Wednesday, November 20, 2013

A plea to all parents


Please don’t forget the PALs Christmas hampers. Foxes class are collecting party items and Otter class are collecting girl superhero items. We only have about 5 items each and would love to see our hampers over flowing. There is a prize for the class whose hamper raises the most money. Will it be Foxes or Otters?

Don’t forget it is our Christmas performance on Tuesday 10th December. We will be making costumes and scenery on Thursday 28th November at our stay and play. We look forward to seeing lots of you there.

Mrs Lewis and Miss Sullivan

What does the fox say?

Today Kyra and Brogan started singing a song called ‘what does the fox say?’ Mrs Moran loves this song. The girls were teaching other children the words.

Daniel really enjoyed this and soon was making up his own lyrics. He asked me ‘what does the car say’, I thought I was being clever and replied ‘vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom’ he shook his head, told me no and sang ‘beep, beep, beep beepty beep, beep, beep’.

What noise does a fox make? What noise does an otter make?

Does any one know a song about otters? Miss Sullivan and Otter class are disappointed because they don’t have a theme tune!

 Have a listen to the song.

Mrs Lewis and Miss Sullivan

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

The little red hen

Listen to the foxes retelling the story of ‘The Little Red Hen.’ Miss Sullivan and Mrs Lewis taught us the story actions and we all joined in with the repetitive phrases. Listen to how we change our voices for all of the characters.

Tuesday morning was very exciting. When we got to school we had received a letter from the Lister hen…



We were able to read lots of the key words; we recognised them from our phonics learning.


We decided that we should write story maps to read to our Lister hen. Miss Sullivan and Mrs Lewis wanted to see some labels and speech bubbles. We worked every hard to sound out the character’s names and used our sound mats to remind us of the graphemes we needed.









Some children used an ipad app called puppet pals to narrate their own puppet show of ‘ The little red hen.’ They played their stories for the Lister chickens. Can you hear their clear voices? Did they include everything from the story? Some of the children worked hard to include extra detail into their version of the story. We thought about adjectives...listen out for any descriptive words.



When we had finished writing our story maps we wrapped up warm and took them outside, into the garden, to the chicken coop! The hens were excited to see us. Mrs Scarisbrick fed them some grass and they came close to the fence so that they could hear the story. We all told our stories using loud, clear voices. The chickens made a lot of clucking noises; we thought that perhaps they wanted to bake some bread as well.





We then stood on the garden stage and performed the story chorally for the Lister chickens to enjoy. ….

After our busy morning we went back inside and enjoyed a tasty snack of home baked bread, we kneaded the dough on Monday afternoon just like the little red hen. We didn’t have to grow our own grain or cut, thresh and grind the wheat though! Mrs Lewis bought a bag of flour from the shops. We all worked together. No-one had to ‘Do it themselves.’



Tuesday, November 5, 2013

The Gingerbread Man

Well, what a busy few weeks we have had in FS2!

Ask your child to retell the story of ‘The Gingerbread Man’! We have been working very hard on our speaking skills and have rehearsed telling the story in a clear voice using actions to help us remember the sequence. We have been acting out the story using masks, puppets and small world characters. The fox at the end of the story prompted much discussion! Should he have eaten the poor Gingerbread man?

We wrote story maps to help us retell the story. Ask your child to show you how to do this! They are a fantastic way to encourage story telling language and work for any stories you may share at home.

We cooked our own delicious gingerbread men, and decorated them with an icing tube (tricky for little fingers). We ate them up before they ran away too!! Some of us didn’t like the taste of ginger; we discussed our own likes and dislikes. The root ginger confused some of us! It looked very different to the powdered ginger we used when cooking. There were lots of interesting ideas of what it could be.

Mixing powdered ginger into paint created some very fragrant artwork.

Next week we will be exploring the story of ‘The Little Red Hen’. Watch this space for more exciting story maps and retellings.


Friday, October 25, 2013

Have a nice half term...


Today we performed in our very first assembly. The children were outstanding in their rendition of Hakuna Matata. Here is a small clip showing their hard work. We are very proud of all the children and the work they have done this half term.

Enjoy the break. See you all in a week!

Mrs Lewis and Miss Sullivan

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Expressive Art and Design

We have been busy transforming our creative area into an inviting, enclosed woodland to link our wildlife themed classrooms. The children have been painting foxes, otters, hedgehogs and squirrels. They are full of ideas of what our woodland needs. All of the FS children, teachers and practitioners have been working hard to enhance this learning environment. We will upload photos soon so that you can see it develop. For now here is a video of the children in FS2 as they created their own Andy Goldsworthy inspired art with natural materials. I think you will agree that the children produced some beautiful art!



Miss Sullivan and Mrs Lewis

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Number hunt


The children in FS2 became number hunters today.....we discovered that numbers really are everywhere!

We explored the whole school and had fun hunting for numbers, we also learnt where all of our older brothers and sisters did their learning. The staff photo board provided many laughs, who knew our photographs could be so funny!?

Can you find any numbers in your house? Let us know by writing in the diary, sending in photographs or commenting on our blog.

Miss Sullivan and Mrs Lewis.