Blackfell Primary School

Noah's Ark Activities

We have been learning about the story of ‘Noah’. We have been very busy in class with lots of different activities linked to this very old biblical story. We have worked together and independently to do all of these important jobs to help us learn...We helped each other build an ark with the construction blocks, retold the story in the role play area, wrote labels for our pictures as well as writing sentences about the story and found letters to match the animals in the sand. We have also developed our mathematical skills… We have used the animals as a visual aid to help us, we labelled and ordered numbers to ‘20’ and we tried hard to make up number sentences using the magnetic numbers in the water. We also used equipment to investigate more about capacity and drew pictures then explained our findings. We think we have worked as hard as ‘Noah’ did when he built his ark! Well done reception!

Monkey Business

We have been learning about the monkey and what he stands for. We talked about how he likes to take risks and try new things even though sometimes we don’t want to because we might think it’s too hard. So we have all been thinking and talking about the things we find hard to do and discussing how we can help each other and ourselves to make the jobs we find hard easier and get on with that monkey business!

Order! Order!

We have been using animals to help us write and order numbers to ‘20’. We chose animals and lined them up one by one and wrote the corresponding numbers on pieces of paper as far as we could go independently. We used various strategies to help ourselves, we counted the animals we already had to find the next number, looked at the

previous number and added one more, rote counted, used numbers in the environment to help us or asked an adult for a little help. Some of us used number lines to help us with our formation.

Little Red Riding Hood

We have been very busy doing lots of activities in class surrounding the story... 'Little Red Riding Hood'. We have built Grandma's cottage and created maps in the construction area. We  made lovely cakes for 'Grandma' in the dough area and decorated them using a range of materials. We designed 'wanted' posters to catch the 'Big Bad Wolf' and wrote captions and labels. Some of us even became Authors and Illustrators making our own story books to develop our writing skills. We used our  good knowledge of phonics to write about our favourite parts of the story. We retold parts of the story in the small world area using props and made up our own version of events showing how well our imaginations are developing. We also enjoyed using cardboard boxes to make puppet theatres. We made some of the characters from the story and painted the boxes to make them look nice.

"What big imaginations you have Reception!"

"All the better to learn to retell more stories with my dears!"

"What a busy week!"

The Gingerbread Man

To finish off our traditional tale theme we have been listening to the story of 'The Gingerbread man'. We have been recreating scenes from the story and  developing our own narratives through role play. This was so much fun we really enjoyed getting dressed up as the characters to tell the story in our own words. 

And the story continues...

We have also been very busy in other areas of our classroom. We have painted pictures, built the cottage from the story and created a map of the journey of the Gingerbread man's escape from the oven. We have used the characters to help us retell the story in our own words in the small world area,  building up storybook language from our experience of traditional tales. We have also been working on our mathematical skills using the interactive whiteboard to put the Gingerbread men in order and matching the corresponding amount of buttons to the correct numbers. We have been working out how to share the Gingerbread man's buttons between two and thinking of ways to solve problems if any buttons were left over.

'A problem shared...

Is a problem halved!'

Measuring Time

We have been measuring time in simple ways through practical activities. We used a range of sand timers to see  how many cubes we could put together and to see how many of the Gingerbread man's buttons we could catch and place inside a bucket in an amount of time, either 1, 2 or 3 minutes. We counted our cubes and buttons at the end of each task and recorded our findings, developing our counting skills  and number formation. We made comparisons between the amount of time we had used  and the amount of buttons or cubes we counted out each time. We had a great 'time' measuring 'time'.

Family fun day

We all enjoyed our picnic and fun afternoon with family and friends. We learnt a song called 'Hold Back the River' by James Bay and performed it with Nursery to all our families. We all enjoyed an ice-cream off the ice-cream van and loved having a dance at the mini disco. It really was a super fun filled afternoon.

Our Transition into year 1

Over the past couple of weeks we have been enjoying our transition into year 1. We have been lining up in the big ks2 yard in a morning with all the other children from year 1-6 and taken to our classroom by our teacher. We also visited year 1 for the morning and enjoyed lots of different activities with our new soon to be teacher Miss Stockport. I think we are all just about ready to join year 1 in September.

Crocodile Hunters

Watch out! Watch out! Crocodile Hunters about! In P.E we have been learning a sequence of dance moves to fit in with our ‘Noah’s ark’ theme. We watched ‘The Wiggles’ perform the song then we learned each part of the song copying the actions step by step as well as singing along to the music. We had such a lot of fun learning how to move to each part of the song and put it all together at the end. We became cool crocodile hunters!

The animals went in two by two...Hurrah! Hurrah!

It is definitely all about the ‘animals’ this week! As we have been learning all about Noah’s Ark and singing about all the different animals he saved from the great flood, we thought it would be a good idea to make some animal masks to wear in the ‘role’ play area to help us retell the story and some of us used them as part of our costume as we began our dress rehearsals of the story of ‘Noah’. We thought about the colours and the materials that we could use to best

represent the features of our chosen animal. Take a look at some of our

creations! It’s a good job ‘Noah’ saved our species! The world just wouldn't be the same without us!

Noah's Ark

To finish off our topic on 'Noah' we performed this Biblical story for everyone. 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 part. We performed on Monday for some of  the classes then again for all our family and friends. We all had a great time acting, singing and dancing. We even managed to get everyone up on their feet to help us sing our last song again. It was amazing to see and hear everyone singing and dancing together. It really was a bright, bright sunshine day in our school hall! We hope everyone left feeling happy and proud just as the children did performing it for you. I think we have some stars in the making! Well done reception! You did yourselves proud! Thank you to everyone for all your support!  

What big characters we have!

"Oh! What big characters we have in Reception!". We have been developing our language and communication skills through role play. We became the characters and retold the story in our own words. We loved getting dressed up and playing the part of our favourite character. Some of us didn't want to dress up but we still enjoyed participating in role play with our friends. We used the props to help us act out our part and thought we looked really funny too. Even the Wolf had a change of heart and decided to be a good 'Wolf' after 'Grandma' had fed him to keep him happy  so he didn't eat her up. And so the story continues...It can be whatever you want it to be!

Great team work developing story book language. Lovely interpretations of this traditional tale!

Character Creations

We have been using '2d' shapes to create characters from the story... The Gingerbread man. We decided which character we were going to create then thought about which shapes would be best to represent  different features. We chose our colours carefully and wrote about our character. Some of us ascribed meaning to our marks while others wrote labels or captions and some of us wrote parts of the story incorporating speech and repeated refrains. What a class full of characters! Well done!

Hold back the river!

We continued our learning outside using the guttering, tubes, water and a variety of containers to create the river where the Gingerbread man sadly came to an end when the sly old fox tricked him onto his back and ate him for his dinner. We had a great time using our previous experience of creating structures to develop our story. We were able to work as a team to keep the flow going and recycle the water and adapt our structure when problems started to occur. We now want to test it out to see if the Gingerbread man might be able to do things differently to have a happier ending than he did in the original tale. Maybe this time he will live to tell another Gingerbread man encounter. We all love a happy ending ! 

Blackfell Olympics

What a super start to our week. To introduce the Olympics Games taking place in the summer the whole school took part in our very own Olympics Games. We took part in a range of sporting activities all around our school.  We competed in tennis,curling, archery, volleyball, relay races, shot put, javelin and lots more. What a brillant morning we had. It certainly has got us ready for the Olympic Games and prepared us for our Sports Day also happening this week. Well done everyone!

Reception Sports Day

It was Reception's sports day today. They were joined on the field by Year 1 and 2.  Our parents and carers came to watch and cheer us on. We had a super time taking part in a range of activities, such as, an obstacle, sack, javelin and relay races and had a brillant time competing against our house teams.  Well done Reception we are all winners!

Our Reading Challenge

We all took part in the reading book challenge. We took a new book home each week and once we had read it our parents signed our reading record book and we brought it back to school and received a sticker. We had to collect 8 or more stickers to get our certificate and wrist band.

Happy Reading Everyone!

Capacity

We have been learning about capacity through a practical activity outside. We had to build a structure that allowed water to travel through it and collect and recycle it using various containers. We had to use the right words to describe capacity eg: full, empty, nearly full, nearly empty, half full and half empty. We set to work with our friends to start building , talking about our plans and ideas and problem solving. When our structures were complete it was time to test them by collecting water and pouring it through the pipes. We suddenly had to do some quick thinking when new problems started to arise, water was leaking and we needed to collect it to keep the flow going, the structure sometimes collapsed and containers were filling up fast. We worked hard as a team to overcome the problems and really enjoyed this activity. It helped us to understand capacity and to use words to describe capacity.

Happy 90th Birthday Ma'am!

Happy Birthday Queen Elizabeth II!

To mark the Queen’s ‘90th’ Birthday we were all given a special coin as a keep sake. We talked about this special event in class through discussion and pictures on the internet and learned a lot about the ‘Queen’, her ‘life’ and her ‘job’ as ‘head’ of our country. We looked at pictures of her family and who might be ‘leader’ of our country next when the ‘Queen’ is to tired to do her job anymore. Happy birthday from all of us!

D.I.S.C.O

Reception are still in the mood for dancing! We all had a brilliant time singing and dancing to our favourite songs and enjoyed the treats we bought from the tuck shop. We all looked fabulous in our party clothes and showed off more of our amazing moves on the dance floor. It was  great to see everyone enjoying themselves and the staff even had a little boogie too! We can't wait for the next 'disco'. We just love dancing! 

Presents for Grandma!

We have been working on developing our number skills this week through practical activities. We picked flowers or apples for 'Grandma' to make her feel better. Some of us practised our number recognition and formation by writing the corresponding number that we rolled on the dice and some of us were able to create number sentences, again generating our numbers using two dice. We were able to use appropriate mathematical language and use the add and equals signs in the correct positions. Learning is so much fun! 

Coffee and Cakes

Mini-beast madness strikes again! Reception became their favourite mini-beasts once again to entertain all the parents and friends at Mrs Watkins latest coffee afternoon. They performed their favourite songs from 'creative week'. They sang two mini-beast songs and performed The 'Gruffalo dance' which they had learned with the  dance coach Lynne. 

What a great way to spend the afternoon!

Well done Reception! Lovely singing and dancing!

"Run! Run! as fast as you can...

You can't catch me I'm the Gingerbread man!"

Look at our characters from the story... 'The Gingerbread Man'. We have used '2d' shapes to create our 'unique' creations. We thought hard about the characters we wanted to create in the dough area and set to work rolling out the dough just like the little old woman in the story. We arranged our shapes to create the characters then we added other materials to give them their features or just to add character to the characters!  It's amazing what you can create with shapes. They look like they are going to spring into action! Now that would make an interesting tale!

Fun Filled Day!

We arrived at school today very excited as we were going on our school trip to Whitehouse Farm. The bus arrived at 9:15 and we all lined up ready to go with our packed lunches. When we arrived we were greeted by 2 friendly ladies called Gemma and Rebecca. Gemma was our guide for the day and explained to us all what exciting things we would be doing. We started off in the play park which was really good fun then we went to see some small animals and even got to hold and stroke them. After a busy morning we were all ready for lunch. After lunch we had a very bumpy ride on a tractor around the fields where we seen some cows and sheep. After the tractor ride we were able to feed the goats, ponies and donkeys and were shown by Gemma on how to do this we had to keep our hands very flat because we didn't want the animals to nibble our fingers. What a great day we have had and hope to visit again soon.

Thank you to all the staff at Whitehouse farm!

All About London!

We have been learning all about our capital city 'London.' Who lives there? What is it like? What will we see? These are some of the questions we asked. We turned our role play area into an English tea room. We also enjoyed making our own crowns using lots of different creative materials. In the blocks we built Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and other famous London landmarks. These are some of the activities we have been up to so take a look!