Portway Infant School
My goodness we really had the best day ever at the farm!!
We got to arrive in style via our coach and sang 'Old Macdonald' all the way there!
When we first arrived we were introduced to Farmer Brian who was our guide for the day. The first activity we got to do was feeding the adult goats! They were so hungry we had to hold on to our trays tightly!! Once the adult goats had been fed we then got to feed the baby goats with bottles of warm milk. They were super cute and wagged their tales whilst they ate!
Once the goats had been fed we moved on to collecting the eggs from the hens! We each got to choose one egg and carry it safely to the shop ready to be sold.
Next on out tour was our favourite part! The mega bumby tractor ride! We had to hold on tight to make sure we didn't fall off but we were all laughing and smiling the whole journey!
Lastly before stopping for lunch we got to visit the baby chicks and guinea pigs and give them gentle strokes! It gave us great practise before looking after the school Guinea Pigs when we move to Year 1.
We feel so lucky to have had such an amazing and busy day at Longdown it was the perfect way to end the year together.
We had an amazing time at our last Forest School as Year R children! We continued our learning about bugs and found about the habitats they live in! We spoke about what would be important for the different bugs and insects and how they are different! We then got to create our own habitats during special time!
Once we had finished making our habitats we got to choose our own activities. We are so independent in the forest now we knew exactly what we wanted to do. We chose all our favourites including den building, clay faces and hazard flags and worked all independently with no grown up help!
We have loved all our time in Forest School and we cannot wait to learn new skills when we get to Year 1!
We have met a London bus who has been off on some adventures!!!
Log in to our Google Classroom to watch the movie that we have made. We are very excited to share it with you. (I have downloaded it onto our stream as it was too long to put onto our website but please let me know if you are unable to find it!)
We have been learning about the author Petr Horacek who was born in Prague so today we decided to pay a visit to the Czech Republic. We got our passports out, collected our sticker and boarded the flight to Prague.
When we arrived we made flags and said 'Ahoj'!
We found out that there are over 2,000 castles in the Czech Republic so we designed and made our own castles.
Prague Castle is the largest, ancient castle in the world so we even made that too!!
We have loved learning different art techniques from different artists. We have learnt new skills from Vincent Van Gogh, Pat Hutchins and Petr Horacek!
First, Van Gogh taught us about colour mixing to create different colours and we used this technique to paint our own sunflower paintings!
Pat Hutchins taught us to add extra detail using a black pen! We painted different parts of her story 'Rosie's Walk' and added the detail once it had dried.
And finally, we have loved learning about Petr Horacek! Petr likes to cut out his drawings and add them onto a background. We all had a go at drawing our own Suzy Goose to add to our class background. We also wrote something we are good at as Suzy Goose taught us that we are all different and special in our own way!
We are very excited as some countdown balloons arrived in our classroom ready for Year 1. Every Friday afternoon we can do our transition activity and then pop the next balloon for our treat.
Today we found out who our Year 1 teacher is going to be! We had some fun photos and videos to watch as a guessing game. When we popped our number 6 balloon it was cosmic kids..... perfect for a rainy Friday afternoon.
I wonder what it will be next Friday!!
We were very excited when we returned to school to see that the butterflies had emerged from their cocoons!
After having them in the classroom for a few days to observe with magnifying glasses, we decided it was time to set them free to lay eggs and continue the life cycle. Goodbye butterflies!
Today was the ducklings last day with us before they went to their forever homes! We spent some time with them this morning watching them having a dip in the water and even got to have last cuddles with them! We have loved having them to look after and we will miss them very much!
What beautiful weather we had on Thursday for our Forest School morning! We had so much fun! We started the morning learning about 3 different bugs: ants, woodlice and earth worms. We learnt some amazing facts.
Did you know that ants can lift 20 times their own body weight? That's like a 7 year old lifting a small car!!
Did you know that woodlice are related to crabs and lobsters?
Did you know that an earth worm can survive after being cut in half!
We then got to become bug hunters and search under logs and in mud to find different bugs and insects.
After we had returned all the bugs we had found to their homes, we got to explore the forest and have fun doing some of our favourite activities such as ponding dipping, den building, making clay faces and more! We finished the day by sitting around the fire and singing campfire songs!
The ducklings have safely hatched and we now have four very excited ducklings at school.
Let me introduce you to....
Ellie
Erin
Eric
and Ed
They even came to visit us in our classroom and we got to stroke and hold them.
We are very excited! During the Easter holidays we had a special delivery of a strange parcel... inside we four duck eggs
The eggs are now in our incubator. They have to incubate for 28 days and this weekend the time is up. We have our fingers crossed that there will be four runner ducklings very soon!
This week we had another parcel that arrived and that was full of new life too! We have some caterpillars to watch in our classrooms as they change into butterflies and we can learn about their life cycle.
This week we learnt all about Vincent Van Gogh! We learnt where he was born, what job he did before he focused on his art and we learnt that he loved to use lots of bright colours in his paintings! We looked at all the different types of sunflowers he painted and spoke about how he used thick brushes and lots of paint, which meant it would sometimes take weeks for his paintings to dry!
After learning about Van Gogh, we were inspired to create our own sunflower paintings. We used 3 different sized brushes and thought carefully about the position of each part of the painting! Have a look at our art gallery below to see our amazing creations!
We are so lucky at Portway to have such a wonderful Library! The children get to visit every Friday to choose a new book! It can sometimes be tricky to choose as there is so much choice! There are story books, non-Fiction books, information books, poetry books and more!
The children love to visit as they get to scan in their old book and then browse for a new one! They like to give them a trial read before they make the final decision! Once they have scanned it out they can then spend some time looking through and sharing their books with friends!
Have a look at the pictures below to see us having so much fun!
What a fun day we have had today! It started with lots of laughter when we shared our jokes to the whole class and voted on the two favourites! Georgia and Chester were the winning pair! Well done you two!
Next we played 'Hunt the Red Nose' with Mrs Smith. We each had 3 noses to hide and we had to see if we could remember where we hid them. We were even allowed to be cheeky and steal other peoples! The winner was the person who had the most at the end!
In the afternoon, we were so excited to go down to Forest School and create our very own 'Clay Red Nose' faces! We decorated them with anything safe we could find, that was already on the floor! Have a look at all the different faces we made!
Our amazing dinner ladies made our Superhero day so special today by organising a Superhero lunch with decorations and we even had Superhero cupcakes! We were so excited and felt so lucky!
We had the best time at Forest School on Tuesday and enjoyed soaking up the beautiful sunshine! We started the day by reminding ourselves of the rules in Forest School and how to keep ourselves safe! We then put out the hazard flags to highlight any dangers!
We were super lucky as Miss Birmingham taught us how to build fires by starting with tinder and building up small sticks into a pyramid shape! We also learnt that you can snap the sticks to see if they are dry enough for the fire. We then had a real fire with our grownups sat around the camp fire.
After this we then enjoyed some special time in the Forest.. Come and see what fun we had!
We had a lovely day today at our Christmas dinner! We all put on our elf hats and went up to the hall where we were surprised with decorations and table presents from the PTA! Thank you!
We then got to enjoy a yummy roast dinner with our class grown-ups and for dessert we had delicious Christmas puddings and biscuits, yum yum!!
Today we learnt all about birthdays and read the old bear story ‘Ruff’ which was about a little teddy that had never celebrated his birthday! We spoke about how this would make us feel and why birthdays are special.
We then realised that poor Hubble was once a lost bear and that he had never had a birthday either! We decided to throw Hubble his first ever birthday party! We made Hubble birthday cards and banners and even created a ‘Pin the Nose on the Bear’ game.
We had so much fun playing musical statues, pin the nose on the bear and even got to enjoy some delicious cupcakes! We think Hubble had the best birthday ever!
We have been learning all about the Bear Hunt story at school. We worked together to collage all the different parts of the story to make a beautiful class display. I wonder if you can spot yourself and your friends in all the different places. We even got to go on our very own bear hunt around the school finding new ‘Uh-Oh’ places! I wonder if you can use your memory to tell our bear hunt journey to your grownups!
We had Forest School this week and made our own Bear Hunt ‘camouflage crowns’ using things from the environment. We were very proud and wore them for the rest of the morning!
We then got to explore the forest and have fun doing some of our favourite activities such as: finding hazards and marking them with flags, building dens and marble runs and moving earth to the vegetable plot and bug hunting! We even got to use the Forest School hammock which was so much fun!
How are you doing with learning your words in your Word Wallet? Oakley has been working hard with his words and he can help you with yours too. Just watch his videos and you can learn together.
He has a video for white words and another one for green words.
We dressed as superheroes to raise some money and awareness for Diabetes.
We decided that as we were being superheroes for the day we could do something kind for the people in our community.
We wanted to help those in care homes that may not be able to see their families at Christmas time. We thought it would be nice to send them some decorations for their Christmas tree and some decorated cards and gift tags that they could use to send to their friends and family. We also decorated some paper chain strips so they could make some Christmas decorations for their home.
So what a fun day we have had being kind superheroes!!!
We have so enjoyed playing in the Autumn leaves this week. We talked about how the weather is changing and the different signs of autumn such as leaves on the trees are falling off and changing colour.
Have a look at the photos the children took themselves using the iPad, of different signs of autumn around the school and of them having fun in all of the Portway Autumn leaves.
What a fantastic day we have had celebrating Elmer’s Parade. It was so lovely to see the children in all different colours and patterns just like Elmer.
We made our very own Elmer Pararde!
We had so much fun at our very first Forest School! The children loved being outdoors and exploring new activities.
First we had our safety talk with Olive the Orangutan and learnt how to keep safe in the forest. We then got to search the forest for any hazards and put down flags to warn everyone and keep each other safe.
Once we had learnt how to play in the forest safely we then got to enjoy all the different activities. We had fun: den building, bug hunting, digging in the dirt, playing in the mud kitchen and making giant marble runs. Have a look at the photos to see how much fun we had.
We have been learning all about numbers and counting this week. We have found lots of different things to count at school. What can you find to count at home?
Don’t forget….. always move the objects when you count them so that you know when to stop! How many have you counted?
We have been learning about the artist Pablo Picasso. We learnt about his different paintings and how he loves to create unusual faces with the features in the wrong places.
We decided to become Pablo for the day and create our own masterpieces using pictures of us. We practised our scissor skills to help cut out all the features of our face and then stuck it where ever we chose! We also made sure to include lots of colours as well as Pablo’s favourite blue and white stripes.
Have a look at all the different faces we made…
We have been listening to stories about Elmer and making our own collage and chalk Elmers.
He was an elephant that was lots of different colours but on Elmer Day all of the other elephants make themselves different colours and Elmer makes himself elephant colour.
Here is our display of Elmer Day. We printed with shapes to decorate the elephants.
How many different Nursery Rhymes do you know? Our Book Corner in the classroom has got some Nursery Rhyme pictures and this story uses the characters to tell a new story about Humpty Dumpty.
What do you think Humpty Dumpty should have been when he grew up?
Do you know what you want to be?
We have had a fantastic start to school. We’ve been having so much fun exploring our classroom and making lots of new friends. Have a look at the photos below and see if you can spot you and any of your friends!
We have had so much fun at our first week of school and I am so proud of all the children for how well they have settled in!
Have the children told you about our new class fish? They arrived on Thursday morning and we are learning how to take care of them by using gentle hands and feeding them twice a day. We have 4 little fish called Spot, Stripe, Chilli and Old McDonald. We worked together to choose the names!
This week we have matched our learning to our new class pets and have been learning about The Rainbow Fish and the importance of sharing to make others happy. We have been doing some fantastic sharing of our toys and resources at school! We also got to make our very own hand print fish and were given a rainbow scale from the Rainbow Fish to show we all belong together!
Have a look at the photos below of each fish and the display board we made of out of our beautiful hand print fish.
