Portway Infant School
We have been enjoying the story of Rosie's Walk as part of our new topic this half term. We absolutely loved watching Rosie escape the sneaky fox all around the farm so we decided to paint our favourite part of the story. We carefully looked at the pages from the book to decide what colours we would need and layered our paintings so that it included lots of detail. Once our paintings were dry we went over them with black pen to add the finer details using iPads to zoom in on the pictures and make ours look exactly like the book. We are so proud of our work!
More to come!
The sunshine has arrived and so has the spring! We have been finding out about the changes since winter and been learning the names of some of the spring flowers that we can find in our school grounds. We even explored Forest School to see what was growing there!
Today was Superhero Day at Portway in Year R. Everyone dressed up to be a real-life superhero or a fictional superhero. We had lots of fun and posed for a photo which we can use for our big classroom display and some comic strip writing. We look forward to sharing our learning with you.
To continue with our learning of real life superheroes, today we learnt all about The Dentist. We learnt about why it is important to keep our teeth clean and brushed twice a day. We even learnt a song about it! We learnt about what types of food are good for our teeth and we even practised brushing them to make sure we get rid of any nasty germs!
This half term we are learning all about real life superheroes and today we had some special visitors to help us with our learning.
The Police came to visit us today and talked to us about how they keep everyone safe in Andover. They showed us the different parts of their uniform and the equipment they use to do their job. We had lots of questions which they answered for us and then after all of that, we went outside to see their Police car and even got to sit inside!
Today is 'World Book Day' and we have all dressed up as different book characters. Can you guess which stories we come from?
The sun was shining brightly on Wednesday for our Forest School and what a great time we had!
We are going to be looking at real life superheroes this half term and so in preparation we learnt all about fire. We used the words ignite and extinguish and talked about what needs to come together to allow a fire to start. We made our own little fire squares by using tinder, kindling and dry sticks. After this we learnt how to make sparks with steels and then Miss Birmingham lit our campfire, we had a great sing song around the fire and then we learnt how to extinguish the fire safely.
Also as part our World Book Week we have been reading books by Julia Donaldson. We read 'Stick Man' and made our own stick people in the forest!
We came back to school this week, raring to go on our second Farm to Fork week. We remembered the different types of farms we have around us and learnt about how we get the yummy food we enjoy so much. We've been busy being Portway Farmer's again this week, this time planting cress seeds ready to grow and hopefully eat when it is ready!
Today we had our own Cinderella Ball. We got dressed in our special clothes and turned into Princes and Princesses. We asked our partners to dance by bowing and curtseying. We had so much fun dancing with our friends and even had some biscuits and juice as refreshments!
We had a great time in the forest today. We were learning all about following trails, just like in the story of Hansel and Gretel! We had to look out for different signs that were left all around the school grounds! We followed the signs which brought us to the fire circle where we enjoyed a warm cup of hot chocolate as a treat!
We enjoyed making our own signs and trails in our special time. What a fabulous day!
We had the most brilliant 2 days this week by heading off on the plane to China! We spent our Wednesday learning the language, creating flags, dragon masks and even our own Chinese Pagoda's out of construction. A particular favourite part of the day was trying some of the local food - prawn crackers and noodles yum yum! Lot's of Cygnets were asking for more! We learnt all about Chinese New Year and the story of the Chinese Zodiac signs. Have a look at our fun filled day...
We then had another treat in school as we had our very own Chinese Dragon Dance Workshop where we got to actually be the dragon! It was so exciting and we had lots of fun!
In PE this half term we are learning all about the 5 basic shapes. These are: Straight, Star, Tuck, Pike and Straddle. We have practised them carefully by holding our bodies strong and still just like gymnasts do. We are experts now and can't wait to teach everyone at home!
We have had great fun in the past few days taking advantage of the very cold weather! We looked at how water turns to ice when it freezes and then investigated what happens when the sun shines. Have a look at our Ice Sculptures that we made using natural materials from our outside area.
This week we have been learning all about the artist Wassily Kandinsky and one of his most famous pieces of art: 'Squares with Concentric Circles'. We created our own concentric circles and practised our cutting skills to make the different sizes. All of our amazing work is on display in Year R and we are very proud.
Today we were lucky enough to be joined by some very talented Portway parents for our Christmas assembly in the hall. The grown ups impressed us with their musical talent and it was lovely to see so many different instruments. What a great way to come together and sing some well known Christmas carols! Thank you to our wonderful performers for joining us.
We read the story of 'Ruff' this week and talked about birthdays and why we celebrate them. We talked about how a birthday is about remembering and celebrating the day we were born. We then realised that our Cygnet Bear had never had a birthday - Just like Ruff! So we decided to throw a birthday party for her. We talked about all the different ways we celebrate a birthday and planned some fun things for Cygnet Bear's birthday party!
What lucky Cygnets we were today! We had so much fun at Forest School and we even had sunshine... that was until after lunch! We created camouflage crowns using natural materials from the forest. We then remembered all of our safety rules while exploring! Have a look at all the fun we had...
We have been learning all about how our environment changes from Summer into Autumn and how some animals hibernate or migrate to warmer places. We have noticed how the leaves have been changing colour and falling off the trees. So on Friday we had the best fun playing in the leaves in our outside area.
'Brown Bear, Brown Bear what do you see...'
I see all of Cygnet's amazing animal masks looking at me!
We had so much fun creating our animal masks this week. First we decided what animal we wanted for our mask and then we made a careful plan. Once we had our plan we painted our mask and started decorating all of its features! Have a look at all of our hard work!
Wow, what a super week it has been! This week we have become Portway farmers and have learnt about where our food comes from. We have been busy this week planting radish seeds in our own Cygnet Greenhouse. We are ready to water them and can't wait to watch them grow. We have also learnt about the journey our food takes from the farm to the shops. We have especially loved cutting up different fresh fruit and veg to have our own little tasting picnic. It was delicious!
What an amazing first Forest School Day we have had! We have found out how to keep ourselves safe, what to do if we get lost and even been around the site putting out Hazard Flags whenever we found something that might be dangerous!
Then we were ready for our learning time... we have been bug hunting, digging and sieving, building harvesting machines, making dens and lots lots more. Come and see what we have been up to...
When the sun is shining we like to take our learning outside and what better way to get some exercise and practise our turn taking than going on the bikes and trikes! We have lots of different designs - even some that move by using our hands! We can develop our gross motor skills and balance by having some fun with our friends.
We have been learning all about the artist Pablo Picasso this week. We practised our scissor skills to cut up photographs of our faces to then stick down and create our own piece of art in the style of Picasso.
We have been on a visit to Spain today in Cygnet Class! We arrived at school and got straight on the aeroplane with our passports! We found out lots of interesting things about Spain, especially the fact that Pablo Picasso was born there. We have had lots of fun making the Spanish flag, Spanish fans and doing our very own Flamenco dancing!
We even learnt some of the language! Have a look at the fun we had...
Adios!
We had our first taste of PE this week at Portway. We only took off our shoes and socks this time but we did so brilliantly and with hardly any help! We headed into the hall to perform some Write Dance. We listened to music and made circles and eights with our arms to music. Once we had practised this we used floaty scarves and performed to our friends!
Our First Week
What a busy first week we have had at Portway! We have been finding out about the different places inside and outside of our classroom, learning about how to use the different resources and making lots of friends. We have had a great start to our time in Year R! Come and see what we have been up to...
