We took the first available opportunity to go and see the exciting new play equipment on the paddock on Monday! The children loved climbing on the pirate ship, whizzing down the fireman's pole and testing out the slide and cargo net. They all felt very lucky to have such a wonderful piece of equipment to play on every day.

Form 1 were shocked to find some strange goings-on in the classroom when they arrived on Tuesday morning. Our class dinosaurs appeared to have come to life and were playing games on the carpet! First the children wondered if someone was playing a funny joke on them, but then they found a book next to the dinosaurs called What the Dinosaurs Did Last Night- a very Messy Adventure. The book explained that the dinosaurs were coming to life at night and that they might get up to even more mischief!

We decided that Mr McCarthy should know about this, so the children wrote letters and drew pictures to explain what was happening. The children decided to leave the dinosaurs to play in the classroom and wait and see what might happen the following night.

On Wednesday, the children arrived to find the dinosaurs had found the snack time crackers and had been tucking into them, enjoying a midnight feast! They thought this was very funny, but that maybe something needed to be done about these cheeky dinosaurs. The children set to work making traps and homes for the dinosaurs using junk modelling materials... they had some very inventive ideas! The traps and homes were put outside by the dinosaurs in the hope they would be better behaved.

Unfortunately, on Thursday, the children arrived and found the trap was empty and the dinosaurs were nowhere to be found! The children decided to make posters to put up around the school to see if anyone had seen our dinosaurs and to let us know if they did. The children thought of some descriptive words to describe the dinosaurs and included information such as their names, their last seen location and who to contact if they were spotted. It was great fun putting the posters up around the school and the children asked everyone they met if they had seen our cheeky dinosaurs.

In maths this week, the children have continued to learn about subtraction within 10. They have been using tens frames and cubes to solve the written subtraction problems and working on their subitising and counting-on skills to find the answers. We also spoke about using our fingers to solve these calculations and working on counting backwards to help us.

Form 1 and Transition were very excited to start thinking about the Christmas play this week, and we explored the story we would be telling and decided on the parts the children would like to play. It's safe to say they are all very much looking forward to performing!

It has been a great first week back, busy as always, but lots and lots of fun.