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Panto Time!
✨ A Magical Morning at the Theatre! ✨ Our Reception, Year 1, and Year 2 children had a fantastic time today visiting Darwen Library Theatre to watch the pantomime, The Nosy Reindeer! ???????? It was a truly magical experience for everyone, filled with laughter and festive cheer. We were also incredibly proud of our pupils—they represented our school beautifully with their wonderful manners and behaviour. Well done to our youngest learners for being such a credit to us! ????????
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Nursery - Maths - Making Reindeer Food
Our Maths focus centered on practical counting and following instructions involving quantity through an engaging activity: making personalized 'reindeer food' in the malleable tray. The children used oats as a base and added various other ingredients to create their unique mixtures. The core learning involved number language and one-to-one correspondence as the children focused on scooping specific numbers of ingredients, such as giving the reindeer 'one scoop of snow' or 'two scoops of glitter.' This highly motivating task provided excellent practice in counting and following numerical instructions. They then used spoons to transfer their finished creations into small bags to take home, ready for Christmas Eve. This entire process also provided rich practice in developing fine motor control through scooping and transferring.
Pre-School-Trip-Temple Of Fun
What a blast! Last week, Nursery and Pre-school took their festive trip to the Temple of Fun, and the children absolutely loved exploring the play centre! They were little adventurers, climbing and crawling their way through the equipment and really putting those gross motor skills to the test. It was great to see them tackle every challenge with confidence, demonstrating a brilliant growth mindset. A huge success and fantastic fun for all our little explorers!
Pre-School-Stay And Play
This week, we opened our doors for a special Stay and Play session. It was wonderful to see so many parents join us! These sessions offer a valuable opportunity for you to observe your child utilizing their core learning and play skills in the nursery environment, while also strengthening the home-to-nursery connection through shared playtime.
Reception- Maths- 2D shapes
In Reception the children have been constructing a christmas tree design using a hands-on opportunity to recognise and name simple 2D shapes. They applied the taught language of the shapes properties to a purposeful task. As the children selected shapes for their tree, they actively used mathematical vocabulary to justify their choices. They intuitively understood that a triangle—which has "three straight sides" and "three corners"—was the most appropriate shape for the main foliage, while a rectangle—having "four straight sides" and "four corners," with two pairs of uneven sides—was correctly chosen for the tree trunk. The children showed their understanding of 2D shapes being flat and defined by the number of sides and corners they possess, turning a fun craft project into a solid mathematics lesson.
Reception- Independent Learning
This week we have had a Christmas-themed activities in the Reception class promoting all the learning that has taken place over the last few months. Showing off our skills in independent learning across the seven areas of learning. During the pom-pom pattern activity, children were intrinsically motivated to continue and extend complex sequences entirely on their own, demonstrating self-regulation and problem-solving skills without direct adult input. At the magnetic letter station, the goal was to locate and build CVC words hidden within Christmas vocabulary, encouraged independent decoding, phonological awareness, and self-correction as they worked through trial and error to form the correct words. We also had the task of telling a Christmas story by intentionally incorporating mathematical language (such as "more than," "less than," "equal to," and using ordinal numbers like "first," "second") required the children to independently connect two different concepts—narrative and numeracy—showcasing their ability to apply abstract concepts creatively.
Nursery - Music - Christmas Songs
This week, our music lessons centered around seasonal exploration through our Christmas Song Bag. This activity was highly engaging and encouraged early decision-making and participation. The children thoroughly enjoyed the element of surprise and choice, taking turns to select an item from the bag, which prompted a new seasonal song. They have been enthusiastically learning the new songs and the actions that pair with them. This activity successfully develops memory skills, listening and attention, and rhythm, all while building their confidence in singing and moving in response to music.
Important Update: Breakfast Club Bookings Moving to Arbor!
????️ Important Update: Breakfast Club Bookings Moving to Arbor! Dear Parents/Guardians, We are excited to announce that all bookings for Breakfast Club will be moving to the Arbor platform immediately after the Christmas break! This change will make the booking process much smoother and more efficient for everyone. Key Information: Bookings Now Open: The full Spring Term is now available to book through Arbor. Limited Spaces: Please note that we have a limited number of spaces available for Breakfast Club. We strongly encourage you to log in and book your required sessions as quickly as possible to secure your child's spot! ???? Getting Started with Arbor If you are not yet familiar with the system, please take some time over the holiday period to familiarise yourself with the Arbor platform. For easy access, please remember that the Arbor App is available to download on both iOS and Android devices. ⚠️ Login Support Existing Users: If you have used Arbor before but are having trouble logging in, you can simply click the 'Forgot Password' link to regain access. Need Help? If you encounter any problems logging into your account, please do not hesitate to contact me during the holiday period for assistance. We appreciate your cooperation as we transition to this new booking system.
Pre-School-Decorating The Christmas Tree-Gross And Fine Motor Skills
We officially kicked off the festive season today by decorating our classroom Christmas tree! The children absolutely loved getting into the Christmas spirit. This wasn't just fun, though—it was a fantastic workout for their physical skills: Gross Motor Skills: The children used their large muscle groups, stretching high onto their tiptoes and reaching their arms wide to carefully wrap the tinsel around the whole tree. Fine Motor Skills: Great care and concentration were needed to grasp the delicate baubles, unhook the small metal hangers, and carefully place them onto the tree branches without dropping them! It was wonderful to see their teamwork and excitement as they transformed our classroom into a winter wonderland! They did an amazing job!
Reception- Physical Development- Actions to Music
The Reception children have been enthusiastically taking part in a fun and active unit on Dance during their Physical Education (P.E.) lessons. This unit has been a wonderful way to develop their gross motor skills, coordination, and rhythm through musical movement.The class has been focusing on creating movements to the familiar and catchy tune, "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes." Understanding Body Parts: The song naturally reinforces their knowledge of major body parts, which is a great cross-curricular link. Following Instructions: The children are practicing listening skills by moving in time to the music and stopping or starting as the song dictates. Developing Coordination: As they follow the sequence of touching their head, shoulders, knees, and toes, they are actively working on their hand-eye and full-body coordination, trying to maintain balance and control.
Reception- Maths- Recognising Different Ways To see 1-5
The Reception children have been actively engaged in a fun, festive activity to deepen their understanding of how to represent the numbers 1 through 5. They were tasked with finding the Christmas objects around the classroom, when a number was shown on the screen they went to find that amount of objects. Once found the children demonstrated the concept of each number in multiple ways, using their fingers or the dice. This hands-on, multi-sensory approach ensures a strong foundation in early number sense, helping them to connect the abstract numeral to concrete quantity and different forms of representation.
Nursery - Art - Christmas Trees!
To kick off our Christmas preparations this week, the children accessed the craft table for our first festive project: creating Christmas trees! Each child was given a green triangle template to decorate. They used multicoloured glue and various Christmas sequins, carefully selecting which sparkly additions they wanted to use on their tree. This activity provided excellent practice in fine motor control and encouraged intentional design as they chose and placed each small sequin. The children particularly enjoyed the sense of community when they saw all of their completed trees standing up together, proudly spotting their own creation within the "magical forest" they had collectively created.
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