Christmas with the Aliens

Thank you for coming to watch our magnificent Christmas performance this morning. The children haven't stopped talking about it all day, they really enjoyed being on stage and showing off all of their wonderful singing and loud speaking. They had so looked forward to sharing their nativity play with you and all came off the stage wanting to talk about how happy and smiley you all were as you watched it.

As Mrs Scarisbrick said, your children have been involved in every part of the production. They made posters to advertise their play, wrote invitations, created tickets during their computing lesson and even created their very own programme. We hope that you all got to see one of the programmes that were placed on your seats.  Your children worked as a class team to organise each page needed. We had teams creating a picture for the front cover, teams compiling a cast list and organising labels and photos, teams working together to write a succinct and informative blurb and a very technologically advanced team videoing themselves saying a thank you for our thank you page. This was then turned into a QR code by Mr Scarisbrick.

Alongside all of this was some very complicated problem solving...we had to think about how to set out the chairs for you all to sit on and decide where best to sit on the stage. Before Zack left, he made a very good director. He ensured all of the children were using their loud voices by standing at the back of the hall and giving a big thumbs up. He suggested that he needed a clipboard so that he could note down any changes that he felt necessary.

Of course, we must say another big thank you to you! Our Stay and Play was a big success and I am sure you will agree that your creativity in making backdrops, props and costumes really added to the play today. Your children were so proud to have had a part in creating the whole stage design and were excitedly telling their friends which parts you had
helped to make.

 Well done to all of our singers who sang 'Let it go'! We had to squeeze that popular song in somewhere. Yumiko  played the  Alien/Frozen super fan very well.

Our wonderful narrators worked with Mrs Gill to accompany our 'three kings song' with percussion instruments. They kept a very steady beat and remembered not to play when the kings were singing their solo lines. There were a lot of children singing solos today! We are incredibly proud of how confidently and beautifully they all sang. (Mrs Lewis and I could never rehearse those parts with dry eyes!!..Today was no exception) All of the foxes and otters sang beautifully today and really helped to tell the story by singing all of the words clearly.

We are incredibly proud of all of the foxes and otters! We had very high expectations of them and they exceeded them all...

At the end of the day Tilly asked what time we were performing tomorrow! All of the children have enjoyed the whole process of putting on a production and said how special they felt on stage in their costumes. Thank you for coming to watch and letting your children feel what it is like to perform to a happy and proud audience. Like Tilly, I just wish we could perform it over and over again.


Please leave a comment under this blog post so that we can share what you thought with your children during snack times this week.


Thank you again,


Miss Sullivan, Mrs Lewis, Mrs Sturrock and Mrs Balmer.

Visitors from Outer Space

Last week the Foxes and Otters had another unexpected visitor. As the Otters were rehearsing their lines for the Christmas play a very confused and startled alien stumbled into the room.

We were very surprised and asked our visitor to tell us who he was. When the alien started to talk we were shocked that he had a similar voice to our very own Mrs Sturrock. Eagle- eyed Mateo noticed that he not only sounded like Mrs Sturrock but he was wearing the very same watch. Lucas told us that all aliens must be from Scotland. Cameron pointed out that Scotland isn't another planet.

Our alien visitor found this conversation very funny and told us that Mrs Sturrock must be very beautiful. He introduced himself and told us why he was here. His name was Mango Fandango from the faraway planet Wango. He had heard that we were putting on a Christmas play and had only just got here in time to watch it. His alien friends were on their way in their much slower spaceship. They would take an hour to get here.

The Otter children were very worried. They knew that our Christmas play wasn't happening on that day at all. They had to quickly think of a way to let Mango know that he had the wrong day and quickly get the message to the other aliens before they landed in the staff car park.

We decided that the best way to give all of the information to the aliens would be to write invitations. We remembered writing invitations to Otto's birthday party and knew 
that if they wrote them properly the aliens would have all of the information that they needed.

In their talk partners the children listed everything an invitation would need and helped me to write an example. I was very excited by our surprise visitor and kept making very silly mistakes like writing from the right hand side and forgetting finger spaces. I was very glad I had some expert writers at hand to calm me down.

The children were incredibly busy writing their invitations and even taught Mango how to write like humans do. He was very interested in our finger spacers and particularly liked the way Jack stored his on the end of his pencil until it was needed. He even helped Christopher to count the number of words in his sentence.

After writing our invitations we were a little concerned about how to get them to the spaceship before the other aliens landed and felt disappointed that they had wasted a long and tiring journey to  Earth. Luckily, Mango Fandango told us that aliens spaceships have a very high-tech laser system which allows them to beam up important mail, all the children had to do was close their eyes and picture the aliens and they would receive the message.

With that, Mango Fandango left for her very own private spaceship with the promise that he would be back on the right day now that he had all of the information. Wednesday 3rd December, 09:30, in the school hall.

When Mrs Sturrock came back from her meeting with Mr Chapman she was extremely jealous that she hadn't got to meet this visitor from outer space. Now she knows how I felt when I never met Mummy pig!

Maybe you too will catch a glimpse Mango Fandango when you come to watch our Christmas performance.

The Foxes had their own unexpected alien visitor too... this time it was Splodge from the planet Plodge...who looked remarkably like Mrs Balmer!

Neela and Yasmin come to visit

Yesterday Mrs Gill came to visit Foxes and Otters together. She brought with her a special visitor, Neela. Neela had come to look around her school but some children hadn't been very nice to her, they had said mean things because she looked different to them.

Foxes and Otters were shocked to hear this, they always try really hard to be kind to each other. They told Mrs Gill not to worry they would make her feel happy again. Kerron told her she would look after Neela. Gigi said she would play with her and Mia told Neela she looked beautiful.

Neela was wearing a beautiful dress that her Grandma had sewn by hand and sent it to her all the way from India. It was a little bit big but the children told her she would soon grow into it.

Mrs Gill was pleased to hear this, she knew she could rely on FS2 to be kind. We all told Mrs Gill something we would say to Neela that was kind. There were lots of offers of people to play with her and lots of people wanted to take her to their house for chocolate cake, muffins and ice cream!!

Neela chose to sit next to some of the kind people she could see in the classroom as they would help her to feel happier.

Neela is still in Foxes class as she is having such a lovely time listening to the children being kind and watching them do kind things. Unfortunately, Mrs Gill had another friend who was also feeling hurt after the older children had said unkind words to her. Mrs Gill took Yasmin down to Otters class where she is seeing lots of kind actions and hearing lots of kind words.

Foxes class later chose to write down some of the kind things they had said and we have put them into a special kindness box- just in case other children need to hear kind things.

Well done Foxes and Otters!

Self service play dough station

A new area opened in Foxes classroom this week. We now have a self service play dough station. Here the children can make their own playdough.

The children have measured the ingredients and then used their funky fingers to mix and knead the dough.

Foxes class have written instructions for their friends to follow.

This area is VERY messy! Yumiko and Archie have shown that they are excellent at tidying up, they have shown their friends how to sweep flour off the table and into the bin without making even more mess.

We must apologise for children coming home with flour on their uniform, all the children do wear aprons when using the playdough station but the temptation of playing in soft flour has sometimes meant aprons have been put on too late!

The Great Otter Sewing Bee

For the last two weeks if you had ventured into Otters class you would have seen a busy hive of children sewing, threading and cutting. Our classroom had been transformed into our very own version of the recent programme, 'The Great British Sewing Bee.'

This all stemmed from Lucas' interest in all things fabric! Since September there has been a intriguing box of multicoloured threads, assorted buttons and shiny, sharp needles waiting to be discovered. Lucas excitedly opening the needle tin and exclaimed in delight that he remembered sewing in FS1.


For those of you that have been following the blog for the past year you might remember the
infamous Superhero day of last year's Otter class where a donated bag of fabric found itself cut up
and made into capes and "power cuffs". Well that box of fabric had another outing on the day Lucas found the needles. Many other children persevered with threading the needles and watched as Lucas showed them how to push the needle through the fabric.

Mrs Lewis was treated to a very trendy, robot shoulder bag complete with a red, ribbon handle, chosen just for her and painstakingly attached with a very neat running stitch.

Seeing how much Mrs Lewis loved her shoulder bag started an explosion of threads and material and soon I had to think of a way to capture this sudden fascination within the classroom and extend the children's learning.

This is where the Great Otter Sewing Bee came in. The sewing box was moved from the smaller funky fingers table and placed on a table of its own. With it, was an assortment of materials, needles and ribbons all waiting to be transformed into something brand new and original.

This week we have seen more bags....including a teeny tiny bag made for a fairy by Finlay and a dark, black vampire cape made by our seamstress Kerron. I have observed very technical talk, creative problem solving, tricky fine motor skills (I haven't been threading any needles) and incredible perseverance at this table and have been incredibly impressed with the children's design skills.

I am looking forward to seeing where this will take us this week...I am hopeful that this new fascination will last until our Stay and Play on the 27th November. That way, you will have extra help when creating your wonderful Christmas play costumes.

Outstanding news...

We are very pleased to let you know that as an Early Years setting we have received the grading of Outstanding in our recent review inspection.


We are incredibly proud and feel very happy that our hard work has been recognised and valued.


Please follow the link below to read the full inspection report.


Mrs Gill, Miss Sullivan. Mrs Lewis, Mrs Sturrock and Mrs Balmer.








http://www.lister.sceschools.com/_files/B6FF1470302229CD214FD0BC6418E1C6.pdf

Harvest Assembly

Today we went to our first school assembly. All of the teachers are very proud of us. Lots of the teachers from the rest of the school told us that we were fabulous! We contributed to the whole school Harvest assembly just like all of the other children. Some classes sang wonderful songs, some recited a poem beautifully and others danced fantastically. 

We impressed everyone with our choral speaking. Using Pie Corbett actions we retold the whole story of 'The Little Red Hen' word for word from beginning to end. We used loud voices and clear actions. We thought carefully about how each character would speak and had lots of fun practising making each characters voice sound different. 

We have now learnt two stories in this style. It would be fun to make up our own actions for our favourite bedtime stories and then share them in school. Miss Sullivan and Mrs Lewis are going to make actions for their favourite story, 'The Gruffalo''.

Please leave a comment, we have loved hearing what everyone thought of our awesome performance today. 

Bike fever...

(This video can only be seen on a computer- sorry)

Today we continued with our exciting, adventurous bike video from yesterday. Miss Sullivan found a playmobile bike video. It was interesting to watch and then talk about, Maisey asked "is it real?" Austin told us "no it cant be real its playmobile". We decided that it was either magic or lots of photos turned into a video. All of the children loved the video and found the music very exciting. There was lots of fantastic dancing in Foxes class. Look at Emmanuel and Nischal showing their best dance moves.

Maisey and Emmanuel wanted to find out more, they had a go using my camera to take their own photos. It was really funny to watch the photos quickly. Watch their video to see the photos they took. Does it look like they are moving?

Please let us know if you know any exciting videos we can use as a talk focus.

Dashain

Today we were very lucky, some of our Nepalese parents came into school to share one of their celebrations, Dashain. Mrs Thapa's parents in law are visiting from Nepal. They explained how Dashain is a very special festival and is important to them that they are with their family. Family gathering is the most loved part of this festival. Mrs Thapa showed us how she received a tika from her mother and father in law. We remembered getting tikas on our Nepalese day last Summer. This time the tika was made from rice and yoghurt. 

Incense was burned and fruit was offered to the Hindu Gods Lakshmi and Ganesh for good luck and prosperity. 


For our snack Mrs Thapa had prepared us a tasty treat of Aloo Dam and Sel-roti rice doughnuts with a spicy tomato chutney. We talked about the celebrations we have in our own families and the special food that we like to eat.

The Ridge

Foxes and Otters would like to say a big thank you to Mrs Savage who found a very exciting video for us to watch this afternoon. Miss Sullivan and Mrs Lewis couldn't wait to play it to us...they knew we would be amazed and have lots to talk about.


Before we pressed play we talked about the first still shot and what we thought was happening. ''Did a helicopter drop him up there?'' wondered Faye.''no'' said Mateo, ''He carried his bike up but on his back not in his hands.'' Paige agreed with Mateo but worried that he was going to fall off. ''If he falls off he will damage his brain'' agreed Lucas.


As the video started there was a mass intake of breath and then a whispered ''Wow!''
''That's awesome, I've never seen a man do that before'' said Lucas. Reese was flabbergasted... ''He rowed all the way to the mountain for that awesome ride.'' Zack couldn't believe his eyes. ''it's like bike dancing.''
Lots of us told Miss Sullivan and Mrs Lewis that our Dads could do the same tricks! ''It's super cool'' said Mia whispering excitedly to Kerron. ''Yes, he is brave, like a knight''


Samuel told us that, ''My Daddy can't do that but he can climb up very big hills.'' Cameron couldn't take his eyes off the screen and when Danny jumped over the water he said ''I wish I could do those things.''

(This video can only be seen on a computer)

We asked to watch the video lots of times today and every time we spotted something new and exciting. We asked Miss Sullivan and Mrs Lewis to put the video on our blog so that we could share it with our families. Please leave a comment. We love to read your comments at snack time. Maybe you have some recommendations for other videos we could use a talk prompt?

The Three Little Pigs are still in FS2...

We've had another busy day in FS2. Today it was fantastic to see lots of the children using the skills they learnt last week and applying them independently.

 We have been asked for blue tack and then seen lots of wanted posters appearing in the corridor.

 We have heard lots of brilliant story telling. In Foxes class this morning Maisey and Megan were reading different versions of the story to their friends. They used the repetitive phrase 'no, no, no, I will not let you in'. They then used the puppets and showed some different friends how well they can speak in a loud, clear voice.



We have continued to use our imaginations to help us build new houses. Outside the deconstructed role play was full of children working together and problem solving. Finlay made an excellent project manager and helped his team to make a strong house that the wolf will not be able to blow down.

Inside the clay house building was still going strong. Different resources were added to the clay and Archie and Kerron had a fantastic discussion about which would make a stronger house, sticks or straw. They decided that actually bricks or metal would be best!

It was also fantastic to see children ordering numbers to 20 today in our maths lesson. Keep practising number recognition at home. :)

What a busy day!