Portway Infant School
Gosling Class 2022-23
We have been learning some new shapes for Gymnastics this week. We talked about needing strong arms and legs and pointed fingers and toes!
We now know how to make the straight, star, tuck, pike and straddle pose!
We have been learning about a new artist this week, his name is Wassily Kandinsky. We found out that he liked colours and shapes and he played the Piano and Cello. Kandinsky liked to match colours to feelings so we read The rainbow book and talked about the way different colours made us feel.
Later we became Kandinsky artists ourselves and we chose colours to make our own Kandinsky display similar to his famous painting 'Colour Study - Squares with Concentric Circles'
Do you like our Circles?
Today we were lucky enough to be joined by some Portway parents and grandparents for our Christmas assembly in the hall. The grown ups impressed us with their musical talent and we could name many different instruments. What a lovely way to come together and sing some well known Christmas carols. Thank you to our wonderful performers for joining us.
This week we have been learning all about birthdays and how we celebrate the day we were born! We looked at our baby photos and discussed how we had changed.
We then read the story 'Ruff' where Ruff the dog has never had a birthday. This made us think of a bear we know, who was once lost and will have never had a birthday before... Bedtime Bear!!!
We got to work and planned a surprise party for him. We made birthday cards, birthday banners, party hats and even drew him some presents. We then threw his party, he was very surprised! We got to play musical statues, musical chairs and even had some cake!
Bedtime Bear had the best day ever!
We have been looking for signs of Autumn and talking about the changes in the season. We went on an autumn walk in the school grounds and we chose different coloured leaves to make an autumn crown.
Do you like our crowns?...
We went on our own bear hunt today and it went something like this...
We're going on a bear hunt
We're going to catch a big one
What a rainy day!
Uh Oh! A gate..
Creak Creak, Creak Creak!
Uh Oh!
Steps....
Up and down, up and down!
Uh Oh A Tunnel...
Tiptoe, Tiptoe!
Uh Oh!
Puddles...
Splish Splash, Splish Splash!
Uh Oh!
A Forest...
Stumble Trip, Stumble Trip!
2 BIG BAGS!
2 GOSLING LABELS!
IT'S 30 BEARS!
YEY!!
We would definitely go on a bear hunt again!!
We all found a bedtime bear to take home!
Have a look on Google Classroom for more information!
After all that bear hunting it was time to have some fun in the forest!!
We had our first trip to the library today!
Mrs Doney showed us some of the books that we might like to borrow and how to find any non-fiction books if we have any particular interests that we like to learn about.
We are looking forward to taking books home to share with our adults. Our Library Day is going to be Fridays so watch out for a new book coming home to share for a whole week!
We have been learning all about Diwali at school. We started with a 'Far Away Day' to India and found out all about how some people celebrate Diwali and the different things that they do. We had a dance workshop on Tuesday where we learnt a new dance to tell the story of Rama and Sita. We enjoyed celebrating Diwali in our role-play family house too!
We were especially excited that one of our class members celebrated Diwali with her family and could show us her clothes and mehndi patterns!
We have been learning about Harvest this week and how the wheat from the fields goes to the flour mill and then to the Bakery to make bread. We decided that we would pretend that our classroom was Burbidges Bakery and practise our spreading and cutting skills by making sandwiches to take home for our tea. We had a choice of bread and fillings and learnt how to use a bridge cut to cut the sandwich into pieces to share with our family at home.
We have been to Forest School today and found out all about how to keep ourselves safe. We put out hazard flags wherever we saw something that might be a danger or hurt us and then played a game to stop us getting lost called '1, 2, 3 where are you?'
Then we went digging, bug hunting, cooking lunch in the Mud Kitchen and making marble runs..... it was lots of fun.
Miss Birmingham taught us how to make dens and then we practised making dens of our own! We have loved our day in the forest and we can't wait to go back again soon!
We have been learning all about the artist Pablo Picasso. We found out that he liked to make colourful faces with bits facing forwards and sideways.
We used photographs of our faces to make our own artwork in the style of Pablo and practised our scissor skills to cut out our features to stick down. We had lots of fun and laughed a lot!!
We have been learning that we all have different families and do different things at home. Today we went to our role play house and discovered quite how many jobs there are to do! We have been busy cooking dinner, doing the washing, looking after the baby and dog and relaxing with a book or infront of the televsion. We are quite worn out!!!
We had so much fun today in P.E!
We got to have our first turn on the bikes. Look at how we got on. Mrs Mundy thinks we are experts already!
We have had such a busy first week at school. We have been making friends and finding out about all of the different places we have inside and outside our classroom. Come and see what we have been up to .......
We have been learning about a new artist this week his name is Vincent Van Gogh. We looked at his famous painting of 'Sunflowers' and decided that we would like to be an artist and paint the Sunflowers too!
Some children chose to use pastels to make sunflower pictures and others used a collaging method, we even had some sunflowers drawn on our Clevertouch board! We were so impressed with our paintings we made a display of them.
Which sunflower picture is your favourite?
We have had another great day in the forest today! We have learnt so many things about the forest over the year that it was lovely to be able to put all of our learning together and be so independent in our exploration! Look at all the fun we had...
We enjoyed looking for animals at Forest School and thought that we would use paper sculpture to create 3D insects and bugs in the classroom. We thought very carefully about the shapes, colours and details that we needed for the features.....
We had a fantastic time at our school sports day today! The children put their best efforts in and were AMAZING! We were so proud of how well they took part and how wonderfully they supported and cheered each other on! We were so lucky to have parents there to cheer us on too!
Well what a great week we have had to end this half term!
We have been learning all about the Queen and her 70 year reign on the throne! We have been very busy decorating the classroom at the same time as learning lots of new things. To end this great week we had our own whole school street party with food, dancing and singing! Have a look at some of the things we have been up to...
We had another great day in the forest yesterday! This time we began our learning by talking about the features of some insects that live in the forest. We went and did some bug hunting and then some of us decided to do some drawings of the bugs that we found. We all liked looking at the giant snail that one of the children found!
We had lots of lovely other activities that the we chose to do too! The mud kitchen was very popular, and what a mess we made cooking up some delightful feasts!! You might have noticed our muddy clothes at home time! But what fun we had!
Some of us made dens which was very helpful for when the rain came, and some of us enjoyed playing the rope swinging game which reminds me of when I was little and we danced around the Maypole!!
Have a look at our photo's to see what fun we had...
We have had an amazing day today. We met the author/illustrator Petr Horacek! He told us all about his job and read us some of his stories. We loved hearing all about Petr's Granny and all the animals she has!! Petr made us laugh a lot!
In the afternoon we had a workshop with Petr where we had to be illustrators. We made a giant picture between all of us. Have a look at the photos to see our exciting busy day!
After our very successful egg hatching, we now have 5 baby Runner Ducks...... Bob, Beth, Betty, Bart and Benjamin. They have been exploring our outside enclosure for the first time today and enjoying the sunshine!!
We also have caterpillars and will be watching carefully as they change and grow. Do you know what will happen next in their life cycle?
We have had the best day ever today! We got to go to Longdown Activity Farm to be farmers for the day! Farmer Luke took us around the farm. We worked very hard and had a very busy schedule of farmer jobs to complete. First we fed the kids their milk, then we collected the eggs from the chickens and took them around to the shop to be sold. After that we held some chicks and stroked some guinea pigs. We saw pigs, calfs, cows and horses! A big treat came next with a tractor ride that we all enjoyed! It was very very very bumpy!! We still had not quite finished for the day as we had to feed the goats their food too! We each had a plate to hold out to them.
After all of our jobs were done we were allowed to have our lunch! We were very hungry! Then it was time to get on the coach to return to school... we had some very sleepy children by the end of the day!
Thankyou to Farmer Luke and Longdown Farm! We had the best time EVER!
We have had a great time this week looking at new life and finding out about how some people celebrate Easter!
We went on a walk to look for signs of spring and completed a spring flower hunt chart, we then drew some spring flowers while listening to 'The Four Seasons' by Vivaldi.
We Had our very own Easter 'chick' hunt! and made our own chocolate nests! Then we had a dance party to celebrate - our favourite bit was listening to the birdie song and nestling on our own nests when the music stopped!!!
Happy Easter Everyone!
Yesterday we put our six Runner Duck eggs into the incubator. We are hoping to get Runner Ducklings in 28 days time!!!
We have had a lovely time in the forest today!
We have been learning all about Fire’s to match our learning with real life superheroes. Miss Birmingham taught us how to make a real fire, we talked about the type of kindling and sticks that we would need and about the shape we needed to make. We all went to have a go at making a small fire set up. Then we came back to the fire circle to have the fire lit. We learnt how to make a spark to light the fire and all about how to extinguish the fire safely. Miss Birmingham showed us the Fire Blanket, Fire Gloves and Water that she always has next to the Fire Pit.
We then had some special time in the Forest.
What an amazing day!
We have been learning about real life superheroes! We have had some special visitors in our school. Nurse Lizzy came to see us last week and this week we had Police Officer Luke and Police Officer Keiran visit. We now know all about Nurses and Police Officers, and we have our own hospital, incident room and Firefighters Station at school. What a busy few weeks!
We have been learning all about Plastic in the Ocean and Recycling this week. We created our own posters to send messages to other people.
We have been sharing lots of books this week all about fishes and under the sea. We loved the gift that we got and shared 'The Whale Who Wanted More' over half term ready for our learning. We have been playing in the small world, researching fish illustrators and even did some fish illustrations ourselves using collage, drawing and pebbles...... all matching our favourite illustrations. We have absolutely loved every moment!
Today was World Book Day and we have had lots of fun dressed in our favourite book characters...Can you tell who we are?
We also had some lucky finders of Golden Tickets who won a book prize!
We have had our very own Cinderella Ball at school today! Poor Cinderella was wearing her rags when we arrived but then she met the Fairy Godmother and was transformed! She was so happy that she got to go to the ball too!
We have been learning how to do special ballroom dancing by using patterns, we used this when we were dancing at the ball, "forward together, back together, side together, turn" we had to decide who was going forwards and backwards and when we turned, we had to decide who was going to turn the other person or if we were going to turn together!! It was so much fun!
We had to bow and curtsey to ask and thank our partners for the dance. Then we had canopies and drinks, one person had to collect the drinks for themselves and their partner at the bar!
When the clock struck midnight we all had to return to Castle Gosling!!
What a wonderful ball it was!
We had a great time in our Forest School. We heard the story of Hansel and Gretel and found out that they got lost in the woods. We remembered the song we sing if we get lost:
"1,2,3 where are you.....1,2,3 I'm over here"
We made Clay faces on the tree's for children in the woods and then in the afternoon we played Hide and Seek in pairs!
We had a fabulous day. Look at our photograph's to see the fun we had!
We celebrated the Chinese New Year this week by taking a trip to China. We learnt all about the country and then carried out some exciting activities linking our learning to the Chinese New Year Celebrations.
We made paper lanterns and dragon masks. We investigated Chinese writing and used the correct symbols to make our own number line. We made the Great Wall of China with our construction as well as some Chinese Temple buildings. At lunchtime we had a Chinese meal and in the afternoon we tasted noodles with a twist.... no Knives and Forkes were allowed! We used Chopsticks!
To end the day on Tuesday we made up our own dragon dance!!
We were very lucky on Wednesday to take part in a special dance workshop all about The Chinese New Year. We heard the story of the great race and then learnt how to do a Tiger Dance, a Fan Dance and last of all A Dragon Dance. We had a lot of fun learning 3 new dances!
This week we have been busy learning how to collage with different materials and glue. We decided to use our collaging skills to make the different characters from all the Fairy Tales we have learnt about. We then created a beautiful class display to show all the different stories.
Can you spot all the different Fairy Tales?
We have been busy learning some new shapes in P.E this week.
They have special names.
Straight
Star
Tuck
Pike
Straddle
Can you match the name to the shape using our pictures?
Perhaps you could try them at home!
We had a visit from the Fairy Godmother who has left a poster because things have been going missing in Fairy Tale Land. So far we have found a bundle of sticks from the story of the '3 Little Pigs', a little girl with a red cape on and today we even found some peas from the story of 'The Princess and the Pea'.
We have been very busy matching our learning to different Fairy Tales and sending cards from the 'Far Far Away Post Office'.
We have been learning all about a new artist called Wassily Kandinsky. We found out that he loved colours and shapes and also thought that colours, shapes and music all related to feelings. We looked at some of his paintings. When we saw his famous painting on A colour study: Squares with Concentric Circles. We decided to create our own Kandinsky style artwork. Do you like it?
We found out that Wassily Kandinsky was born in Russia so we decided to go on a trip to Russia to find out about a new country. We were very excited to have a new stamp in our passports!
We found out that Russia is the largest country in the world and that it's capital is called Moscow. We know that it has different climates and that Russian people celebrate 'Novy God' day in January. They have presents and a tree and they eat salad and see family. We made our own salad to eat. We remembered our learning of the bridge cut to cut some of the items in our salad! We also ate Blinis with soured cream which is another Russian dish. We found out about the 'Balalaika' which is a popular Russian instrument and made Balalaika's from our junk modelling and also some Russian Flags! We loved playing with the Russian dolls too!
What a busy day in Russia!
We have noticed the weather getting very cold recently so we decided to do an ice experiment! We collected some natural materials and put them in a plate and then filled it with water with some string in. We left them outside overnight and when we came back the next day our water had frozen! leaving some beautiful ice sculptures behind!
We hung them up outside our classroom and watched to see what would happen....
Can you guess?
We also put out some water pots and coloured water pots overnight. The next day we used them to explore colour mixing!
Today we had our Christmas dinner. It was absolutely delicious. A big thank you to the Portway kitchen for our lunch and the Portway PTA for our presents too. The children were absolutely delighted with their gift!!
The children loved our Bear Hunt day so much that we have been continuing our Bear Hunt activities this week.
We decided to make a display of the Bear Hunt Story but as an extra we put ourselves in the display!
I wonder if you can see us!
We had lots of fun finding different materials to match what we needed for collaging the different areas of the story.
We made up our own dance moves to match the different parts of the story. Can you guess the places we went to from our actions and faces?!
Bear Hunt Forest School
Today we were super excited to go on our very own Bear Hunt! We matched our learning by using the same story language as the original story but we went to new places on our hunt. Our journey went like this.....
We're going on a bear hunt, we're going to catch a big one, what a cloudy day! We're not scared…
Uh-oh a gate! A squeaky creaky gate, we can't go over it, we can't go under it. Oh no! We have to go through it
We're going on a bear hunt, we're going to catch a big one, what a cloudy day! We're not scared...
Uh-Oh steps! Up and down steps...
We can't go over it, we can't go under it. Oh no! We have to go through it.
We're going on a bear hunt, we're going to catch a big one, what a cloudy day! We're not scared…
Uh-Oh a Playground! A big hard playground.
We can't go over it, we can't go under it. Oh no! We have to go through it
We're going on a bear hunt, we're going to catch a big one, what a cloudy day! We're not scared…
Uh-Oh A Tunnel! A windy Windy Tunnel.
We can't go over it, we can't go under it. Oh no! We have to go through it
We're going on a bear hunt, we're going to catch a big one, what a cloudy day! We're not scared…
Uh-Oh a pit! A warm, cosy fire pit. We can't go over it, we can't go under it.
Oh no! We have to sit around it!
One shiny wet nose, two soft ears, and two goggly eyes! We found a Bear!!!
It was Hubble and Hubble came with a message that he had lots of bed time bears that were looking for a home and we all got to take one each!
We decided we would want to go on a bear hunt again!!!
After our bear hunt we then go to explore the forest and enjoy some of our favourite activities. The most exciting job was to create our own camouflage crowns to wear on our bear hunts so we don’t get caught by any bears! Have a look at the photos below to see how much fun we had!
Today we went to India for our Faraway Friday!
We found out about the Hindu Festival of Light which is called Diwali. We learnt all about how Hindu people celebrate Diwali and then we did some of our own Diwali activities.
We made Rangoli patterns with colouring and coloured pegs, we made jewellery and decorated the classroom with tissue paper garlands and made firework pictures. We watched some Indian Dancing and used our bright coloured scarves to join in with the dance.
During the morning we were very lucky to have Sophia come and visit us to run a dance workshop all about Diwali. She told us the story of Rama and Sita and taught us a storytelling dance! We had so much fun!
Today we have been learning all about Remembrance Day. We talked about how on the 11th day at the 11th hour of the 11th month we all stop for 2 minutes and go silent to remember the people in the army who have fought in wars.
We talked about how Poppies grew in the fields where the soldiers once fought and how people use Poppies as a symbol of Remembrance today.
We decorated our school pebbles to look like Poppies!
At 11AM we all sat silently for 2 minutes to remember.
I see a......
...looking at me!
We have been busy creating new characters for the Brown Bear story. We designed our animal first and then used collage to create a paper plate mask.
Here are all of our masks for you to use to retell the Gosling Brown Bear story. Can you use the repeated story language that Bill Martin Jr used when he wrote it?
We were very excited to have our first experience of the bikes at school. We could choose from a selection of different bikes and then swap over with our friends to try all the different ones.
Which bike would you choose?
We have been exploring autumn this week. We talked about the changes we have noticed happening outside. We discussed how the leaves are changing colour and how many different coloured leaves we could see. We decided that we needed to investigate all the leaves that had fallen to the ground. We could see lots of different shapes, sizes and colours. We had great fun playing with the leaves!
We have had an exciting visit to our Portway Library to see all of the different books that are there. Mrs Doney is our Librarian and she read us a story in the Library! We were very excited to visit a new place in school.
After half term we will be able to visit the library once a week and choose a book to borrow.
We have had the best time at Forest School Today!
We started our session with a safety talk from Miss Birmingham who explained how we need to stay safe in the forest. We talked about all the things that could be dangerous to us and how we can stay safe. We used special flags to mark out all the hazards we could find . We chose to put them by brambles and roots on the ground as well as holly and red berries.
We also learnt how to stay safe if we are feeling a bit lost in the forest. We learnt a new game called "1,2,3 where are you" one group went to hide while the other shouted "1,2,3 where are you?" then the hiding group stood still and shouted "1,2,3 we are over here" we took turns to hide!
After the safety talk was done we then learnt how to make easy dens by using tarpaulin, clips and mallets. Once all the teaching was done we then got to explore the forest and had lots of fun bug hunting, den building, collecting soil for the trees and playing in the mud kitchen. We loved using the guttering to make giant ball runs!
Have a look at our photo's to see the fun we had...
We have been learning all about Harvest this week and about our food and where it comes from. Andover has it's very own flour mill near our train station and we have Burbidges Bakery near our school, so today we went in role as bakers and made our own sandwiches to take home for our tea. We could choose from brown or white bread and a sweet or savoury filling of jam or cheese spread. We then practised our spreading and cutting skills with knives...... it is not always as easy as it looks!
We have been practising our pencil grip and strengthening our core muscles using WriteDance at school in readiness for writing. We used big movements to draw circles and eights in the air with rainbow scarves, matching them to the music, before drawing them down on paper.
If you would like to help at home you could strengthen hand muscles by squeezing sponges at bath time, watering the garden with spray bottles or screwing up old newspaper into tiny balls – don’t forget to use both hands!
All of our hand control activities help to develop a good pencil grip.
Some of us went for a walk to find the hidden path to the school forest area! We loved winding our way through the forest path and finding camp fire areas. We can't wait to do some more exploration of the Forest on our Forest School day next week!
We were very excited to harvest some carrots from our outside area! We were even more excited to taste them too!
Hola everyone. We have been to Spain on a plane today because that is where Pablo Picasso was born.
We all had our own passports and set up our classroom as an aeroplane.
When we got to Spain, we did some flamenco dancing, made some Spanish flags and our own fan by decorating and folding some card and cutting a doily to add decorative lace. You might want to make some fans at home and have a ‘Family Flamenco Evening’!
We have been learning about the artist Pablo Picasso. He likes to make pictures of faces looking forwards and sideways. We cut up photographs of our own faces to make a picture in the style of Pablo Picasso. This is how we look now…..
We have had lots of fun learning all about Elmer and how it is ok to be different to other people. We are all different to each other! We came to school in bright clothes to match Elmer. We did lots of fun Elmer activities...
We also decorated our own elephant biscuits to look colourful just like Elmer!
We made our own Class Elmer parade. Just like in one of the Elmer stories!
Welcome to our new class! We have had a fantastic first week at school exploring our new classroom, outside area and many new activities.
On this page you will be able to see regular updates of all the things we will get up to at school this year as well as lots of photos of us!
Have a look at what we have been doing so far…
