Apprentice Week!
The children were involved in ‘Apprentice Week’ as a whole school project, it started on Monday 6th December and went through to Friday 10th December. For one week only the children worked as Elves helping Santa to complete some Christmassy tasks and crafts. Calenders, baubles, wreaths, reindeer jars, cards, cakes and angels were just some of the goodies sold. The craft bags were sold for £2 and all the money paid will be going towards what children wish to spend the profits on. Well done to our creative little helpers!
‘The Tiger That Came To Tea.’
This week our focus text has been 'The tiger that came to tea.' We have been beginning to understand the difference between print and pictures, learning about lines and creating squares with these lines, gaining more confidence to join in simple conversation with a small group and starting to show vocabulary related to the subject. We’ve been learning about where different animals come from and the sounds they make, becoming more confident with my fine motor skills by using different equipment when creating my tiger print artwork (paintbrush, balls, marbles, crayons and pencils) and we have been am using our hands to create artwork. Lots of fun โบ๏ธ
‘God’s Creation’
This week we have been learning all about God’s wonderful Creation. During our group time we have listened to the story from the Bible and have shared what our favourite part of the story is.
We talked about how and why we start our prayers with the Sign of the Cross and then shared our prayers to God about our family and friends.
We have created paintings and drawings of the world and ‘God’s creations’ too. There was a provocation of natural recourses to use our imagination by asking ourselves “What do you think?” “What do you see?” “What do you wonder?”
We have built on the children’s own experience of the world around them, making links to UTW and our RE Curriculum ‘Learning and Growing as the People of God’.
We're going on a 'Bear Hunt'
This week we have been learning about positional language for our Maths topic of the week! Following on from last weeks story "Rosie's Walk" our text this week has been "We're going on a bear hunt." The children enjoyed going 'over' and 'on top' of the tree stumps, climbing frame and slide. They stood 'next to' the benches, trees and bikes, went 'underneath' the P.E frames and the climbing frame and 'went through' the gates to the playground. During Work Outside Wednesday the children created hedgehogs with natural objects to use their fine motor skills too. We also worked this into our P.E lesson by having lots of fun using the climbing apparatus and listening along to the story, copying the actions in real life!
Drama Tots!
Today we had had a very special visitor from Drama Tots. Drama Tots is dramatic play that engages children in both life and learning. It increases their understanding of the world they live in, while developing all important personal skills such as confidence, self-awareness, communication, language skills and creative thinking. Every session has a different theme with interactive props. This session has focused on harvest and pumpkins, leaves falling in Autumn and the colour change, tractors and transport, dingle dangle scarecrows and how to get yourself dressed (all with music instruments and actions.)
Diwali
This week we are celebrating Diwali and Autumn Festivals within Reception and Nursery. We are very excited to share the story of Rama and Sita and discover lots of wonderful traditions that are shared within different religions. It is the festival of light and Hindus celebrate it with joy. During this festival, people light up their houses and shops. We have been investigating and exploring the enhanced provision to find out about a special festival, Diwali. The children have been active learners finding out about Diwali by creating Rangoli patterns with shapes, manipulating clay, listening to tales about Rama and Sita, mixing natural spells in the outside and we have been tasting Indian food at snack time.
Celebrating Our Cultures!
During this very special week we have been celebrating how we are all beautiful, unique and different. At St Anne’s all cultures are shared, celebrated and respected. We continuously implement and put emphasis on respecting and embracing our differences and respecting the beliefs of those in our community. The children have discovered different cultures in a super interactive and fun P.E lessons involving different cultural dance tutorials with musical instruments, sensory scarves and a wide variety of music. The text of the week was ‘Handa’s Surpise’ where the children enjoyed talking about how they are unique and what makes them special, they loved to create self portraits and models with playdough. They also participated in a fruit tasting session where they could use their senses to describe a variety of fruits such as mango, passion fruit, pineapples and tangerines- the children loved to share their thoughts on the different fruits.
Oral Health Week
This week we have been discussing and demonstrating the importance of oral health with the children. With thanks to Warwickshire Health Visitors for providing home packs and supporting lessons and Camp Hill Dental Surgery for toothpaste tubes, the children were able to learn actively how to take care of their teeth. Along with learning about healthy and unhealthy food and drink and when, why and how long we brush our teeth for, the children were all happy with their certificates to take home to show parents they have taken great care of their teeth. Each child also took home a oral care package containing; toothpaste, tooth brushes, charts and important information!
Owl Babies
We have been learning all about the story of Owl Babies. Today we made a story board using the illustrations from the book. The children used their phonics skills to to write ‘s’ for Sarah and ‘p’ for Percy. We retold the story using a story map and talked about the characters, the setting and what happened first, next and finally.
A Very Special Visitor…
As a part of World Animal day, we have had a very special visitor come to our setting today. Winnie the miniature dachshund came to see us and have lots of fun. We compared Winnie to ourselves- we keep our teeth clean by brushing them, Winnie has her teeth cleaned with a special stick. We sleep in a warm comfortable bed, Winnie sleeps in her warm comfortable bed. We must eat healthy foods to keep up fit and strong and so must Winnie! We all took it in turns to care for Winnie and to throw her a toy. Lastly we walked her around the play ground and kept her safe on her lead. After a full day of playing Winnie was very tired but loved her visit to St Anne’s!
Annie’s Place
At St. Anne's we believe in developing children's life skills. This is where Annie's place will be a home from home for our children and hopefully their families. Children need to understand how what they do at school relates to everyday life and Annie's place will be a central part of this incredible journey that we take our children on.
Today we have had the pleasure of taking EYFS to visit Annie’s Place and explore all that it has to offer. The children all said how much they enjoyed their visit and looked forward to learning essential life skills there!
Music and Movement
Today we have introduced PE to Nursery. We went though to the main hall all together and looked at how we could keep our bodies fit and healthy!
We discussed how we could keep safe in the hall and then what foods we could eat to be healthy. The children suggested apples, bananas and pears. They also said that fizzy pop and chocolate is a special treat that we should not eat all of the time.
Together we moved out bodies in time to the music and listened to the instructions. We can bend, stretch, wiggle and jump!
Exploring Environmental Sounds
As a part of Work Outside Wednesday we have been outside exploring our beautiful, natural environment. Today we have been on a lovely walk around our large school grounds to see what we can see and hear.
We switched on our good listening ears and began our walk by our Big Garden. Here we found lots of logs where we could see some wildlife living. We found lots of spiders, daddy long legs and wood lice. This sparked lots of questions from the children such as- how did the bugs get here? What might they eat? Do they live with their families here? We then proceeded along the boundaries of the school fence to see lots more wildlife. We could hear the wind blowing and some birds chirping. It then began to rain! So we stopped for shelter under a big, green tree and sang some songs together. The weather must have been listening because the rain soon stopped and a beautiful rainbow appeared!
Further up the school field we discovered some woodlands through a secret passage! We could hear the sticks breaking under our feet and the leaves blowing in the wind, they make a crinkle and crunch sound. We explored the woodlands and thought about who might live in this habitat.
We finished our long walk in the vegetable patch. We found lots of delicious fruits and vegetables. We even stopped to smell the fragrant herbs that grow here.
After a long walk we were very hungry, so we enjoyed a healthy snack and some milk under the tree and sang some more songs and rhymes.
The children all commented on how much they enjoyed a walk outside. They saw so many amazing things and liked stepping into please 1 phonics together.
Macmillan Coffee Morning
Today we have began our Holy Spirit Experience in the form of fundraising for a charity. We have chosen to raise money for Macmillan. The children were very generous and donated what they could to this fantastic cause. In return we iced, decorated and ate cakes whilst discussing all of the important work that Macmillan does for so many families. We ask God to look after all of the people who are under Macmillan’s care and we hope that he keeps them safe.
Beginning Our Journey Into Phonics
We have begun our learning journey into phonics. The children have been busy learning new sounds each day.
Today the children have revisited and remembered their new sounds and linked them to the letter shape.
We set a challenge to look up high, look down low to find the same letter and match it. Look at all the letters we found in our learning environment. Some children even wrote their own letters.
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Work Outside Wednesday!
This week we have began our Work Outside Wednesday programme. All children within EYFS have explored our outdoor environment and continued to develop their skills. They have been challenged to be creative and critical thinkers throughout each activity such as building dens from loose parts to resourcing natural ingredients to make delicious mud pies. The children have also practiced using their gross motor skills through running, climbing and accessing a variety of balance bikes.
The children have also been harvesting some delicious home grown vegetables from our garden. We discussed where our vegetables come from and the benefits of a healthy diet. The children took great pride in sharing their vegetables with their families at the end of the day!
Welcome New Nursery Children!
Today we have welcomed our new Nursery students. They all been superstars, they have came into the setting beautifully and it has been a real pleasure to watch them play, have fun and make new friends. We cannot wait to see them learn and grow together at St. Anne’s…
At St. Anne’s we have a school motto of, Love God, Love Learning, Love One Another. Today we have taken some time to practice making the Sign Of The Cross. We have a special prayer area in our provision called an Alter, this is where we can go to take some time to talk to God, to ask him for help, thanks or to say please or sorry. The children have enjoyed looking at some of the special objects that are on our Alter such as; the Bible, candles, mirrors and objects that reflect a time of harvest…
We ask God to keep the children and families of our school safe and healthy this year.
Today the children have looked at what makes a healthy snack. Whilst we are at school we have access to our snack area, the children are able to choose their own fruits, vegetables and drinks. We have discussed what could make a healthy or unhealthy snack. The children said that lots of fizzy pop and sugary sweets would not be good to eat every day. They also said that drinking milk would help our bones to grow strong, water would keep our brains working and fruits or vegetables keep us nice and healthy. The children also said it was very important to wash our hands with soap and water before eating to stop the germs!
Today we have had the pleasure of welcoming our returning Nursery students and our new Reception class into the setting. We had lots of fun making new friends and exploring the environment together. After being very brave and waving their parents goodbye at the gate, all of the children settled beautifully and were eager to play and learn