Christmas !

Hello everyone !

Well we've made it to the last week ! We have had such a busy time in school this week.  We had our Christmas Party on Tuesday and all had a great time.  We played lots of party games and then had a special visit from Father Christmas !  He bought us a fantastic giant marble run to keep in our class.  We then went into the hall and had some Christmas party food - we all had a fantastic time and Mrs Young was very impressed that there was no sulking when we didn't win the party games - well done !

 

 

                                                    Noah and Oniaka were great dancers !

 

 

A visit from Santa

 

 

 

Daniel is chosen to open our present from Santa

 

 

 

On Monday Miss Cannell made fantastic snowmen biscuits with us - don't they look great?

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Wednesday we went over to the local church and had a lovely Carol Concert.  We sung some of our songs from our Christmas play and the Choir were brilliant at singing their special songs too.  The church looked very Christmassy.

 

At the church

On Thursday it was Panto day and we all watched Goldilocks and the Three Angry Bears!!  It was very loud and we did lots of singing.

 

We have spent all week making secret Christmas Cards and Calendars for our special people at home so we do hope you like them (remember to take them out of the children's book bags over the holidays!)

Mrs Young, Mrs Ball and Miss Cannell wish you all a very happy Christmas.

See you next year !

Percy the Park Keeper / Christmas

Hello everyone,

Sorry there was no blog last week but as you know the weather kept us all out of school on Friday so I've tried to cover both weeks in this blog !

Last week we were reading about Percy the Park Keeper and all his animal friends.  We learnt about woodland creatures like the hedgehog and the badger and  discussed hibernation.  We  even talked a little about whether we would like to hibernate or not !

Mrs Ball and some of the children  created a fantastic Christmas tree for our Rainbow Street display made from handprints  - please do have a look.

Noah, Jordan and Alfie make up a game of pass the parcel

Helping to wrap up pretend presents

We have been working really hard on our Christmas play all week.  The dress rehearsal was on Monday and we have done two performances on Wednesday morning and Thursday afternoon.  The children all sang beautifully and remembered their lines so well done everyone ! 

 

All ready for the dress rehearsal !

On Thursday we had a Mad Science Assembly - the Mad Scientist did lots of experiments to show us about static electricity - it was great fun and really exciting.

 

We have finished learning all the sounds in Phase 2 of our phonics now and this week Mrs Young has  assessed how much we all know !  The phase 3 phonic flip books will be coming home next week and you already have the new tricky words in your tricky word book.  Please keep practising over the holidays ?

 

Abigail finds the letters for our tricky words

 

 

We have also been doing lots of number assessments - and Mrs Young was really pleased with how much we had learnt.

Indianna shows us how she can order numbers to 20

This week we have been learning a bit more about the Christmas story and why we celebrate Christmas.  We have also read lots of funny Christmas stories to get us into the festive spirit (not that we need any help!).  Our favourite so far is FATHER CHRISTMAS NEEDS A WEE by Nicholas Allen !  We have written letters to Father Christmas and written Christmas cards to each other.

On Friday it was our Christmas Dinner at school.  It was delicious - look at us all enjoying ourselves !

 

 

 

Noah loved the sausage !

 

 

 

 

Next week we have the Christmas panto and the Christmas party so we will be very busy.

See you next week.

Grasshopper Class

Winter

Hello everyone,

This week we have been thinking about winter and cold weather.  We have talked about how the weather is changing and what we need to wear to keep warm and we have drawn and painted lots of wintery pictures.  We have learnt about arctic animals like the polar bear and penguin and we have looked at how innuits live in the arctic.  We have even watched how to build an igloo - and then had a go with sugar lumps in class.  I must say I think it was probably much easier to build it out of sugar lumps then snow !

 

Alexus, Indianna and Jamie-Lea made an igloo with a dance floor !

 

 

 

Mackenzie making a sugar lump igloo 

 

 

 

Chloe, Alfie and Jordan had a go at making an igloo from crates too

We have read lots of winter stories too and on Tuesday lots of mums and dads came to our Grasshopper story time.  We read lots of books by one of Mrs Young's favourite authors - Nick Sharratt.  The books were all very funny and we had a great time.  Here is a link to Nick Sharratt's website if you want to see what else he has written.

Nick Sharratt

 

Grasshopper Story Time

On Tuesday there was a school disco and Mrs Ball and lots of our Grasshopper children had a great time dancing in the school hall.   Have a look at our photos:

 

 

Fun at the disco

 

 

 

Alexus having a dance

 

We are very busy at the moment in Reception practising for our Christmas play.  This year it is called Born in Bethlehem and every child has brought home a slip of paper explaining what they need to wear.  If you have any problem with the costume please come in and see Mrs Young because we do have some costumes in school too.  The date and time of the play will be available soon so we do hope you can make it.  Very few children have a speaking part in our play - but everyone needs to sing lots of songs - so get practising Grasshoppers!

 

Angels practising their dance !! 

 

 

We have been investigating ice in class too this week - it was FREEZING ! We thought about what it was made of and what it felt like. We also tried hard to think why it melts when we hold it.

 

 

Brrrr - very chilly !

 

In maths we have been making sure that we recognise all the numbers to 20 and doing some problem solving around 1 more and 1 less.  Singing songs like 10 Green Bottles is always a good idea to get used to finding 1 less.  Why not try it at home?

 

Lexi and Abigail doing take away sums

Our class photo should have been in the Gt Yarmouth Mercury this week - BUT the paper has printed the wrong photos!!!  Mrs Young has been in touch with the paper and if you have bought a copy of the Mercury this week please save it and take it back to where you bought it from next Friday and you will be given a free paper next week!!

The Gt Yarmouth Mercury have promised that the correct photos will be in next week's paper.

See you next week

Grasshopper Class

Mrs Rainbow

Hello everyone,

This week we have read a great story called Mrs Rainbow.  It was about a lady who loved bright colours and had her house painted like a rainbow.  The story is about her having to have her house painted grey in order to look like the other houses in the village - but the lovely, kind neighbours all help to paint the whole town like a rainbow and then luckily Mrs Rainbow's house has to be painted brightly again. So it had a happy ending !  Look out for our display in the big corridor.

We have been very busy making kites this week and luckily it was windy enough to fly them.  We have also had a go at making our own houses out of boxes.  Indianna had such great ideas and used all sorts of bits and pieces to make a roof, a chimney, windows and even a flower in the garden.  Lennon also worked really hard on his house making sure it had a door and Jessica-May had a front door and a back door !  Well done everyone who had a try at making a house.

Chloe making her kite

 

Taloola is very proud of her kite

 

 

Indianna and her fabulous house

 

 

Lennon worked for ages on all the details on his house

 

 

Oh! How did Taloola sneak in there again?

 

 

Jessica and her house with a front AND back door!

 

We have been doing lots of number ordering as well this week - Noah and Alfie did a fantastic job of ordering numbers to 20 all on their own.  They worked as a team which is always good to see.  We also tackled block graphs this week and had fun finding out what everyone's favourite colour was.

 

What a good job Noah and Alfie made !

 

On Thursday we had the fabulous Mr Gregory make a visit to our class.  He is a brilliant story teller and had come to visit us because it is book week.  He taught us lots of rhymes and read loads of stories.  He was very, very funny and kept bumping his head on Mrs Young's board.  We all listened very carefully and Mrs Young was very proud of us.

 

Mr Gregory reading an alien story

On Tuesday next week (26th November) Grasshoppers will have their own story time and all parents, grandparents, carers are invited to come along at 2.45 and listen to a story with us before home time.  Do come along as the children would love to see you in class.

We visit our library with Mrs Ball every Thursday - and as you can see from these photos we are all really enjoying choosing new books to read.  We are very lucky because we have lots of great books in our library and the lovely Mrs Reynolds keeps our library very tidy for us.  We hope you enjoy sharing these library books at home too.

 

Noah enjoys a good book

 

Relaxing in our library

On Thursdays it is Reading Cafe after school in the hall - everyone is welcome and its great fun.  You listen to a story and then have a cup of tea and a biscuit and do some craft activities linked to the story.  Lots of children really enjoy this.  Jamie-Lea brought along Paige (her little sister) to join in the fun with her and Alexus this week.

 

Brilliant work with the phonics this week children - you must all be practising at home too because you are remembering your sounds really well.

Well that's all for now - see you at story time hopefully?

Grasshopper Class

Colour Week

Hello there,

A big thank you to all the parents who attended Parents Evening on Thursday - if you were unable to come don't worry, just see Mrs Young and we can arrange a different time.

This week we have been thinking about colours and light.  On Monday we read a story called Anna's Amazing Glasses.  The story was about a girl who had some magic glasses that changed the colour of everything.  So on Tuesday we made our own magnifying glasses with different colour acetate.  It was great fun because when you looked through them everything was red, or blue or green!

We had a go at mixing primary colours on Monday too.  Primary colours are red, blue and yellow - they are colours that cannot be made by mixing any other colours together.  We found out that if you mix the primary colours you can make lots of new colours eg blue and yellow make green and red and blue make purple.  We have done lots of sorting by colour too, making sure that all the same colours are together.

We mixed the primary colours to make new colours

 

 

Noah and Jordan are going to sort by colour

 

On Wednesday it was very exciting because Pudsey came to see us at school.  He came into our assembly to say hello and explain why we were raising money for Children in Need on Friday.  Pudsey was very funny !

 

Pudsey drops in for a visit

Also on Wednesday we looked at some paintings by a very famous artist called Mondrian.  He liked to use primary colours in his paintings so we thought it would be a good idea to copy him.  We worked with Mrs Ball to create our own 'Mondrian style' paintings.  Look out for our Mondrian display in the classroom !

 

Ebony starting her Mondrian painting

 

 

 

Choosing the primary colours carefully

 

We've also been looking at light and where it comes from.  We talked about how shadows were made and had a go at making our own shadow puppets.  It was fun trying them out on our whiteboard.

 

 

Oniaka doing a puppet show

On Thursday Mrs Young had a magic magnifying glass with sparkles all around it.  If you used your imagination when you looked through it you could see all sorts of weird and wonderful things.  Mrs Young saw a massive pink dog, Noah saw a large red horse and Mrs Ball saw a gigantic golden castle.  We then wrote down what we had seen using our phonics to help us sound out the words.  We tried to think of other good words for 'big' and Lennon came up with 'massive' and Indianna thought of 'large' - well done you two !

In phonics we are getting really good at reading words with the sounds in that we have practised - well done Grasshoppers ! 

On Friday we all came into school in our pyjamas for Children in Need.  We raised a fantastic £321 as a school - so thank you so much.

 

In our pyjamas for Children in Need

 

 

In PE this week we played parachute games - Mrs Young and Miss Cannell were really impressed with how sensible we were.  We all listened to instructions carefully and nobody was silly - it was great fun !

 

 

 

 

Parachute Games

 

 

Well that's all for this week.

 

Grasshopper Class

 

 



Fireworks

Hello Everyone,

Welcome back to school !

This week we have been thinking about Halloween and Bonfire Night.  We talked about Halloween at the beginning of the week and the children had lots of exciting news to tell their friends about how they dressed up and got LOTS of sweets !

 

Indianna and Jamie Lea with their pumpkin paintings

 

Jessica May with a fantastic pumpkin picture

 

We then talked about Bonfire Night.  We talked a lot about how to keep safe and Mrs Young was impressed that lots of the children knew lots of rules about firework safety.  Jessica said you must "Stand Back" and Abigail warned everyone to be very careful.  We have made lots of sparkly, glittery fireworks pictures this week.  They were so good that Mrs Ball is going to put them on display in the corridor - so watch out for it.  Miss Cannell is feeling really brave and on Friday she helped some children to create the background to our display by 'splatter painting' !!! It was great fun but VERY messy.  Miss Cannell had to go home for a bath !

 

Courtney making a fabulous sparkly rocket

 

 

 

Taloola cutting out carefully with Oniaka

 

 

 

Lexi and Abigail busy making sparklers

 

 

Splatter painting is fun !

 

 

 

Miss Cannell got messy !

 

We have also created some firework dances in PE with the coloured scarves - look at our great rockets and catherine wheels !  We had to listen really carefully to the music so that we knew when it was our turn.

 

 

 

In Phonics we have started learning our sounds.  We have done s, a, t and p this week and already lots of the children are spotting the sounds up on the wall and in books.  When we wrote about fireworks we could even hear some of the sounds we had learned in the words we used (like sparkly and pretty).  It would really help your child if you could practise the sounds at home - perhaps your child could teach you the song that goes with each sound?

In maths we have been making spells and adding up all the ingredients.  We have practised combining two groups of spooky objects like snails and slugs, eyeballs and snakes and we have even used the + and the = sign.  Why not have a go at making spooky spells in the bath?   Make sure you add up all your ingredients.

 

Eimantas making spells

 

Four witches making spells !

 

 

 

More witches !!

 

 

We have also been building some great houses and castles outside.  Taloola and Ebony spent ages building their house - it even had a working door.  Alfie also built a great little house just big enough for him.

 

 

 

Taloola and Ebony's house

 

 

 

Alfie's house

 

Everyone has been in school every day this week so well done Grasshoppers - we got Attendance Ted!

 

That's all for this week - see you soon,

 

Grasshopper Class