Our Year 1 children had a fabulous time on their trip to Windsor Castle and this was reflected during Busy Learning activities.

We have created various aspects of the castle we had seen, adding details, like the guards defending The Keep and the King’s Standard flying high, as the King was in residence.  We have confidently drawn on our experiences of our trip to share what we had learnt with our friends and teachers.

 We have also been very busy in Outdoor Learning looking at root vegetables and using our cutting skills to dice and cube. We were very excited to use our vegetables to make our own delicious vegetable soup. We used our five senses to look at the different colours of the soup, the sound of it bubbling, the amazing smell of it cooking, the feel of all the vegetables mixing, when stirring with the spoon and of course, the delicious taste of the soup! We loved warming ourselves up drinking our soup while sitting in an outdoor classroom.

 We have also been experimenting building a den in the Outdoor Learning area with Mr Thompson and have had fun using equipment from the mud kitchen as we have role-played camping in the Woodlands.

Finally, as we begin to prepare for our Christmas performance (which we can't wait to share with you!) we have been learning all about the Christmas story and have been acting this out in our role play area.

In Year 2 we have been busy finishing our Super-Duper Heroes project and bringing all of our Sticky Knowledge together.  Following our recent visit to Oaken Grove Park we have designed and created our own memorials to Sir Nicholas Winton, who we have been greatly inspired by for demonstrating his bravery, courage and kindness towards others.  We also have been investigating geographical features and have put our Sticky Knowledge to good use by making our own representations of the world.  Our investigations into the properties of clay have enabled us to create our own sculptures based on our School Values.

During our preparations for Christmas we have been reading and sequencing the Christmas Story.  This knowledge is supporting us in our rehearsals for our forthcoming Christmas Performances, which we are very much looking forward to sharing with you.

This term in maths we have explored different representations and strategies for adding and subtracting.  We have been investigating the properties of 2D and 3D shapes as well as naming common shapes, ensuring we use the correct mathematical vocabulary to describe each one.  We have also been busy making different patterns.  

In our Mastering Number sessions we have been pulling apart different numbers to ten and seeing how this knowledge helps us when we are working with numbers up to 100 (and beyond!).  We have also been spotting patterns and trying to think about generalisations, such as if we add an odd and and even number together we always get an odd number.

WOW! What an exciting day we had on our trip to Windsor Castle. We got on the coach first thing in the morning after register. We loved being high up and seeing the different countryside views on our way to the castle. 

When we got there, we luckily did not have to join the queue and got to go through a separate entrance just for school trips. We dropped our lunch bags off in the Learning Centre then we were off to explore the grounds. 

We visited St. George’s Chapel and got to see the plaque for Queen Elizabeth II and were very impressed by all the colours we could see on the stained-glass windows. We saw one of the guards just outside the chapel and got to see his winter uniform. Some of us were lucky to see him give us a display as he marched up and down while completing his duties. 

We showed respect as we walked through the State Rooms looking at all the different pieces of armour and weapons and identified the changes that have occurred in uniform through the ages. We also got to participate in a workshop all about castles. The man who spoke to us was so funny and he got some of us up to pretend to be soldiers. He also showed us pictures of how Windsor Castle has changed through time. 

We had lunch in the learning centre and even though the weather was a bit wet, it was a fun day for all. We were all so tired on the coach trip back to school but we learnt so much and had an amazing time!

On Monday we all visited the Junior School to see an amazing performance of Aladdin!  We were treated to a retelling of the story as well as lots of songs that we joined in with.  Our children sat and listened beautifully, well done everyone! 

In nurture, we have been out in the woodland area exploring and looking for Autumn leaves.

We have continued looking at superheroes, in particular real life superheroes and we talked about all the different real superheroes that we might meet. 

This week were very excited to receive some lovely new wooden jigsaws, the children have had so much fun playing with them.

Finally, we have been thinking about winter and started by making robins and holly ready for our winter display in the nurture room.