Portway Infant School
We have been learning all about the artist Vincent Van Gogh. We practised our colour mixing to make greens, oranges and different yellows and copied one of his famous sunflower pictures. We tried hard to match the shapes and textures he used to create a painting in his style. We were very proud of the sunflower pictures we painted.
What a super Far Away Friday we had today, taking a trip on our Portway plane to The Netherlands. We spent our day learning some Dutch words, creating flags, and learning all about the beautiful country and its capital city: Amsterdam. We tried some local cuisine of stroopwafels and edam cheese (the stroopwafels were a particular favourite) and finished our day riding around on bicycles like the people of Amsterdam do.
We have had a very busy week this week learning all about where our food comes from. We have looked at farming and how things get from the farm to our plate! We have been planting our own seeds at school and making labels for them.
We decided we would make our own soup and looked at all the steps that we would need to do this.
First we wrote a shopping list and then some of us took a trip to Kenyons to buy the vegetables from our list! Then we all took a turn at preparing the vegetables practising our 'bridge cut'. After this we roasted our vegetables.
We decided that it would be nice to make our soup at forest school as we have been learning about how you can cook food over a fire. We put the roasted vegetables in a big pan and added some vegetable stock and hot water. Then we let it simmer over the fire while we sang some camp fire songs. Then it was tasting time! Some of us loved the soup and ate the whole lot! But even though we didn't all like it everyone tried a little bit! The grown ups were very proud of us and we had a great time!
We have also been learning all about spring and new life! We went on a spring walk and spotted some blossom, some spring flowers and even saw some bee's, ladybirds and butterflies!
We have been pracising our drawing skills by looking carefully at some spring flowers.
What a busy week! Can you see the fun we have had in our photo's!
Today we were treated to a fantastic performance from a ukulele band! Everyone enjoyed clapping and singing along to popular songs and we were even taught some new songs too. Some children from Year 2 played a piece of music from their weekly ukulele lessons. A huge thank you to the wonderful musicians who came to visit and share their talents with us.
Today is 'World Book Day' and we have all dressed up as different book characters. Can you guess which stories we come from?
This half term has been all about real life superheroes! We have had some special visitors to help us with our learning.
The Nurse talked to us about all the different parts of our body and showed us some items that the nurses and doctors use to help us feel healthy and well. The Dentist talked to us about how to keep our teeth healthy and the Police talked to us about how they keep everyone safe in Andover. What a lot of learning we have been doing!
We enjoyed finding out about the bones in our body!
We had a lot of fun brushing the 'Plaque' away on the teeth!
Mrs Mundy got put in the handcuffs!
We loved hearing the police siren and seeing the flashing lights on the police car!
We have had a fabulous day in the forest today. We have been learning about real life superheroes this half of term so today we learnt all about Fire. We found out what fire is used for, how to make a small camp fire and the dangers of fire! As well as how important it is to extinguish a fire. We got to try out making our own safe fire squares and even had a practise of making a spark with the steels. To finish the day we had a real camp fire with lots of camp fire songs to match! Of course there was plenty of time for some special time in the forest. What a busy day!
We have had a busy time in the last few days learning all about China! On Monday we boarded our Aeroplane and went to China.
We learnt all about the different climates and that the capital is called Beijing. We found out that it was the Chinese New Year and so wore red clothes for the day to represent red being a lucky colour.
We made the flag and built temples from construction as well as making dragon masks. We also investigated chinese writing and made our own numberline of symbols! We had lots of fun!
In the afternoon we tasted Prawn Crackers and ate Noodles using chopsticks!
On Wednesday we had a special Dance workshop. We learnt all about the Chinese New Year celebration and created our own Dragon Dance! It was very exciting!
Today we had our own Cinderella Ball. We got ready into our special clothes so that we were turned into Princes and Princesses!
We have been practising our pattern dances just like in ballroom dancing.
When the clock struck 12 we had to return to our 'Castles' before the magic ended!
We have had a fabulous time!
Gosling Class have had a super time in the forest today! We have been using clay to make faces on the tree's and used the natural resources around to make the details.
We howled like the Wolf to come together as a 'pack' and find each other when it was tidy up time (just like the wolves from our learning about Fairy Tales)!
Of course, we had lots of time to choose our favourite Forest School jobs and we even learnt how to be independent in collecting our own water for the mud kitchen using the special key! Have a look at our photo's to see what we have been up to!
In PE this half term we have been 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.
We have been learning all about the artist Wassily Kandinsky this week. We found out that he liked to link his artwork to feelings through colours and music. We looked at his famous painting "A Colour Study - Squares with Concentric Circles" and we decided to make our own version! Do you like our " Kandinsky tree"?
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 had a great time at our christmas lunch today. When we arrived at the hall the tables were all decorated and there was a present on each place setting! We had a yummy christmas dinner while listening to christmas music. To quote one child "This is the best day EVER!!"
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 class bear had never had a birthday - Just like Ruff! So we decided to throw a birthday party for him. We talked about all the different ways we celebrate a birthday at home and planned some fun things for Bears Birthday!
We have been learning all about autumn today we talked about the leaves changing colours and falling off the trees and about birds flying south to warmer places. We also talked about some animals collecting food for the winter, ready to hibernate.
We ended our learning with a Wellie Walk where we had lots of fun in the leaves!
Today we have visited India for our Far Away Friday. We have learnt all about the celebration of ‘Diwali – The festival of lights’ and compared the celebrations to the ones we have in England. We looked at things that were the same and things that were different!
We had a taste of India on our plane journey, trying Poppadoms, Naan bread and Mango Chutney which was very tasty.
We have had lots of fun using what we have learnt in our special time, even taking part in some Indian dancing!
What a day we had in the forest today! It rained and rained all morning.....and Gosling children loved it! We had fun in the mud and puddles, we collected the bark to help with the muddy gateways and got to do all of the fun special time activities that we love doing in the forest.
In the afternoon we made camouflage crowns from natural materials. Have a look at all the fun we had and spot who really embraced the mud!!
We have been busy making new characters for the Brown Bear story. Can you guess what our new characters are?
Brown Bear Brown Bear What do you see...
We have been doing lots of different P.E. this term. We have done some WriteDance to help us with our Handwriting, bikes to practise our gross motor skills and this week we have had our first lesson in the Hall. Our homework this week was to practise changing our clothes without grown-up help and we did really well to change our clothes and pull our clothes the right way round!
We have had a fabulous day in the forest today. Miss Birmingham taught us all about the hazards that we might find in the forest and how we can keep safe while we have fun.
We used Hazard Flags to put around to mark the dangers such as prickly leaves, uneven ground, berries we can’t eat and sticking out branches as well as the fire pit that is used.
We played a game that we can use if we feel like we are lost! It’s called “1, 2, 3 Where are you?”
The person/people who are looking for the lost person shout “1, 2, 3 where are you?” and the lost person/people have to stand still and shout “1, 2, 3 we’re over here” This keeps going until the people are found!
We tried out all the learning jobs in the forest; the giant marble run, the mud kitchen, the digging area, making necklaces, chalking, bug hunting, the rope game and even a hammock!
Miss Birmingham showed us how to use the mallets, pegs and tarpaulin to make our own dens and we had a try at this too!
What a busy day we have had but what fun!
We have been on a visit to Spain today in Gosling 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 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 had lots of fun and tomorrow we are of on our first 'Far Away Friday' to visit Spain, the place that Pablo was born.
We have been learning all about ourselves, drawing self-portraits and finding out about the different things that we like. This week we have found out about our families and been on a visit to our role play 'Family House'.
What a busy first week we have had a 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 ......
