Thursday 17 December 2015

And a Merry Christmas from the Butterflies..

Well, the children have completed a whole term and wow we have crammed a lot in - no wonder they (and us!) are exhausted!  I think we are all ready for a well deserved break ready to be fresh for lots more fun learning in January!

In the last weeks we have been thinking about capacity in our Maths so why not get the children to compare some various containers at home over Christmas  - perhaps if they think they should have Santa's cup of milk 'full', 'nearly full', 'half full' or 'empty'! or which of the family's stockings has the biggest capacity and will hold most presents! (could be controversial...!)

 

We enjoyed lots of creative activities too - stockings, paper chains and Santas to name but a few - we do hope they have added to the Christmas cheer in your homes!



In recognition of our British Values we had a vote on what we wanted to play with outdoors for our last week!!



Lastly on behalf of the team I would just like to say a big thank you to parents who have helped over the term with trips, readers, the play, contributions to the party, general super support and also thank you for the very generous gifts.  It is all very much appreciated.

I would also say an ENORMOUS well done to the children, they have worked so hard this term and have achieved such a lot.

We wish you a fabulous Christmas and a Happy Healthy new year.  See you in 2016!

Apologies from Father Christmas

Caterpillars children were not around when Father Christmas came to visit school one afternoon this week, however, they did find a huge sack of presents in their classroom this morning!

The presents were given out randomly, but we now believe that Father Christmas intended some of the presents to be for girls and some to be for boys, please feel free to swap with your friends if you wish!

Cam we also take the opportunity to say thank you so much for the generous gifts and the lovely cards and messages. The children are a pleasure to teach!

Have a great Christmas and a lovely holiday!

With love,

The EYFS team

Happy Christmas!


What a busy and exciting half term we have had! The last couple of weeks we have been getting very excited about Christmas and have had lots of treats - our hard-earned pasta party and a visiting pantomime.


 



We have been reading and retelling the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff, joining in with repeated refrains such as "Who's that trip trapping over my bridge" and developing our positional language: over, under, on top of, in the middle.





Caterpillars have been exploring the shape of different advent themed objects and using words such as long, round, straight, tall and short to describe them.  We were fantastic in our Christmas show, we worked really hard, sang beautifully and remembered our parts. 





  


 


We have been practising our throwing and catching skills in our outdoor learning area.


  

We have carried on working hard counting our numberline every day and practising writing our numbers.


 

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

As the Christmas fair quickly approached Butterflies and Caterpillars were diligent in making treats for the EYFS stall. The children have made reindeer food themselves and bagged it up ready for Rudolf and all of his friends.








Keeping with the 'Christmassy' mood we have been making baubles for our advent calendars; focusing on number formation on the front of each bauble,

 Reindeer masks using paper plates,

William even drew a picture of all 9 reindeer and helped Miss Morris sound out their names.



Preparations for the Christmas play continues, outfits look great but most importantly our singing sounds fabulous, our major singing super stars are Ethan, James, Scarlet O (from butterflies), Lacey, Alex, Jennie (from caterpillars ).



Sadly we close this update with some bad news. We waved goodbye to two members of butterflies this month. Michaela and Andreas are fluttering onto a school closer to their house. We made a card to wish them luck in their new school.





Dear Michaela and Andreas
Wishing you a very happy
time at your new school and all
the very best for the future.
Mrs Impey

Sunday 15 November 2015

Diwali!

This week we have explored the festival of D i w a l i !

We have loved creating Rangoli patterns using different materials and techniques...


Jennie and Kaysie made Rangoli patterns to celebrate Divali. Jennie said she “had to put colour on it” using pencil crayons. Kaysie  “scrunched up the tissue paper”. Jennie made her Rangoli pattern by using “two reds and lots of brown.” Kaysie tried to keep hers accurate by putting tissue paper balls into the “rectangles”.


by Jennie

 
by Kaysie 

Some more Rangoli patterns...


We had great fun role playing the story of Diwali

..and here is our version of the demon king defeated by the hero Rama!


                                     In our outside learning: Making a castle for Rama and Sita!


The Diwali Story

Once upon a time there was a handsome prince called Rama and his beautiful wife called Sita. One day an evil 10 headed demon called Ravana took Sita back to his island. This made Rama very angry so he and his monkey warrior, Hanuman, went to rescue her. Then Rama used his bow to shoot an arrow into the demon's neck. The people lit diva lamps to light the path home...
                                                                                                          ...and they lived happily ever after.

By Lucia and Scarlet


In computing in Butterflies we were also learning how to log-on to the computers and choose a programme by ourselves...






After talking about Remembrance Day and taking part in the two minute silence, some of us decided to draw and make our own poppies




And as ever we make sure we are learning our numbers!


Next week we are thinking about why we have light in our celebrations, exploring how it can be manipulated & comparing it to the dark.  As a sneak preview, here is one of the Shared Writing activities we did in Butterflies where we made up our own poem about the dark...