This week was People Who Help Us week where we found out all about different jobs that help people. We were visited by our very own Mrs Bennett, Robin and Paul the lollipop man as well as some parents who shared about their jobs, why they like them and how they help people. We have really enjoyed asking questions and finding out all about each job - thank you very much to our visitors!

We have a new self-service station in our playdough area! The children can come and collect the ingredients they need to make playdough, select the colour and mix it all together. It has been a bit of an experiment to see how much water and how much flour is needed to get the consistency right but it has been fun (and messy!). Thank you for your '£1 a week' contributions that have enabled us to do this.

On Thursday we had a rugby and tennis workshop. They were both a lot of fun! We really enjoyed learning some new skills and playing some silly games.

Today we discovered a dinosaur egg and footprint in our garden! We had lots of discussion about where it came from and what type of dinosaur might have left it there. It was a lovely way to introduce our dinosaur topic for this week.

We have set up a new 'deconstructed role play' area in our small playground. The children use boxes, paper, crates, fabric etc alongside their imaginations to turn that area into whatever they want it to be! Today we had spaceships, a Batmobile, cars, a boat and a den for their pets. This will really encourage their creativity and collaboration and we can't wait to see what they come up with next!

The children arrived back at school to discover that our dinosaurs were desperate to go outside for an adventure but the only way to make them come alive was to write down what adventure we would take them on! So the children spent Wednesday morning busily writing (and having!) some exciting adventures. Then on Friday we found out that the Number Wizards had cast a freezing spell on the dinosaurs and left calculations for the children to solve to break the spell! We had fun using a variety of equipment to solve the problems and set the dinosaurs free.

This week we have been learning about healthy eating. We tried lots of different types of fruits and vegetables, some we had never tried before! The children really enjoyed creating a cafe in the classroom and worked hard writing their menus. 

We have had such a busy week! The children looked great in their World Book Day t-shirts and we all enjoyed decorating the potatoes to look like our favourite book characters. We also took part in the book swap and the children from Year 5 came to read us our favourite stories from our book corner. 

We ended the week with a belated pancake day celebration by making and eating our own pancakes! Everyone thought they were delicious and are keen to do some more at home!

This week we learnt all about Chinese New Year and how people celebrate it. We read the story of the Chinese Zodiac, had a go at performing the dragon dance and even made our own dragon puppets!

After spending a couple of weeks imitating and innovating the story 'We're going on a bear hunt', the children had the opportunity to be authors themselves and create their own stories! Some of them took this into their play, writing and illustrating concertina books. They also used their creative skills in a different way; making boats from junk modelling, exploring the best materials to use and investigating ways to make them more stable or to help them float. 

Last week Robin informed Reception that he saw a bear when opening up the school! So Reception bravely went on a bear hunt to the nature area and we discovered a friendly cuddly bear who was holding the story 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' by Michael Rosen.

We have been learning to retell the story by creating story maps and this week we have been changing parts of the story to make our own version.

This week we thought about promises we could make at the start of the year to ourselves, our friends and our family. 

This week we read The Cave Baby by Julia Donaldson and Emily Gravett during storytime and the children were fascinated by the cave paintings. We spent some time looking at cave paintings and talking about how and why they were created. The children then had a go at making their own using their fingers or sticks as paintbrushes!

The children have been busy making Christmas decorations for our tree and creating a sleigh for our Santa's workshop role play!

Something very exciting happened in Hedgehogs today! Miss Blassberg's gingerbread man that she was going to eat after her lunch disappeared! We set off to hunt for him and found a trail of flour and some clues left by a horse, a cow and a suspicious looking fox. At the end of the trail we discovered a story map which told us the fate of the gingerbread man. 

We will be learning this story off by heart over the next two weeks and will be using it to help us create our own. Please take a look at the story map below and see if your child can tell you the story and teach you the actions!

This week we read the story 'Pumpkin Soup' by Helen Cooper and then wrote recipes and made our own soup! The children helped to chop the ingredients and most of them tasted it at the end, even if it was a new food which we were very proud of.

We have also been learning about the festival of Diwali and thinking about the similarities and differences to festivals or special days that each of us celebrate. The children made their own Diya lamps which they will decorate next week.

We had a fantastic time at our Magical Tea Party. In the morning we played party games in the hall and decorated biscuits and then in the afternoon we did some exciting Halloween crafts in the Badger and Hedgehog classrooms.