Blackfell Primary School

The Colour Monster- What makes us happy and sad?

In our first week, we have been sharing the Colour Monster book. We spoke about how different coloured monsters linked with different emotions and feelings. In groups, we were asked to draw monsters, use colours, and record some of our ideas about things that make us happy and things that make us sad. 

School Disco

Early years had a fantastic party! They enjoyed dancing with their friends and enjoyed their hot dogs.

Comparing Size

In Maths we have been learning about comparing size. Today we looked at comparing length and height. We looked at different resources and spoke about which were taller, shorter or longer. 

World Mental Health Day

To celebrate World Mental Health Day, we discussed different emotions and how we can help to make ourselves feel good. We reflected back on when we shared the colour monster story and which feelings were good ones, we agreed that calm and happiness were positive feelings. We then spoke about which colours these were: green and yellow and that is why some of us had wore yellow today. Miss. Dodds tasked us with making our own well being wands using natural materials, we went outside and found different yellow and green leaves to create our wands. After spending some time outside, we enjoyed a nice warm hot chocolate.

Firework Science

We have been learning about fireworks. Today the children created their own “fireworks” in a jar. We started by talking about liquids and that liquids can dissolve within other liquids and can be heavier or lighter. We added food colouring into oil and noticed that they did not dissolve and floated. So we mixed them up with a fork to make the droplets smaller. Then we added the oil to a cup of water. The children noticed that the oil floated to the top of the water. Then the food colouring started to come out of the oil and mix with the water below creating fireworks. The children noticed that the colours started to mix together to create different colours and we talked about this.

Early Years presents: A Wriggly Nativity

Wow! Where to start! Today, the children put on a fantastic performance of the Nativity story. We are all so proud of the children who have had great fun learning the songs, dancing and dressing up! Thank you to all who came to watch today, it was lovely to see everyone getting into the Christmas spirit. The children loved hearing all of your lovely comments.

Scooter Fun!

We had great fun learning how to ride the scooters, we spoke about keeping safe by always wearing a helmet too. Great scooting. 

Balance Bike Training 

We had our first session with Wheel Education. Jason told how to get on our balance bikes and we played different games. We pretended to be stomping elephants and slow tortoises. We then had to try and cross the river without being chomped by the crocodiles.

Autumn Wreaths

As part of our learning about Autumn, we enjoyed an outdoor activity where we made our own autumn wreaths. We had to weave the wool around the wreath and then add on our autumn decorations. 

Black History Month

For Black History month, we learnt about 3 famous people from the past. We talked about Mae Jemison the first black astronaut to go to space. The children made a new rocket for Mae in the construction area and pretended to travel to space. The children were then told the story of Garrett Morgan the inventor of the amber traffic light. To understand why he created the amber light the children enjoyed using cars and running making sure to pay attention to the traffic lights to know when to stop, slow down and go. Finally the children learned about Alfred Cralle, the inventor of the ice cream scoop. The children used Pom poms as ice cream to use both a spoon and an ice cream scoop to investigate why he had created the scoop.

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Anti-bullying week

Early Years have been very busy during Anti-bullying week where we have focussed our learning to the story series: Elmer. We have taken part in a range of activities from helping the elephants get clean in the water area, making Elmer models and paintings, re-telling the story in small world, and maths and fine motor skills linked to Elmer. We have also been making friendships biscuits and cards alongside links to odd socks following on from odd sock day. We discussed throughout the week that we are all different just like Elmer and how important it is we are kind to everyone. 

Christmas Dinner

Today in school we all enjoyed our Christmas dinner! We listened to Christmas music and sat with our teachers and friends. We enjoyed special Christmassy biscuits too! We were then joined by a very special visitor, Santa! He spent time chatting to us about how we were all on the good list and how busy he has been. We are all very excited for Christmas!

Sound hunt

Today we were introduced to phonics, we spoke about how sounds help us to talk and there were lots of sound around us. We went outside for a sound hunt where we heard an aeroplane in the sky, crunchy leaves and even some builders nearby. We then went on a sound hunt, finding different letters that made different sounds. 

Our Autumn Walk

Early Years had a fantastic morning exploring our school grounds to help us learn more about Autumn. We talked about how the weather is changing and how the leaves are starting to fall from trees. We spoke about how this is because it is not as sunny and it is becoming colder. We had great fun looking for beautiful autumn coloured leaves and some of us were really interested in matching them up on our tree sheet. We loved being out in our wellies and waterproofs and some of us even enjoyed a roll down the hill at the end! We all had great fun. 

Scarecrow building

The children have been learning the song "Dingle Dangle Scarecrow" this week. Today we created our own scarecrows. The children worked in groups and helped to dress the scarecrow and to stuff the clothing with hay. The children enjoyed singing the song as we created them to remember the different parts we would need. Once the scarecrows were created the children drew on a face. Finally we all sat as a group to sing the song with the scarecrows.

Marshmallow Maths

In true bonfire spirit, we used marshmallows for our maths today! We spoke about the meaning of one more and one less and then counted out our marshmallows. We then went on to add one more at a time to the skewers, we were able to say how many there were as we went. We then did one less, and counted as we took them off the skewer. We of course enjoyed eating them at the end of our maths job! We then were tasked with recording this in our books, we were very confident at counting and with support recorded the correct number.

Anti-bullying week- Odd socks

Reception children talked about this years theme of Respect as part of their learning for anti-bullying week. We talked about treating people kindly and how we would like to be treated. The children then thought about ways to show respect to others. The children drew a picture of themselves showing respect to others or a picture that showed respect. Then as a class we put all the pictures together to create a pair of patchwork odd socks following on from odd sock day. 

Our Christmas Party

Early Years have had a brilliant party this morning full of party games and dancing. We have enjoyed playing musical statues, corners and pass the parcel. We even had a team competition to build the best snow man! Our highlight was the arrival of Santa who gave us all a special treat. We have all had great fun and looked fabulous! We hope you all have a brilliant Christmas!