They have especially enjoyed saying I want my mummy, just like Bill, the baby owl in the story. We have also had lots of conversations about what owls like to eat, including sausages from the barbeque! It has been so lovely to see all your baby photos this week. All the children were very excited to show us their baby photos and it was fun trying to guess who is who. They all enjoyed making the owl’s nest with hay and straw as well as decorating the owls with feathers for our display. We think the children’s favourite thing was to squeeze the glue from the bottles.

More owls were made by using white paint and printing with pom poms to create fluffy baby owls, just like the ones in our story.

The children did some amazing concentration when they used the scissors to cut around the pictures of the Owl Babies. There was lots of snipping and cutting independently and the children looked carefully at each picture to sequence them correctly by recalling what the owls were doing in each picture.

On the interactive board, the children joined in listening to games about animal sounds and they were brilliant at sharing their knowledge on where animals live during a game about animal homes and habitats. We have also been playing games by matching animals with their homes and habitats by choosing forest animals and ocean animals.

In music, there was some great singing for our Harvest songs and the children loved using the huge drum to bang out the syllables of their names and to make sounds like jungle animals. There were some really great rhythms going on!

The children have been amazing at initiating their own play ideas and there was some lovely building and construction with the wooden bricks and blocks to create enclosures for the Paw Patrol cars and also the cuddly carrot. The children were fantastic at thinking about which shapes they needed and how to balance them to make the structures secure. We even had a building of the Eiffel Tower.

The children are arriving in Nursery class ready to do their jobs by putting away coats, snacks and book bags and, of course, there is always great excitement seeing what everyone has brought in for our show and tell. The children are learning to recognise their names on the buzzy bees and placing them onto the honey pot self-registration board. And, of course, there is always anticipation of who the helper of the day is going to be! The helper counts the bees, chooses the day of the week and the weather and they are then the leader of the line, so it is a very important job. The children are also encouraged to find their name card on the table at snack time.

After our gym session in the hall, the children are working very hard to put on their socks and shoes. We are supporting them to be independent, so if they come home with inside out or upside down socks, this is the reason why!

Our special leaf this week in pre-prep Assembly - the first of the Autumn term - was awarded for having super manners this week. A huge well done for receiving the leaf for so many please's, ‘thank you's and excuse me's. We all enjoyed a welcome assembly where we sang our special Hello song to new children at Russell House. We also had a special mention for all the children who have moved up to their next classes.

On Thursday, the big children were doing their special work (11+ exams) so we all had to be super quiet. The children were absolutely amazing at keeping quiet when we walked up to the Paddock to play on the equipment and to play running games on the field. After all the exercise we were all ready for our snacks and more of the delicious apples.

We are sending home story sacks with the children this week, and we hope you enjoy sharing these fabulous stories together. Please can the contents be checked before sending back to ensure all the resources are there and let us know if anything is missing. Thank you.

Next week, we hope you can all join us for the individual and class photos on Monday morning. It would be lovely if we could all be together for the class photo.