Unfortunately our whole school Holi Festival was cancelled earlier this month because of the cold snap so we decided to hold a mini Holi Festival with another class.

So what is the Holi Festival? Holi is a Hindu festival that celebrates spring, love, and new life. Some families hold religious ceremonies, but for many Holi is more a time for fun. We joined together with another class and enjoyed a morning of exploring colour and like they do in The Holi Festival celebrations, we threw powder paint around the space and got well and truly covered! We also sprayed coloured water onto umbrellas and the wall and mixed powder paint colours together in trays. What a fabulous time we had. We will celebrate as a whole school in the Summer Term.

This week we have introduced teeth brushing in our class. Each child chose their own toothbrush and for the first session we each had a mirror and looked closely at our own teeth. We also demonstrated how to brush using the giant set of teeth and toothbrush! In the next session we added toothpaste and a little water in a cup and we were delighted at how they got stuck into brushing. Everyone participated and did such a good job too. We will brush our teeth every day after lunch. We hope you will see how well they brush when they they clean their teeth at home with you.

We also made the most of the snowfall yesterday (and we will again today) and we went outside to explore it using spray bottles with coloured water and umbrellas. What a great time we had spraying coloured water onto the crisp white snow and seeing how the colours mixed to make new colours. We also had a bit of a water fight but luckliy we had the umbrellas to keep us form getting too wet!

Jess, Babs, Labli and Corrie.

This week we have celebrated World Book Day by having a focus on books all week and having an extra special day on Thursday 2nd March where we dressed up and had an exciting assembly. We listened to stories told by The Masked Storyteller and had to guess who was telling the story. We learnt a song form the story, A Squash and a Squeeze and finished off the Assembly with our own catwalk. Idris proudly walked down dressed as The Gruffalo.

We also got to meet some special creatures from Zoo Lab. Rob the Ranger introduced us to a cockroach, snail, snake and a rat. They were such friendly creatures and our children were so interested and keen to touch them.

Books are amazing and we love sharing books either individually, in small groups or as a whole class. Books are so good for developing language as well as a lovely time to develop close, warm relationships. We hope you enjoy looking at books at home too.

There’s been a bit of a colour thing going on this week as well as tossing pancakes in between! We celebrated Valentine’s Day on Tuesday by making beautiful cards using celery! (The bottom of a bunch of celery when dipped in paint looks like a rose) We also made heart shaped pancakes and had a Valentine’s themed tea with heart plates and goblets and red velvet cake.

To celebrate NUFC reaching the final we had a black and white themed day on Thursday. We dressed up in black and white clothing and all went into the Sports Hall for a school Sing a Long. We were also saying goodbye to Fran who leads the Sing School; sessions and is moving to another job. We will miss her cheery face and lovely singing. We had football with Graham too where we were very appropriately dressed in our black and white kits!

We hope you have a good half term week and we will see you all again on Monday, 27th February.

Jess, Babs, Labli and Corrie.

We love to take our learning outside whatever the weather. We always start the day with time spent either in the Quad or in our own space outside the classroom. At lunchtimes we often go down into the Early Years Play area where we get involved in a range of different activities.

During the day we also explore different areas linked to our topic work and we love our sessions in the mud kitchen. We are learning so much outdoors that we cannot learn about indoors and we know from research that being outside is so good for our mental well being.

Here is a taster of what we get up to.

We’re working on a new topic all about animals. We are finding out about animals that live in hot countries and animals that live in cold countries as well as learning all about hot and cold temperatures.

We have introduced the children to a range of different animals and have set up two role play areas where children can learn about the different animals and also develop their play skills.  One area has become our Animal Hospital where the children can look after the different animals. The other area is a jungle habitat where the children can explore the environment in which they live.

We have also enjoyed a range of different activities in the classroom exploring hot and cold temperatures of where the animals live. The children are developing their play skills as well as learning to share resources and develop their engagement in activities.

Jess and The Team

Every Wednesday we go into the Hydrotherapy Pool in two groups. We follow The Hadrian School Halliwick Approach where the children are taught on a 1:1 ratio of swimmer to instructor until independence is achieved.

The main points of the philosophy are:

To teach “water happiness”

To use trained instructors rather than floatation aids

To teach slowly, at a pace appropriate for each child

To emphasise ability not disability

To emphasise enjoyment so most activities are put into a game.

To think positively – everyone is a swimmer

We usually sing a song to begin the session where we see who is the pool today. We then work 1:1 with our instructor before having our own time to explore different toys and games which support learning. We often join together for favourite songs which support the different skills we are learning. We then end the session with a goodbye song.

We love our sessions and we are seeing so much progress over the weeks.

Wow what a busy week we have had!

We have enjoyed exploring the recent snowfall. We wrapped up warm and went into the Early years play area where we made footprints and used buckets and spades to make snow castles. We also used the sledges in the Quad which was great fun. We took turns on the sledges and had races. Such good sharing and also our friends helped to pull us.

We had our second football session with Graeme. We are amazed at how quickly the children pick up the new skills Graeme is teaching us. They are all listening so well and trying hard to copy Graeme. He is super impressed with them too. We even finished the session with a game of Dodgeball!

We have also loved exploring activities around Chinese New Year. We watched a great video on C Beebies all about a Chinese family and how they celebrate Chinese New Year. We made some beautiful fans and yesterday we had a whole afternoon of exploring rice, coloured spaghetti and chopsticks, red dough and stars, Chines writing and colouring and Chinese puzzles. We finished the afternoon with snack time where we had noodles and crackers. Today we have a Chinese New Year assembly with a Dragon Dance, songs, music and food.

What an amazing week.

Jess and the Team

What a fabulous last week we have had.

On Monday we were visited by Santa on his special bus. We all went on the bus to meet him and we all received a special present.

On Tuesday we had a delicious Christmas dinner and in the afternoon we sang Carols outside. Sadly four of our children were off school poorly but hopefully they will be back in time for some Christmas fun.

On Wednesday we went into the pool in the morning for a Christmas Swim and then we had our party in the afternoon. We have a wonderful time in the School Hall and met Santa there who gave each if us a present. We took them back to class to open. We love them. After our presents we had lots of Christmas party foods. Many thanks for sending in such delicious goodies.

On Thursday we enjoyed a range of Christmas activities including making special edible Christmas Tree Cones. Then we had an amazing indoor snowball fight! It was such good fun and better than real snow as it wasn’t cold!

Today we will all go to the beautiful Nativity in the School Hall. The children will be dressed as the characters form the story and we will sing Carols by candlelight.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your thoughtful gifts and for your  continued support. We hope you have a lovely Christmas/Holiday and that you and your children and families stay safe and well.

Jess, Babs, Labli and Corrie.