It has been a lovely morning at school today. The children have been out supporting each other on their ‘Reindeer Run’ where our parents have generously made donations towards the Angel Trust Charity in Bishop Auckland, who work closely with the school.
In class 5 the children cut out paper reindeers or designed their own. They then attached a piece of straw to their reindeers. We threaded some long string through the piece of straw and the children held on to each end, making sure to keep the string tight. Next, we blew up a balloon and attached it to the reindeer. We then let go of the balloon to see the reindeer fly along the string. We found out that the bigger reindeers did not fly as far as the smaller reindeers. We also found that the 3D paper reindeers did not fly as far and as fast as the flat paper reindeers.
We have recently had some special visitors in school and they brought some very interesting cones with them! The children had to work with a partner to touch the lights on the cones and turn them off. This was a brilliant game and the children showed excellent physical skills.
Reception have had so much fun lately with pumpkins. Our annual pumpkin rolling contest was very much enjoyed. We’ve learnt how to carve pumpkins and written instructions together. We’ve made pumpkin potions outside and had lots of sensory fun with the insides of the pumpkins. Our story of the week ‘Pick a Pumpkin’ was a definite favourite of ours.
The Christmas shoeboxes were collected from school today. They will be put on to a lorry next week and then sent on to Moldova, in Eastern Europe. Hopefully they will bring a smile to children this Christmas. Thank you very much for your support and kind donations. It will surely make a difference.
We created some designs to protect the egg from cracking when it was dropped from a height. There were some interesting ideas and the children were so excited to take part in this STEM activity. There were a few cracked eggs and we talked about why this happened.
The reception classes have been busy learning about the four seasons, particularly autumn in the recent weeks. They have looked for signs of autumn outside and collected autumn treasures with their families which they brought into school to talk about and create a display. Our shared stories have inspired our children in the art room and they have made some wonderful ‘Leaf Man’ collages. They have learned about harvest time, enjoying our special celebration at the church with members of the community. There were lots of mucky fingers when we pulled up our carrots from outside! During this we had some lovely discussions about the wonderful shapes and sizes of carrot we had grown.
Year 1 had a lovely morning at Low Barns Nature Reserve. The children enjoyed walking around the reserve looking out for wildlife and signs of seasonal change. They loved our pond dipping and minibeast hunt activities. We found lots of amazing things including a newt, a toad, a great diving beetle and some sticklebacks.
We had a wonderful trip to Durham Cathedral with our year 2 children. They experienced a guided tour of the Cathedral and a hands on workshop. The children dressed in costumes and re-created the story of St Cuthbert and how he came to rest at Durham. It was a very interesting day and the children answered lots of questions confidently. It was lovely so see the Rose Window and the places that we had looked at in books before the trip.
We enjoy our snack time in reception and are learning new skills so that we can be independent when preparing our different snacks. Recently the children have been using knives safely to chop fruits to make fruit kebabs and learning how to spread just the right amount of butter or jam on to a cracker!
