Portway Infant School
On here we will post about some of the exciting things we have been doing at school. Keep your eyes peeled for photos from our first couple of weeks in Year R.
What a fabulous time we had today sharing the day with Petr Horacek. We listened to him tell us stories and then had our own workshop with him to create a piece of artwork to put up in our school. Everyone in Year R joined in and he asked about our pictures before adding them to his big picture. You will be able to have a close look at it at Show and Share..... it looks wonderful!!
We are very excited to announce the addition of 4 new members to Year R at Portway!
Welcome to 'Pickle', 'Pepper', 'Puddle' and 'Patch' who joined year R on Wednesday! They are a little smaller and fluffier than our current Year R's!!
We had the most fabulous day visiting Longdown Activity Farm. We had to be farmers for the whole day and were in charge of making sure all the animals were fed on time. We fed the calves, kids and the goats - they were VERY hungry! We collected the eggs and took them round to the shop so they could be sold and we checked that the fields were ok - which meant going around on a tractor ride! We even had a snuggle with some chicks and guinea pigs. We would like to give a big thank you to Farmer Robyn who took us around the farm. She was amazing!
We have had an exhausting but fabulous day! Some of us even found it a little tricky to keep our eyes open on the coach ride home!
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!
Today is Year R's 'Superhero Day' and we have all dressed up as different Superheroes both real life and fictional. Can you guess who we have come as?
We have been incredibly lucky in Year R these last couple of weeks as we have had visits from the Police, a Nurse and Firefighters! They came to see us as part of our new topic - Real Life Superheroes. They told us all about their job, answered some of our questions and even let us try some of their equipment - we were especially excited about being allowed to use the Fire Engines water hose!
At the beginning of our session we had a walk to spot the cuckoo-pint plant that is in our forest as we know this is poisonous so we don't touch it and we don't put our fingers in our mouths. Mr Walter showed us a slow worm that are friends of the forest! We all had a look as there are quite a few around our forest.
We have been learning all about being safe around fire at Forest School today! We found out about the three things that make the fire triangle and learnt how to build a safe fire using Tinder and Kindling.
Miss Birmingham showed us how to use a steel flint to make a spark and we all had a go. She then lit the fire in the fire circle and we sang songs around the camp fire!
It was important that we learnt about how a fire can be put out using a fire extinguisher, water, sand and a fire blanket and we watched our camp fire being extinguished with water.
In the afternoon we had special time in the forest and some of us practised our woodwork skills!
For our Farm to Fork week this week we have been learning about wild animals in our environment and how we need to take care of them. We decided to plant some flowers for the insects and birds to enjoy. We practised our cutting skills to cut fruit and vegetables for the birds and took them to the forest to put them on bird tables.
Today we had our own Cinderella Ball. We got ready into our special clothes so that we were turned into Princes and Princesses! We danced the morning away in the hall, bowed and curtseyed to our partners and collected a drink and a biscuit for our partners. Unfortunately the clock struck 12 and we had to leave to go back to our castles!
We had a great time in the forest today we were so lucky that the son shone for us all day! 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 as well as having fun with all the other forest school activities! Miss Birmingham showed us the woodwork station and we learnt how to use the hammers and nails safely.
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!
This week we listened to the Fairy Tale Jack and The Beanstalk and found some of our own magic beans to plant. We sprinkled them with magic fairy dust. and took them home to look after and watch grow!
Last week we learned 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.
Ice Sculptures!
It has been very cold and snowy this week so we took the opportunity to carry out an experiment! We took some bowls and filled them with pretty things from the outside area, grass, leaves and twigs. We then filled our bowls with water and added some string. We left them overnight to see what would happen and this morning all the water had turned to ice!
The string was stuck inside so we could hang up our new ice sculptures which matched the shape of the bowls. We are keeping our beedy eyes on them to see what will happen, they are already dripping............
We have been making something special to gift to our families this Christmas. We went into the forest to make some Earth Candles.
First we used a chosen coloured candle and broke it down with the mallets (Wearing our safety goggles of course). We then watched as the candles melted over our forest school fire. The next step was to create a hole in our own pile of soil and place a wick in it, held up by 2 sticks. An adult came and poured the wax into the hole and we watched as the wax changed colour as it hardened. We gave the wick a little tug to see if it was ready and then pulled out our newly formed candle from the hole.
We loved being scientists in the forest!
We read the story of Ruff by Jane Hissey this week and we realised that our lost Bear had never had a birthday.
Today we threw him a birthday party. We made party hats, cards and decorations then we danced and played games with Bear! He even had his own Bear Chair to sit on! It has been a very fun day in Gosling class!!
'Brown Bear, Brown Bear what do you see...'
I see all of Gosling'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!
We have been having great fun in the forest today! We have been creating camouflage crowns using natural materials from the forest. We were super excited to have a first try on the swing in the forest as well as having chill out time in the hammocks! What lucky Goslings we are. Have a look at all the fun we had...
We have had a great time this week talking about all the changes we have noticed as the autumn season has progressed. Some of the things we noticed were the dark nights and the leaves changing colour and falling from the trees. We could not have this chat without going out and enjoying all the crunchy leaves on the ground! What fun we had!!!
We have been to India on a plane today because we have been learning about the Hindu festival of light called Diwali.
We added our India sticker to our passports and set up our classroom as an aeroplane.
When we got to India, we did some Bollywood dancing, made some Indian flags, created Rangoli patterns, and created our own fireworks for Diwali celebrations.
We even got to try some Indian food which we thought was delicious especially the Poppadums!
We have had a busy few days learning all about how are food gets to our plate! We found out about 3 different types of farms and matched our learning with our Harvest celebrations. We have learnt how to do a bridge cut whilst cutting some different vegetables to try.
Then we heard the story of 'Rosie Plants a Radish' and decided that we would plant some of our own radish seeds to see if we can grow our own radishes!
What a busy few days we have had!
We have had a great first day in the forest! We found out how to keep ourselves safe by talking about things that might be dangerous to us and what to do if we get lost. We played a game to know how to stand still and call "1,2,3 I'm over here" if we are lost and people can follow our voice to find us!
We explored the forest spotting hazards and putting out special hazard flags to warn others and then we had free time to choose what we wanted to do.
Some of us went in the mud kitchen, some did lot's of digging. We had chalking and felt tips on bark pieces.
We used the binoculars to see things that were far away and even spotted a bird of prey flying high around the field "Kevin the Kite" often visits our Portway field!
We made giant marble runs and had a swing in the hammocks! We can't wait to have another turn in the forest soon! Which would be your favourite activity I wonder!
We have been learning all about the artist Pablo Picasso. 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! Can you recognise us?!
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’!
What a busy couple of weeks 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...
