race... 

and a library! 

We made our own porridge and explored different the different flavours and smells of cocoa, rose water, golden syrup and vanilla - yummy!

getting physical...

And making the most of the sunshine!!

We got our funky fingers moving, shelling peas and then using tweezers to put the correct amount in each cup case...

We retold the story of Jack and the Beanstalk with our grown-ups, using story props...

We had fun creating masks for the characters in the story...

We shared the alternative version of the story that we had written...

 We made towers and ladders as tall as the beanstalk...

We took on the challenge to construct a safety harness to stop the egg from cracking as it rolled down the drainpipe...

We reused newspaper to make plant pots and planted seeds to take home...

We sequenced words to make sentences and checked that they made sense before writing them ...

We took our grown-up to the shoe shop...

And of course we shared some stories...

Thank you so much for coming.

Retelling the story 'We're going on a bear hunt' using props...

Visiting the Story Museum...

And of course, celebrating 'World Book Day' with our wonderful hats and costumes...

The children had been very excited writing their invitations and were so pleased to be able to share some of what we have been doing this term with you, including their song, fossils and dinosaurs junk modelling.

Most of all they loved creating their dinosaur inspired snack and sharing a dinosaur story (or two, or three...!) with you.

And would you believe it...we found dinosaur bones!!!!

The tricky part was putting the bones back together again!!

After much animated discussion, it was decided that we needed to make a comfortable nest for the egg, so we set out to do just that...

We wrote back to the dinosaur to let her know what we would do...

Then we watched and waited...

We checked to hear the heartbeat and took great care of it...

Until one morning we arrived in school to find the egg was empty and a note from Dino, letting us know that the egg had hatched in the night and they had returned home.

We were so happy that the dinosaur had hatched! We couldn't wait to build our time machine to visit the baby triceratops straight away...

See you soon, we are off on a dinosaur adventure x

Inside we have been busy in the post office, writing cards, letters and messages, and of course delivering them...

The Reception children have been exploring bods to five and beyond...

And in Nursery we have been exploring all about the number 2...

We are very much enjoying putting on performances; singing, dancing and even plays...

We are using our phonics knowledge to read and sort 'real' and 'alien' words...

and exploring properties of shapes...

Finally, we have enjoyed our sensory play making hot chocolates...yummy!

We used our senses to explore the surroundings, made potions, hid and found nuts like squirrels and challenged ourselves physically.

Here are a few photos of our day. We hope you enjoy them.

We would also really like to thank all the parents and grandparents who accompanied us - we couldn't do it without your support.

Building together creates exciting outcomes ...

In the Nursery we have been developing our pre-writing skills, moving our crayons to music while we squiggle while we wiggle!

Taking on a challenge - can you balance the two sides; and celebrating our successes!

Using our phonics knowledge to sort objects by their initial sound and sounding out and writing the words...

Exploring the wonderful world of webs and learning about their importance for spiders as a way to attract food and as a home...

Getting busy and inspired by the school scaffolding and roofers working at the school!

Learning from each other's experiences about how Diwali is celebrated, exploring rangoli patterns and making Diva lamps...

I wonder what we will get up to next week!

Smelling different herbs and adding them to dough...

Colour matching the woods...

Continuing with our incredible home creations...

Building homes outside too...

Exploring and creating patterns and finding the mistakes...

Investigating which utensil picks up conkers the easiest and why; counting; estimating how many will fit into a container and comparing size...

Playing hide and seek with our woodland friends and waiting for fairies...

Having fun with our friends...

And last but not least, performing the song we have been learning in class 'Big, red combine harvester' to our school and families at the Harvest Festival...

Here is a little taste of what we have been enjoying...

Creating our own aquarium, complete with fish tanks, tickets and souvenirs...

Making funny faces with play dough...

Counting, matching, comparing and sorting...

Baking a wedding cake...

Building up our muscle strength...

Helping with the harvest...

Designing and building homes with our own choice of materials...

Here are a few photos from our first week, so you can see for yourselves...

We started with a low zip wire and found they needed a bit of a push...

How about we start them a bit higher...

They went much quicker and smoother...

How about short and steep was another suggestion...

They flew down this one...

But what about a triangle...

Or a square...

Then home to roost...

We began our day feeding the birds, some of them were very friendly!

We looked at how webbed feet help birds walk on soft ground and sand, as well as helping them to swim. We also learned that we have webbing too - between our thumb and forefinger!

We compared birds feathers to the clothes we wear to keep us warm...

and investigated the food we eat compared to those of the birds...

After this we explored the birds and wildlife as we went on a scavenger hunt...

This led to a fascinating debate over which bug would make the best pet....

"I would choose a spider because it would tickle me"

"I would choose a woodlouse because I don't like slugs or snails because they are slimy. A woodlouse isn't scary or slimy, and it wouldn't bite me."

"I would like a stick insect because I'm scared of spiders and I would keep it safe and put another stick next to it so the predators would get confused."

"I would choose a spider because then I could use it to scare people."

However, knowing that we couldn't take an actual bug home, we made our own minibeast pet to look after and play with...

We all agreed that the Ugly Bug Club should be renamed 'The Lovely Bug Club' and here they are having their very first meeting...

Creating our own bugs and butterflies in the woods gave us the opportunity to observe and talk about the different body parts of the creatures, count and check we had the correct number of legs and explore symmetry...

We also have some new additions to Darling Class...

We will keep you posted on how these furry creatures are getting on. We have already learned a lot - did you know caterpillars only have six legs? The others are called prolegs and help to move the caterpillar along, but they are not the caterpillar's actual legs!

Chopping up our favourite fruit to make a healthy fruit skewer...

... Finding and sharing new hiding spaces now Spring has well and truly sprung and investigating the new flora and fauna in the woods and pond ...

... Flexing our muscles on the tricycles and scooters, and making sure we stick to the speed limit to avoid fines from the police while we did it...

... Making our own family of worms, ordering them by size and using our mathematical knowledge to work out how much shorter and longer one family member is in comparison to another... 

... Taking inspiration from outdoors for our painting...

... Cleaning the doll's house ready for some small world play...

And finally, making and baking delicious cinnamon twists...

... And eating them of course!!!

We have begun our new topic 'Down in the garden' finding out about the incredible world of worms. We decided to make a wormery to be able to watch them at work...

...which inspired some instruction writing, as we wanted to share with our buddies how they can make their own wormery at home ...

We have washed, preened and pampered pets in our pet parlour...

...made some wiggly but very friendly caterpillars...

...enjoyed solving some mathematical problems...

and having a game of snakes and ladders...

We have opened up a Garden Centre, selling the most delicious mud pies...

...and planted a sunflower circle beside the woods...

oh, and climbed a few trees too...

A fantastic first week back!

Including seven day old Rusty...

Daisy the duck, who layed an egg especially for us...

and her feathered friends...

Nellie, a seven month old spaniel...

and the softest rabbits and guinea pigs you've ever touched...

Thank-you Chloe, we can't wait for you and your animal friends to visit us again soon.

We started by orally learning the story, through the Talk for Writing approach, adding actions for connectives to support our story telling language....

 Once upon a time

 After that        Suddenly

 Finally

We added our own actions for the main characters...

 Grandma         Wolf

 Little Red Riding Hood

Learning to tell the story was a lot of fun, and it helped us to create a story map...

Bursting with our own ideas we took to creating our own versions of Little Red Riding Hood. First we talked through our ideas, then we altered our story maps with our innovative ideas...

After rehearsing our own story orally, using our story maps, we had a go at writing our very own story ...

Finally, we received a letter from a family of wolves, who were very upset that they were always the bad guys in stories and asking for our help...

Together, we created a Little Red Riding Hood story that they would enjoy listening to, and it went something like this...

Once upon a time there lived a girl called Little Red Riding Hood. One day her mum asked her to take a basket of fruit to Grandma's house because she was poorly. As she was leaving her mum called out "Don't talk to strangers and stay on the path".

Little Red Riding Hood skipped along the path but became distracted by some beautiful yellow primroses underneath an old oak tree. Little Red Riding Hood wandered off the path to pick some. Just as she was bending down to pick the primroses, she heard a voice behind her "Where are you going to on this fine day?" Little Red Riding Hood replied "I'm taking this basket of fruit and flowers to my Grandma who is poorly" "Can I come with you?" asked the wolf "I am very friendly".

So, Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf set off down the path to Grandma's house. When they got to the house they knocked on the door and a voice called out "Come in my dear". Grandma was in the kitchen boiling the kettle and when she turned around she saw the wolf!

"This is my friend, wolf" said Little Red Riding Hood.

"Oh, wolf, what hairy arms you have" said Grandma. "All the better to be stroked with" replied the wolf.

"Oh, wolf, what sharp claws you have" "All the better to scratch your itches with".

"Oh wolf, what big paws you have", "All the better to give big hugs with" said the wolf smiling, and they all had a big hug.

Finally, they sat down together for a nice cup of tea and a slice of cake.

The End

We investigated forces, creating our own firefighter hose and exploring how we could make the water in our hose reach further distances...

We looked at lego rainbow designs and worked out how to create our favourite...

We designed and built bridges, using only play dough and pasta, so that the train to continue on its journey...

We created and used our own balance scales and worked on our own representations of number rhymes...

And we bravely presented our own experiments to the rest of the school and guest speakers...

A tremendous and exciting week had by all.

We enjoyed making play dough pancakes and deciding which delicious (and some a little unusual) ingredients we were going to add...

We began our new PE topic of Locomotion...

Then took to the Big Woods for some special story telling...

and had a very memorable and fun World Book Day...

Finally, to end the week, we got creative with an Artist, who introduced us to his splodge machine...

We love spending time with our buddies and chatting to them while we cooked was a lot of fun. They helped us to work through the method, helping us to weigh the ingredients and use the hob to melt the butter and marshmallows.

A truly wonderful time for all.

Amber said that as a vet she needs lots of help from the people she works with; we were very happy to be her vet helpers!

First we learned that we need to be quiet, calm and comforting to animals, as they will be scared and frightened, just like us when we go to the doctors.

Also, when we meet people's dogs, we should never touch them without asking if they like to be stroked first and then approach them calmly and quietly. We learned that if a dog approaches us we need to stand like trees, with our branches in and looking at our roots - it was fun to practise this!

Then it was time to get to work and meet the first patient of the day. We met Fluffy the bunny, who had hurt her leg. We watched how the vet bandaged the leg and then put a funny cover over the top with chicken pictures on it! This was to keep the bandage clean and dry, incase Fluffy stepped in her water bowl.

We helped to count out the tablets for Max, who needed them to help his sore leg get better.

We then got in our car and drove to the farm to meet our next patient, Bob. Bob needed a tetanus injection. This needed to go into the neck muscles and Bob was stroked to keep home calm and comfort him.

Then we travelled back to the surgery to meet the last patient, Boo. Boo had been a bit naughty and swallowed something he shouldn't have. The vet took Boo to a special room to do an x-ray and when we looked at the x-ray we could see something inside Boo' stomach that should not be there. It was time to do an OPERATION!

Boo was given an injection to sedate him, and then we held an oxygen mask over his mouth to help him to breathe. The vet then had to cut open Boo's skin to get to his stomach and do you know what was pulled out - batteries! Thank goodness the vet was able to get those out. Then Boo's stomach had to be stitched carefully back up again.

What an exciting and busy day vets have!!

Thank you so much Amber for your inspiring visit.