Category Archives: Uncategorized

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Superstar learners

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While Onyx class have been self-isolating the children have been keeping very busy doing lots of amazing learning at home! All of the teachers are so proud of how hard you have been trying with your learning. We can’t wait to see you again soon!

This week in our Maths learning at home we have been exploring the numbers 4 and 5! The children have loved finding out about two new numberblocks characters. We even learned some rhymes to help us learn how to write the numerals and remember them easily. Can you remember our rhymes?

They have worked very hard making posters to represent 4 and 5. Have a look at their fabulous work at home. Then the teachers set them a challenge! Be a detective for the day and go on a number hunt around your home. How many things can you find to represent four and five? We are very impressed with what they came up with: a four legged dog, chair, cabinet, table, a door which has four sides, a five pointed star, a clock pointing to five, and lots more!

As anti-bullying week has just passed the children have also enjoyed reading a story called “Superkid” about a superhero who saves the day and stops some children from being mean. The children in Onyx class made up their own super hero stories and we talked about kind things we can do to take care of one another!

Well done everyone for staying so busy, it is lovely to see your smiling faces getting busy with lots of amazing learning! We decided to share with our friends all of the things that make us happy. Here are some our favourite toys, people, things, and foods!

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Learning from Home

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While we have been staying at home to keep everyone safe, the children of Onyx class haven’t let it spoil their fun! We are incredibly proud of their amazing attitudes to learning. They have been staying buzy doing lots of exercise, getting creative, sorting, and playing maths games, and exploring outside! Well done everyone. Have a look at what some of your friends have been getting up to at home.

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The Secret Symbols

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Do you know what a secret symbol is? Shhh! You have to keep it a secret!

This week Onyx class discovered some secret symbols. A symbol has a hidding meaning. You have to use your imagination to figure out what the meaning is! We looked at lots of different symbols. The children had such amazing ideas about what they might mean!

Mikael, “This one has wiggly lines and a circle I think it’s a trap for a turtoise”.

Luka, “this is a batman one”.

Emmie, “This is a spider web one. Spiders live here.”

Omar, “This means things get broken.”

Michael, “This means superhero, he get bigger, bigger and faster, faster faster.”

Then we watched a video about a secret symbol that could even make things disappear! The children were so excited. They began drawing secret symbols everywhere and hiding them around the classroom!

The next day we came to school to find a mystery! Somone had hidden some secret symbols around our outside area. I wonder who it was? You had to use a special coin to scratch off the gold and reveal the message underneath.

Nicholas, “I think it was the gingerbread man”.

We decided to go on a secret symbol hunt! The children did a fantastic job searching the outdoor area for secret symbols. We managed to find them all outside.

Later that day some of the children wrote secret symbols all over our outside area! The children discovered them EVERYWHERE! I wonder who the secret symbol writer in Onyx class was?

We decided to set up a message centre in our classroom where the children could easily find mark making tools to make their own secret messages and symbols.

What have we been learning?

  • The children have been learning to give meaning to marks they see around them.
  • They have been really excited about mark making and have been writing for purpose, leaving messages for one another all over the classroom and outside area.
  • This type of writing means that everyone can have a go, whether they are confident in writing or not. Every mark has a meaning and is valued.

How can you encourage learning at home?

  • Encourage children to mark make and hide secret symbols around the home. Talk to children about their ideas. What could this mean?
  • Hide secret symbols for your children to find! Make it as exciting as possible!

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Settling in to Onyx Class

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September was our settling in month in Onyx Class. Our classroom was a little quiet at first, and slowly we had more and more children start school until all our friends had joined us in Onyx class! Now our classroom is busy and full of life and fun. Mrs Hoy, Miss Deakin, Miss Morris and Mrs Clay are so proud of how the children have settled in and made lots of new friends.

These photos were taken on our very first days at school. Look at who we have in Onyx Class:

We had lots of fun getting to know new friends and remembering old ones. We also all loved exploring both our new classrooms and playing outside. Those children who had been in Nursery enjoyed getting back outside and seeing what was the same. Everyone made a really great start to school and all the teachers commented on how well and how quickly the children settled in, learning lots of new routines.

The children also enjoyed it when we started going for lunch in the big hall. It was exciting but a little bit scary as we’d not done it before. Everyone did great though and all the lunchtime supervisors commented on how impressed they were with the children’s use of cutlery and sitting at the tables. The children have been practising washing hands and lining up super smartly. Well done we are so proud!

Well done everyone on such a great start to school. Don’t forget to keep checking back to see what we’ve been up to. And don’t forget to let us know what you’ve been doing at home on the class email address.

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Back to school for some

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Some of our children have been coming back to school, and wow have we have missed you. It’s great to be back and we have been having so much fun together playing and learning. The children have really enjoyed spending lots of time outside and following their interests.

The children kept discovering butterflies, ladybirds, wood louse and lots more insects and bugs when we were playing outside! We went on a bug hunt around the outside area to see how many we could find! Can you remember where bugs like to live?

When we were playing outside Ariana noticed that the birds didn’t have any food left. We found a recipe, gathered the ingredients and got busy making them some!

We looked in books to find out about different British garden birds. Miss Boyd found some videos of lots of common garden birds signing! Did you know every bird had it’s own special song? We loved listening to the bird songs and trying to copy them! You can listen again here.

Then we went to the secret garden to do some bird watching and give the birds their new food. We listened to the beautiful bird songs and we even found a pigeons nest high in the trees! Can you remember which birds we spotted?

After finding the nest, the children had some questions about nests. How long do they take to build? What are they made from? How do they stick them together?

Kallum, “they use some sticks and hay and they stick it together with a little bit of mud I think”.

Carter, “I think they use their spit”.

The children were fascinated by some secret camera footage of a blackbird making a nest and hatching her little chicks! You can see it again here:

We decided to make some nests of our own using materials we collected from outside and some clay to hold it together.

Miss Boyd showed the children some pictures of her trip to a birds of prey sanctuary. Some of the children liked the snowy owls because they were so cute. The eagles were huge and looked a little scary! The children were absolutely fascinated by them and wanted to learn lots more about these amazing creatures!

We used some non fictions books and the internet to find out some really fascinating information about bald eagles. Can you remember any facts?

We have been having lots of fun playing and learning together. Have a look what else we have been up to!

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Out of this world learning!

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This week the children have been doing some home learning all about space. First we listened to the story of Aliens Love Underpants by Claire Freedman and Ben Cort.

If you missed it you can listen again here. Can you spot any rhyming words in the story?

The children did an amazing job finding lots of rhyming words and writing them in a list.

This week we have also enjoyed building our very own rockets, doing some space addition, and making some amazing space posters! Well done everyone!

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Fun in the sun!

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We have been really enjoying the lovely sunny weather lately! It’s been lovely to see Onyx class getting outside, exploring, playing and enjoying time with their families in nature! Have a look at what some of your friends have been doing at home.

Enjoying a socially distanced day out, football, a special treat for tea, and relaxing in the hot tub!

Taking care of his new kitten, “Adso”.

Exploring in nature!

Enjoying the mud between his toes!

Onyx class have been having lots of fun following their own interests and choosing our own learning, and some of us have enjoyed doing some outdoor learning suggested by our teachers! We’ve been making dens, writing secret messages on stones and with magic dandelion ink, making our own bubble wands, threading natural numberlines and collecting treasures outside!

We also enjoyed listening to the story “Silly Billy, by Antony Brown”. You can listen again here.

Everyone has worries, big and small, about lots of different things.

We talked about worries with our grown ups and we made some worry dolls! You tell them your worries, pop them under your pillow at night, and the worry dolls take all of your worries away.

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Even More Home Learning!

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Lots of the children in Onyx class have been really lucky to have new pets in the period while we have been on “lockdown”. They have been taking very good care of them, remembering to feed them, give them water, exercise and lots of cuddles and play! Miss Boyd has been looking after our class pet stick insects in her house, so the children were very excited to see how much they had grown! We made some posters and letters to show our pets to all of our friends. Some of the children wrote about their favourite animals and even researched some facts about them!

This week although the weather has been a little rainy, it hasn’t put the children off! We enjoyed making story tins and acting out our own stories. We collected lots of natural objects of different lengths. Then we ordered them from the shortest to the longest, and had a go at measuring them. We even made frozen nature mobiles! Look how beautiful they are!

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Superheroes and more!

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As always, the children in Onyx class have been very busy over the past couple of weeks!

When we had lots of very rainy weather we were shocked that the Billy Goats Gruff bridge had been washed away in the floods! The children saved the day by building some brilliant bridges for the Billy Goats. Then we made some wonderful masks of the characters and acted out the story for our grown ups. We enjoyed experimenting with making different sounds using every day objects in our homes, and have been exploring technology in our homes!

Lots of children in Onyx class love superheroes. One little boy has even decorated his whole bedroom with them during the lockdown! So this week we decided to learn about Superheroes! First we read the story Supertato and the Evil Pea, – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmFYrfquR5k 

Can you remember who were the characters in the story? Who was your favourite? What happened at the beginning, middle and end?

Then we made our very own superheroes using the vegetables or fruit we had in our kitchens. Miss Boyd was blown away with the children’s creations! We talked to our family and friends to find out what superpowers they would like. Everyone had different ideas: flying, super speed, strength etc. We made up our own superhero names and some children even designed the most amazing superhero costumes!

We have also been writing lists of all the super heros we know (there were lots!), taking part in a superhero active challenge, and writing our very own superhero stories!

One little girl in Onyx class has enjoyed a wonderful fairy garden in her home!

Another little girl has made Miss Boyd so proud taking care of her little brother! What a superstar!

Well done everyone, your teachers are so very proud of you all! Thank you for sharing your lovely photos from home.

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Making Memories

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It has made your teachers smile so much to see all of the wonderful photos of you and your families playing, enjoying the sunshine and making memories with your families!

In many years time, children will probably learn in their history classes at school about the “Lockdown”. When you are older maybe some of you will be teachers, or have your own children and tell them all about it! The time when we all stayed at home from school, made rainbows, clapped for carers, and had birthday parties in lockdown with our families!

This week we made something called a time capsule. Some of us created special boxes to hold our special memories, photos and drawings. Then we can look back on them when lockdown is over and life goes back to normal again.

We wrote about our who families we are with in lockdown, and some of the feelings we have, sometimes happy, sometimes worried. It’s important to talk to your grown up if you feel worried; we all feel that way sometimes! We even wrote diary entries about how we spent our days. Some of us have made a poster to remind us of safety measures we have to take for a little while.

Have a look at some of Onyx class’ memories in lockdown from this week. We’ve had new puppies, birthday parties, picnics, learning to ride a bike with no stabilisers (wow!!) and water fights in the sun!

George has been doing some redecorating!
Birthday Girl!