Christmas Celebrations Part 4- Giving Presents

The last week of school was one of our busiest yet….. in between the party and Father Christmas’s visit we had some special jobs to do. We’d looked at the Christmas story and talked about the gifts given by the kings and also how Christians believe that Jesus was a gift to the world from God. Everyone was very excited to talk about the gifts they would be receiving. Miss Parker and the teachers asked us what gifts we would be giving. We decided to use the TASC wheel to help us plan our activity and work out what we needed to do if we wanted to make gifts for our grown ups. After talking about it and all the possible ideas the children all decided they wanted to bake something. They did however want to bake different things so we got into groups based on what we wanted to bake. There were buns, gingerbread men, mince pies and jam tarts baked.

Once we’d done the baking some children needed to decorate their baking as well making their own choices about why that looked like.

To go with our gifts we also made some cards. We had to draw something that we thought about linked to Chrsitmas and our grown ups. Everyone thought of their own idea and drew it themselves. We even wrote the inside of our cards indepedently so our grown ups could see how much progress we’d made during Autumn term. Here are just a few of them for you to see.

We also went to find different people who worked in school to give them a Christmas present to say thank you.  We talked about the different reasons we give presents and how giving people presents made them feel. We were pleased when we made people smile.

Then on our last afternoon we were all a little bit sad because we couldn’t find our elf but he had left us a surprise. It soon cheered us up and we were exicited to see what it was. Santa had sent us a present early because we’d been so good while the elf had been with us. We got a copy of the book Zog by Julia Donaldson and also our very own Zog toy for the classroom. The elf told us Zog was on TV over the Chrsitmas Holidays so he thought we’d like to read the book first. Everybody loved it! 🙂

A Gingerbread Man Hunt

There was a strange message when we came into school the other Friday morning. We weren’t sure who it was from so we decided to follow the clue and see if we could find out more. First stop was the school library. When we got there we found another clue. We all had to do good listening and see if we could finish the rhymes to help Miss Parker work out where to go next.

After a few clues we’d worked out that it was the Gingerbread Man that had left us the clue and we had to be really quiet so we didn’t let him know we were coming. By the time we had finished we’d been all round the school, including the MUGA outside and past all of our older brother and sisters classrooms upstairs, and met lots of important people, like Mr Sieczkarek and Miss French. Following the clues meant we’d been upstairs and downstairs, inside and out. When we got back to “the room that is best”, we found the Gingerbread Man had left us a special treat to say well done.

The following week we did lots of learning about the Gingerbread Man. We checked that everyone knew the story and what happened at the beginning, the middle and the end of.  Some children enjoyed retelling the story in their own words. Some children enjoyed trying to write it on a BIG story map like they’d seen Miss Parker do.

What have we been learning? 

• Where places and people are in our new school. This is particularly important for the children who came to us from different settings. 
• The purpose of reading to find out more and help us solve problems. 
• To remember a familiar story and retell it in a variety of ways. 

How can you continue the learning at home? 

• Retell the story of the Gingerbread Man and other stories your child is familiar with. 
• Ask your child to retell stories in pictures and using words. 
• Point out to your child when you are finding something out by reading or reading for pleasure to help them understand why reading it so important. 

Macmillan Coffee Morning

On Friday 30th September the whole school took part in the Macmillan Coffee Morning. We had a busy week baking Gingerbread Men and we decided that we would send these to the Coffee Morning for the mums and dads to eat instead of us.

We talked about why we were doing the baking and why we had to sell the Gingerbread Men instead of eating them ourselves.

“Its for the nurses”, said Jayden.

“Its for charity so the poorly people can feel better”, said Corey.

We all paid for a cake so got to eat these at snack time.

Everyone agreed they were delicious. We hope our families had a fantastic time at the Coffee Morning. Look out in school to see how much was raised overall. Last count was £200 and there was more to come!!!

Click here to find out more about Macmillan Cancer and the work they do.

 

You Can’t Catch Me…

We had a visitor in Onyx class the other week. The Gingerbread Man left us some clues in our classroom. We had to go on Gingerbread Man hunt around the whole school. He left us some clues to work out. Can you remember where the clues told us to go? 

I didn’t want to be a snack, I bet you’ll never get me back. Now got to the place where there’s lot of books. 

Mr Sieczkarek told me to stop running away or I wouldn’t be able to go out and play. I walked away before we could meet and went to the place where we eat. 

You’ve not caught me yet but you will soon I bet. I’ll tell you for free I’ve gone where their three. 

We found out where lots of new places were in our school. Some of us had never been there before. We also got to meet lots of people who work in our school. Can you remember all the places we went? Can you remember all the people we meet along the way? 

When we got back to the classroom we found some gingerbread men. Everyone enjoyed their special treat. It started us talking about the Gingerbread Man and what we knew about him.

We decided that’s what we want to learn about the week after. We retold the story, we acted out the story, we counted gingerbread men, we made some of our own in the creative workshop and then we baked some of our own as well. It was a busy week!

We had an interesting question to find out in Maths as well- Which part of the Gingerbread Man do you eat first? Although Miss Parker didn’t tell us this at first, she just told us that we were only allowed to take one bite. It was hard not to gobble him all up! When we took our bite we looked to see who had eaten which part first. Most of us had eaten the head first!

And we still never caught the Gingerbread Man. We only got to eat the little ones he left for us. Don’t forget to keep an eye out for him at home!

What have we been learning? 

• To learn where the different spaces are in our school, insides and out. 
• To learn some of the other people who are in our school and where our big brothers and sisters classrooms are. 
• The story of the Gingerbread Man. 

How can you continue the learning at home? 

• See if your child can tell you about the photographs above- Who can you see? Where did we go? 
• Try and make some Gingerbread Men at home. You can find a recipe here.
• Find out which part of the Gingerbread Man people eat first at your house. Which is the most popular?

Run, Run, As Fast As You Can….. A Look Round School

Once we were all in school we had a visit from the Gingerbread Man! He left a note then ran off round the school so we had to go after him. It was an excellent chance to go and have a look round, especially for the children who hadn’t been in our Nursery.

We followed him to the Library upstairs, the Office, the Hall where we have dinner and back to Nursery to see Miss Hulme. We’d still not caught up with him so after that we had to go back upstairs to the staff room, outside and to Mrs Ainsley’s office. He told us to go to “the classroom which was best” and everyone straight away said our classroom! Thankfully when we got there we found him and he’d brought us some treats.

We had such a good time searching for the Gingerbread Man that we didn’t even realise we were learning where all the different places were in in our school.

Being Y1 children!

As we get ready for being Y1s we’ve been to our new classes a few times to have a practice. It’s been great to meet our new teachers properly, to explore our new classrooms and to see which other children will be in our new class.

There are two Y1 classes – Jet class with Miss Mason and Mrs Raynes and Topaz class with Mrs Ainsley (Mon/Tues), Mrs Wells (Wed-Fri) and Mrs Pym. We’ll also see Miss Morris in Jet class and Miss Deighton and Mrs Reed in Topaz class.

Look at some of the fun things we did when we went to practice being Y1s.

We we took our new teachers special presents when we went to visit so they’ll be up in our classrooms when we start in Y1 for real. We had to do good teamwork to each contribute to the finished artwork.

We had a great time in Y1 and are excited for September when we get to go to our new classrooms everyday.

Parents/carers- if you’ve any questions about your child starting in Y1 please ask either the teachers in Onyx class or you could walk round to see the Y1 teachers at home time by their classrooms.  

A Gingerbread Man Hunt

We had a special visitor come to our new school. He left a clue for us and we had to work out where to go next to find out who he was. It was a fantastic chance to have a look round our new school as we went upstairs and downstairs, along corridors and outside too! Do you think we found him in the end? Read on to find out….

Look at the pictures with your child to see if they remember where we went and which rooms we had to go to.

The first clue we found in the classroom said to find a room with lots of books. Off we went to find the Library…. We have a library in school as well as the visits we make to Manor Top Library. You can issue books for your child. Please ask for more details.

We found another clue in the Library so couldn’t stay to read. We didn’t want the Gingerbread Man to get away from us. Next we had to go to the place where people answer the phones before finding the room we eat in- the office and the hall of course!

We found out there is only one hall in our new school where we have dinner, do PE and have all our assemblies. We can’t wait to do PE for the first time. Our next clue said to go where they are 3 so it was off to Nursery next to see the three year olds there.

From Nursery we had to go outside and all the way down to the MUGA (multi-use games area). The Gingerbread Man did well did get down there and back without anyone seeing him. Next we had to go where the teachers drink their tea which meant the staff room. The staff room is back upstairs but this time we used the yellow stairs. Did you know there’s a blue staircase and a yellow one?

We asked Mrs Ainsley if she’d seen the Gingerbread Man and she hadn’t but he’d left another note. After checking in Miss French’s office too we followed the clue the Gingerbread Man left to go to the room which is best. Valerie said straight away “our classroom!”

We all had a great time chasing the Gingerbread Man and although we didn’t find him we loved eating the gingerbread men he left. It was a great way to get to know our new school.

We hope the Gingerbread Man comes back again soon.