This week’s topics were Marvellous Me, Settling in and Big School Birdwatch. We will continue to explore birds over the next few weeks and during this month. They have enjoyed spotting blue tits, dunnocks, robins (the feathery kind) and pigeons. During our wintery walk around the school grounds, we identified a redwing eating berries from the hedge.Our existing children have been very caring and helpful to the new Robins and it is wonderful to see all the children exploring their environment and sharing the resources so beautifully.

A couple of changes were made during the Christmas break and these have been thoroughly enjoyed by the children. The Robins liked exploring our new rocking chair and moses basket in the home corner. As you can see, our classroom environment offers a home-from-home feel due to its natural resources and cosy furnishings.

As part of our topic, the children explored their favourite things and spoke about their family. In particular, one of our Robins became a big brother over the Christmas break. It was wonderful to see and hear all the children’s news upon their return to school. Interestingly, there was a cheeky seagull in one of the Home/ School Journals and apparently he even ate some of the chips!!

During their time in Robins, the children are encouraged to be as independent as possible. After snack time, the children clear the table and take their plates to the kitchen, along with their cups and coasters. I introduced coasters last term as it is a great way to discourage any milk spillages as the children place their cups back on the coasters, above their plates.

This week’s cooking activities consisted of bread rolls, my favourite biscuits and pizza. Everyone worked super hard to knead their dough and the children were able to pat, roll and squeeze the dough to make it nice and stretchy. Miss Ruby helped the Robins to decorate biscuits using their favourite toppings. Spoons were used to spread icing on their biscuits before adding colourful sprinkles. Our last cooking activity of the week was pizza. It smelt amazing and we even made a pizza delivery to Mrs Tickner, Mrs Parker and Mr McCarthy. I can say that the pizzas were gladly received and enjoyed by all.

Even though the weather has been a little bit nippy, the children wrapped up warm and had a casual stroll to the Pirate Ship. The children carefully climbed up the rope ladder and then had lots of whizzing down the slide. Unfortunately, there were some cheeky sharks so the children had to climb back onto the climbing frame for safety!

It was lovely to visit Miss Norford for our music sessions and the children had lots of fun dancing to music. They took turns to choose a laminated picture from the song box for the children to sing. We also played musical statues and there was lots of jiggling and wiggling as the children danced but then stopped once the music had finished.

Next week’s topic is Winter and we have lots of fun activities planned. This includes lots of cooking and arts and crafts. Perhaps your child might like to bring in something from home linked to our topic.