Portway Infant School
Click on Spring Term to see what we have been up to recently.
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.
We have been learning all about birthdays and how it is a celebration of the day that we were born. Then we realised that Buttons had never had a birthday so we decided to give him a surprise birthday. First we needed to make cards, decorations and party hats ......
Then we were ready to celebrate!!
Buttons was very surprised when he came out of his bag this morning to find all of his surprises. He loved reading his cards and joining in with the party games. He also enjoyed having his very own birthday cake when everyone sang to him and got very excited to join in with the dancing.
I think that everyone had a lot of fun!!
We have been learning all about the change in season and what happens in Autumn. Then we went out to find signs of Autumn and to collect things to stick on our Autumn crowns ready to be 'Autumn Kings and Queens'!!
We went on a real Bear Hunt today and found our Bedtime Bears. We used the repeated language from the original story to make up our own and went through the squeaky gate...... splashed through the puddles ....... scuffed across the grass ...... stumbled through the forest.... scrunched through the leaves ....... until we found our real bears!!
You could retell the story as you look through our Bear Hunt photos.
We had lots of fun at Special Time too....... which did get quite muddy!!
We had sunshine and some rain......... but we also got a rainbow!
We went on a visit to our school Library today with Mrs Doney.
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. She also showed us our library tickets.
We are looking forward to taking books home to share with our adults. Our Library Day is going to be Wednesdays 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 people celebrate Diwali and the different things that they do.
We were also lucky enough to have a Diwali Dance Workshop and made up a dance to match the story of Rama and Sita.
We even used all of our new learning to celebrate Diwali in our 'Family House'!
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.
In the afternoon, Miss Birmingham taught us how to make dens and then we practised making dens of our own before tidying the forest and getting ready for home. It was a very busy day and we can't wait until our next visit!!
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!!!
The sun was shining so we decided to go on our bikes and trikes this morning. We had lots of fun and got some exercise too!!
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 absolutely loved learning about the artist Vincent Van Gogh this week and looking at some of his pictures. We used lots of the different art skills that we have learnt during the year to make our own version of his pictures, including collage, oil pastels and even Lego!!
We used our knowledge of colour mixing to mix paint to match the colours that Van Gogh used for his sunflower pictures to create our own sunflower paintings.
We have been out in Forest School today learning all about different habitats. We then used our knowledge of the forest animals to build our own habitats for them and tried to find woodlice and ants to live in their new homes.
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 our first Sports Morning today at school. It was so lovely to see everyone back together for a whole school event. Thank you for coming to support us and the children, we so enjoyed sharing it with you!
Congratulations to the Red Team ......
Congratulations to the Yellow Team......
Congratulations to the Blue Team .......
We have had an amazing week at school learning all about Queen Elizabeth II and decorating the classroom to celebrate her Platinum Jubilee.
We designed our own 'Flag Biscuits' and the kitchen baked us real biscuits to decorate to match our designs.
We finished the week with a whole school Street Party. We sang the National Anthem, had party food, danced, met the Queen and had red, white and blue cake!!
We have been out in the sunshine looking for animals in our woodland environment. We have found woodlice, snails, slugs, spiders and some enormous centipedes under logs!
We looked carefully at their different features and identified them before drawing them to remember what we had found.
We have had such an exciting day today as we have had a real author illustrator come to spend some time with us. We loved listening to his stories, learning how to use layers of colours and listen to how he became an artist.
Petr had made a background for us with a bear and then it was our turn to be artists and draw a character to join the bear in the picture.
Everyone had a turn to talk to Petr about their picture and where to place it in the big picture.
......... here is our finished piece of art. We love it!!!
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 just the best day being farmers at Longdown today. We have been busy helping Farmer Lisa feed the goats and kids, look after the chicks and guinea pigs and collect the eggs. We said hello to the horses and were then treated to a tractor ride over the cow field. At last we were allowed our lunch!!!
We have had such a busy week learning about 'New Life' and Spring. We have been out looking for signs of Spring in our outside environment, learning about the flowers we can see and then drawing them, and we have even seen some tadpoles!
We then decorated our classroom, made cards and went on an Easter Egg Hunt to celebrate this special time of year.
Yesterday we put our six Runner Duck eggs into the incubator. We are hoping to get Runner Ducklings in 28 days time!!!
We have been matching our learning in Forest School and finding out all about fires and how to keep ourselves safe around fire. We learnt how to build our own fire, starting with tinder, then kindling before collecting sticks and practised making sparks with 'fire steels'. Miss Birmingham even lit her own fire for us to see!
Come and see what else we have been up to .....
We had some more real life superheroes at school today! We had a visit from two Police Officers and found out all about the uniform they wear, how they keep us safe and the gadgets they use. We even got to try on some of their gadgets ourselves!
Then we went outside to see their Police car and saw some of the gadgets they have to help them in their vehicle. I wonder if you can spot which photo is when we were listening to the sirens!!
We were so lucky to have a visit from Nurse Lizze and Stanley this week. She helped us to learn about the special clothes that she wears, the gadgets that she uses and how she helps us to stay safe. We are also bone experts now too!
We have been busy using this information to be in role as doctors and nurses ourselves in our role play Hospital and matching our learning to Hospitals too. We have been writing Patient Forms, measuring and weighing, creating moving split pin characters and using the small world.
We have also been in role as Firefighters and Police Officers ready to answer any 999 call!!
We have been learning about how to keep our seas and oceans clean. We were so upset that we wanted to make posters to tell everyone to put their rubbish in the bin rather than let it float along the rivers to the oceans and seas.
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 we celebrated World Book Day by dressing up as some of our favourite book characters..... I wonder if you can recognise any of them?
We have been finding 'Portway Infant School Golden Tickets' all week...... here are Duckling's winners.
We finished our Fairy Tale topic with a Cinderella Ball today. We have been practising some dances ready and then dressed up in our finest clothes after receiving invitations earlier in the week.
We had fun dancing with our partners and then stopped for juice and canapes!
Today we have been to Forest School and we have been linking it to our learning about Fairy Tales. We used clay to make faces on the trees and made a magical forest. We used things that we could find in Forest School to make the face features.
Come and meet our new friends....
At learning time we made dinner for Hansel and Gretel in the Mud Kitchen, collected bugs for the Troll's breakfast and went digging. We also made dens for ourselves and woodland animals and decorated wooden discs too. If we got lost in the forest like Hansel and Gretel, we would be absolutely fine!!
On the1st February it was Lunar New Year so we went to China to celebrate the New Year by wearing red to go on our aeroplane.
We learnt lots about China and then made our own flags, dragons and red paper lanterns. We also practised with chopsticks and woollen noodles ready for tasting some real noodles in the afternoon..... we even used chopsticks to eat them! We also found out about Chinese numbers and tried building our own pagodas with 10 storeys just like the one in Kew Gardens.
We had a Chinese themed lunch and then celebrated in the afternoon, taking home a lucky orange and fortune cookie. It was a very busy day!
Today we had a Chinese workshop with lots of different dancing. We did a Lion Dance, a dance with fans and then finished with a Dragon Dance!!
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 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 about the artist Kandinsky this week. He loved colours and shapes so we have enjoyed making art using different colours and shapes too!
We practised our technology skills to draw around different sized circles to cut out and make into our own concentric circles just like Kandinsky.
Here are all of the concentric circles that we made.....
We are displaying our concentric circles in our Central Area for everyone to see.
Because Kandinsky was born in Russia, we had a 'Far Away Friday' to visit there today. We boarded our plane and learnt all about the country before we got there. We needed our coats on because it is very cold in Russia at the moment!
When we got to Russia, we were very busy making flags and balalaikas. We also used Russian letters to write our names and had some Russian dolls which get smaller and smaller as you open them.
In Russia, people celebrate 'Novy God', or New Year, at this time of year with trees, decorations and a special salad . We celebrated today too and decorated our class tree and made potato and vegetable salad to eat and then had blinis with soured cream.
Novy God to everyone!
Now that the season has changed to Winter and it has been so cold the last couple of days, we decided to change our learning from making Christmas decorations to making ice decorations!
It is something you can do at home too, you just need low temperatures, containers and some wool or string.
Collect some interesting things from outside, put them in your container with some water and a piece of string and wait for it to freeze.
When the ice has frozen, you can tip it out and hang your decoration up.
They look great hanging up in the trees. I wonder how long they will take to melt!!
Today we had our Christmas dinner. It was absolutely delicious and there were lots of empty plates. 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!!
We have been learning about birthdays and we gave Hubble his very first birthday party. We made hats, cards and decorations and then celebrated with Hubble. We played musical chairs, sang him 'Happy Birthday' and had a cake. We had lots of fun!!
A huge well done to all of the children for their fabulous performance of Penguin Pete. They were so excited to share their hard work with you and enjoyed every moment. Well done to everybody!
We made up our own dance to the words of the Bear Hunt story. I wonder if you can tell which bit of the story is in each of the pictures!
We used collage to make the different places in the Bear Hunt story.
Can you see us hiding in the picture?
We went on our own Bear Hunt through a gate, over the steps, around the playground and between the trees. We finished at the fire pit and found Hubble and 2 big bags of Bedtime Bears!!
You might want to use these photos to retell the story of Duckling Bear Hunt. Remember to use the repeated story language and 'Listening Walk' words so that it matches our learning.
Then we went to Forest School.
We made our own camouflage crowns to keep us hidden for our hunts and then went on Treasure Hunts, Bug Hunts and Animals Hunts. Some of us cooked in the Mud Kitchen so that we had a nice, warm meal inside us and other children set up dens so that we would have somewhere cosy to sleep!
What did you enjoy doing?
We have had a Diwali Dance workshop today. We made up a dance which told the story of Rama and Sita. We really enjoyed it and learnt lots of different dance moves to match the music.
We got our passports out and got on the plane to go to New Delhi to celebrate Diwali.
While we were in India we did lots of activities to help us learn about celebrating Diwali. We made jewellery, decorations, Rangoli patterns and sweets. We also drew pictures of fireworks and made music with the instruments. It has been a very busy day!!
Today is the 11th day of the 11th month and we have been remembering the soldiers and learning about why we wear poppies.
At 11 o'clock we all stopped and joined in with the 2 minute silence. Then we made our own poppy pebble to remember and say thank you to soldiers for keeping us safe.
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 Duckling Brown Bear story. Can you use the repeated story language that Bill Martin Jr used when he wrote it?
We have noticed that the big oak tree outside our classroom has got some brown leaves on which are beginning to drop now that it is Autumn. We have also been talking about how the days are getting longer and the weather is changing so we all went outside and had lots of fun at school exploring the autumn leaves in the wind yesterday.
If you get time, why not get your wellies on and go out and kick though the leaves yourselves in your garden or out on a walk over half term!
Watch out for seasonal changes as we move towards winter!
We have been doing bike P.E.!! We have so many different bikes at Portway, some even use your hands to move along!
We have had an exciting visit to our Portway Library to see all of the different books that are there. We found some fiction story books and some information non-fiction books.
We were able to look for some of our favourite stories and share them with a friend. If there is something that you want to learn about, you can find those books too. What sort of book do you like reading?
Have you been to the Library in Andover? You might want to go for a visit over half term if you have got time. How is it the same and different to our Portway Library?
After half term we will be able to start visiting our Portway Library to bring a book home to share so watch out for it in your bookbag.
At Portway, we learn to read for finding out and for fun!!
We have been to Forest School today and learnt how to keep safe.
We played a game called '1, 2, 3, where are you?' which is a really good game if you get lost somewhere.... you just have to shout out '1, 2, 3, where are you?' and the person who is lost replies ' 1, 2, 3, here I am!' and it is easy to find you!
Then we used our Hazard Flags to mark anything that we saw that could be a hazard for ourselves or our friends, such as prickles, sharp sticks, or roots to trip over.
Miss Birmingham taught us different ways to secure tarpaulin to create dens and how to use mallets and twigs as tent pegs, and then we had a turn too! We have also been busy digging, bug hunting and finding out about some of different learning we can do in our Forest Classroom. It was lots of fun!!
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!
You could practise cutting your food at mealtimes at home. A good way to learn how to use a knife and fork is to make some play dough food and cut that up into pieces as it is nice and soft.
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 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.
This week we had our first turn in our Year R 'Family House'. This is where we can become different characters and learn about how families are different and similar.
Each time we go, we have a different scenario, such as Grandma coming to visit, celebrating birthdays, new babies and getting a pet.
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…..
Today we dressed up in colours and patterns to celebrate Elmer Parade Day. Watch out for Elmer - he is just wearing grey colours!!!
Did you spot Emer?
The kitchen at Portway made us elephant biscuits to decorate.
Here are our finished biscuits....don't they look colourful and ready for an Elmer Parade!
We have been doing lots of other Elmer activities too. We have had lots of fun making Elmer patchwork patterns, reading Elmer's stories and decorating elephants.
We have had a great first week in Duckling Class. We have been learning about the different things in our classroom, playing outside and making lots of friends.
Come and have a look at all of the lovely things that we have been busy doing .....
