Blackfell Primary School

Our feelings!

What makes us feel sad?

In our circle time we are going to be looking at a range of different feeling stones and discuss our many different emotions over the next few weeks. This week we have been discussing what makes us feel sad. The children thought hard about what makes them sad and we talked about ways we could overcome our sadness.

The Hungry Caterpillar!

and

What the Ladybird heard!

We have been very busy doing lots of activities surrounding the stories...

‘The Hungry Caterpillar’ and ‘What the ladybird heard’. We have been developing our number skills in the areas, thinking about how to double numbers, add two amounts to find how many altogether and measuring using cubes as non standard measures. Some of us have been writing number sentences and using mathematical language to explain what we have been doing. We have also been ordering numbers to ten then twenty and counting and matching quantities to numbers. We have had fun in the dough making caterpillars and ladybirds. We made the ‘life cycle’ of a butterfly and used our ladybirds to develop our number knowledge. We have also enjoyed making the ‘life cycle’ of a butterfly in the construction area. Some of the designs were fantastic and showed how well we can use our imaginations. We have been retelling the stories we have heard in our small world areas and expanded our language through learning new words. We have observed the changes to our caterpillars which are now in their cocoons and this has helped us to understand the ‘life cycle’ better. We are keeping a close eye on the cocoons and hope we see the interesting transformation from caterpillar to butterfly very soon. We have had so much fun learning.

Well done Reception!

Art Exhibition!

In preparation for the Art Exhibition the children in Reception have been thinking really hard about how to incorporate our topic 'Animal Antics'. They have been really busy thinking about which animals to create using their hands. They looked at various pictures to help them decide which creature they wanted to create. First they created a wash then with some support created their pictures using their hands and some other materials to create a scene. The finished pictures were then framed and exhibited in the hall for parents and carers to purchase. We were so proud of their 'handy' work. Every picture o is an original piece of art. What a lovely idea and a treasured keep sake!

Well done Reception! You have made everyone so proud of your handy work!

Sports Day 2018!

Once again everyone has enjoyed our annual ‘sports’ day event. Reception together with year 1 and 2 have took part in many sporting events and everyone has worked hard to support their teams, Willow, Pine, oak and Maple. The children in reception have made everyone proud as they took turns in each race and showed great team spirit. Even the adults took part in a race at the end to show they are all great sports. Thank you to all the parents and carers who came to support the children. 

Willow were the proud winners. Well done to everyone who took part!

Creative Week!

The Rainbow Fish!

We took part in a range of activities to celebrate our ‘creativity’ and ‘diversity’ through the story of the ‘Rainbow Fish’. We created a fantastic and meaningful piece of art work... A Rainbow Fish using a range of materials to represent his uniqueness. We then made some Rainbow Fish biscuits that we decorated with colourful sweet treats and we thought they were delicious. We learnt about different families and what makes our family unique and we even made some very colourful fruity fish kebabs. The story made us think about ‘our’ feelings and the feelings of others and how we are all the same inside but different in the way we look on the outside. We learnt how we should treat each other, discussed how to be a good friend and what sort of things we could do to make someone happy.

Take a look at all the activities we took part in. Well done Reception!

Our Hungry Caterpillars!

We got another exciting delivery to class today... Some really hungry caterpillars. We are learning about the 'Life Cycle of a Caterpillar' through the story... The Hungry Caterpillar'. We sat in a circle and passed the caterpillars around to have a closer look at what they were doing. We talked about what we could see happening and listened carefully about what they need to grow before they attach themselves to the top of the tub to spin a cocoon. We then found out that they need to be moved into a butterfly garden as they begin to push themselves out and change into a beautiful butterfly called 'painted ladies'. We are then going to look after them before setting them free. We going to keep a close watch on the caterpillars and observe their growth over the next two weeks through pictures and writing...Watch this space! We are so excited to watch them grow!

Little Red Riding Hood!

To finish off our topic on 'Traditional Tales' we performed the story of 'Little Red Riding Hood' for all our families and friends. We began by practising our lines and the songs everyday, before going into the hall to start our dress rehearsals. We loved getting dressed up and acting out our parts. We performed on Monday for some of the classes then again for our families. We all had a great time acting, singing and dancing. We are so proud of all the children for being brave enough to stand on stage, say their lines, act out the story and deliver a brilliant performance. I think we have some stars in the making! Well done to everyone and to all friends and families for their support.

A final farewell!

After observing the caterpillars over the last few weeks and watching the changes that have occured it was time to release them. We along with nursery went up onto the decking to set them free. They took a little bit of encouragement to leave the butterfly garden but once they did some of us were able to hold them as they landed on us and get a closer look. Once they had got used to their new environment they flew off around our garden and we watched where they landed. Eventually they spread their wings and flew further away. We continued to look out for them over the next couple of days as we learned they like to stay close to where they were set free for a little while. The children have really enjoyed watching the life cycle of a caterpillar and talking about the changes they have observed. Well done everyone! 

The Night Pirates!

Ahoy there matey! We have been so busy with our pirate themed activities over the last two weeks. We have had so much fun in all of our areas learning through the story… ‘The Night Pirates’. We developed narratives in the role play area and in the water

areas and some us developed this further by writing some brilliant stories, messages in bottles and drawing treasure maps. We continued developing our number skills, adding and subtracting amounts using pirate themed resources and lots of treasure. We made binoculars and had great fun on our pirate ship outside on the decking looking out for the bad pirates. We investigated lots of items in the water tray and made predictions as to which ones would ‘float’ and which ones would ‘sink’. We also made pirates in the dough area using ‘2d’ shapes and enjoyed reading stories in the reading area.

Ship Ahoy Reception!

Relay Races! 

We are beginning to learn about how to work as a team ready for our annual sports day event that will be coming soon. We got into teams and ran as fast as we could to drop our bean bag in the hoop. We then ran back and joined the end of the line. We then did the same again to collect our bean bag and ran to the back of the line again and sat down to be the winning team. We then cooled down doing some slow stretching excersises. We had so much fun running races!

Our feelings!

What makes us feel Happy?

In our circle time this week we have been thinking and talking about what sort of things make us feel ‘happy’. It was nice to hear all the lovely things that make everyone in reception feel ‘happy’. They were all ‘happy’ to share their thoughts with each other.

Well done everyone!

Shark Alert!

In our P.E session this week we warmed up then we listened to instructions to play a new game. We had to pretend to swim around the hoops and pretend to be different types of  fish and when Miss Jackson shouted ‘SHARK’ we had to run and jump into the nearest safe pool. Each time we swam around the hall a hoop was removed and we had to hold each other and work as a team as the group in the hoop was bigger and tighter than before. We tried very hard not step out of the hoops into the shark infested water. If we didn’t make it into a hoop in time before Miss Jackson counted back from ‘5’ or if we accidently stepped out of the hoop we were out.

We really enjoyed doing this activity and worked hard as a team.

Our visit to the Blue Reef Aquarium!

Nursery and Reception arrived at school excited about their visit to the Blue Reef Aquarium. They listened carefully as a member of staff showed them lots of different creatures that live underwater...such as starfish and hermit crabs. Some of the children were even brave enough to touch them. We then looked at lots of different types of fish and learned some of the names and talked about what they looked like and tried to identify some of them by their colours on the sheet we had been given. The children enjoyed pointing out which ones they had spotted. We enjoyed watching the mischievous monkeys climbing and jumping ropes and observing the otters. The highlight of the day was watching the seal show. We had so much fun learning all about the seals. They did some great tricks and jumped through hoops. We laughed when people got wet as they made a big splash. We then went for our dinner and enjoyed chatting to our friends about what we had seen. Finally we looked at some more sea creatures and were surprised to even see some mini sharks. The children really enjoyed the hands on experience of learning about the creatures that live in our seas. They were all so well behaved and we are so proud of them all!

Well done to all the children and helpers that made our trip special!