Our favourite CBeebies presenters introduced their favourite Black History heroes to us and explained why their impact had been so great. We then learned about some famous inventors: Garett Morgan invented traffic lights; Dr Bath invented a machine for improving sight and Philip B Downing invented the post box. The children enjoyed stopping, starting and slowing down outside. They have also had fun writing and posting cards and notes to their friends.

In Reception, there are some very capable and enthusiastic inventors; when we visit the DT workshop, we are encouraged to think about what we might create, who our invention is for and what purpose it might serve. Lila’s scoop helps us at tidy up time. Rubi’s bracelet has “magic power”. Bailey’s bookmark helps her to “remember the story”. When Niky tested his kite, he realised that it needed a longer string to work effectively. I wonder what other inventions we can think of? We would love to see anything the children create at home.

Todd Parr urges us to appreciate that ‘It’s Okay to be Different’ and we do! We are glad that we are all different as it makes our classroom so much more interesting and fun.

Children have been learning that objects can be compared and ordered by size. At the start of the week, we modelled language such as ‘big’, ‘little’, ‘large’ and ‘small’, moving objects close together to support understanding and accuracy of comparison. As our learning progressed, we have been using more specific language, such as ‘tall’ and ‘short’ when describing height and ‘long’ and ‘short’ when comparing length.

Please give children the opportunity to compare size in a range of contexts at home. Who is taller than them in the family? Who is shorter than them? Set a timer for 20 seconds to see who can build the taller tower with building blocks? Be sure to start from the same point when comparing.

Thank you so much if you were able to join us for our box exhibition and meet your child’s Year 6 buddy(ies). These relationships are really starting to develop over lunchtimes and it is always precious to see the excitement when the children greet one another.

Reflecting upon the day, Amelia shared that she “loves” her “mummy because she smells nice”. Frida was excited to introduce her buddies to her grandmother. Niky loved “playing cars with Daddy”. Sunny said he “couldn’t wait to go and roll around in the playground”!

Our first Talk for Writing text is ‘The Dot’ by Peter H Reynolds: a story about a girl called Vashti, who feels challenged when faced with a blank sheet of paper in an art class. However, with encouragement from her teacher who urges, “Just make your mark and see where it takes you”, Vashti develops in confidence until a gallery is filled with her art and she inspires another child to pick up a paintbrush.

The book shows how a positive mindset – shifting from, “I can’t” to “I can’t yet” – enables us to achieve so much more and feel proud of ourselves. We were impressed when the children suggested that, when we are stuck, we can ask a friend, ask an adult or we can practise and practise like Vashti.

Take a look at the super art we have created from our dots this week. Well done, everyone! We would love to see any artwork that you create at home: please post on Tapestry so we can celebrate.

It’s hard to know whether the Reception or Year 6 children were most excited about meeting their buddies today but it was precious to observe. Year 6 children are there to support your child at lunctime in the playground and at various other moments across the year. Parents can meet buddies at the Box Exhibition on Wednesday 23rd September.

On the way back to the classroom, there was another meeting: one between the children and our class tree. Our tree is a Ribston Pippin and we will observe its changes through the seasons of this year. Today, we noticed the soft leaves and apples. The children have brought one home to wash and try. How will you eat yours?

The tree visit gave us chance to model some of the verbs in The Enormous Turnip (one of our Favourite 5 stories): grabbing; tugging and heaving.

Tomorrow, we will learn about Rosh Hoshanah. Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year: a time for prayer, reflection, and seeking forgiveness for mistakes. It is celebrated with special meals, including apples dipped in honey to symbolise hope for a sweet new year. Thank you to Luca’s family for supplying the honey and apples.

The cuddly ACE bears (and adults) have had a very exciting week, welcoming in the smartly-dressed Reception children and getting to know them. Friends are being made, books, rhymes and songs are being shared and areas of indoor and outdoor provision are being explored: can the children tell you what they enjoyed most? The adults have been very impressed by the good manners and kindness on display – well done, children. Have a fun and relaxing weekend so you are all ready for your first full week 2!

RS were very proud to welcome their families into school yesterday, where we showcased our ‘Move it’ dance and the impressive artwork that we have produced during and since returning from the Knaresborough trip. We explored colour tinting, block printing and oil pastels to create our landscape pictures.

Relief printing produced bright ice lolly pictures.

We considered structures in the technical design of our photo frames.

After reading Sally Crabtree’s ‘Magic Train Ride’ our imaginations, collage and collaboration produced these wonderful lands that we would like to visit.

Can you guess who is who on the train?

Thank you to Mrs Fox and Lucas’ mummy for their work in choreographing the dance.

I hope the children enjoy showing off the artwork they took home to friends and family over the summer holiday.

You have been an amazing class, RS. Thank you for the very happy memories from this year; go and be just as fabulous in Year 1!

It’s fair to say that our crop(ette?) of potatoes was on the small side this year. Was it the heatwave? Should we have watered the plant more or less frequently, we wondered, as we counted out 11…(just 11?)…. potatoes? And, why were some of them so much bigger than the others? Lots of questions for Mrs Wake when she is next in school.

As we harvested, we noticed the roots that had grown from the seed potatoes, delivering water and nutrients from the soil into the growing potatoes.

The children placed orders for how they would like their potatoes to be served: plain, butter, butter and mint; just mint. Note the draw between butter and butter and mint.

Most children (and Mr Carter) were very enthusiastic about the taste of the potatoes with many coming back for seconds or thirds, sometimes to try a different variation. Ivar regretted his initial selection of plain but was impressed by the buttered potatoes. Isabelle loved their “sweetness”. Emilia was disappointed, though, and declared that potatoes should be served mashed and only mashed!

Most importantly, we really enjoyed the experience of eating something that we had planted and nurtured ourselves. We wonder what you might plant and grow at home over the summer?

On Monday, we had our first ‘Jump up’ day, where the children spent the day in Year 1. They all returned smiling, full of warmth for their new teachers and eager to share their experiences of the day. Evie told us that she “was a little bit nervous but now I’m not because I played in the construction area and built a really really big tower”. Francesca was excited that she had “made something I never made before….a special thing”. Wednesday played with Pia, whom she described as, “my best friend forever”.

In helping our new teachers to get to know us better, we have written to them.

The children know that if they have any questions about next year, they can come and talk to the adults in school. We have also encouraged them to voice any thoughts to you at home. We are going to miss every single one of you!

The children have been provided with opportunities to explore the attributes of
the 2D shapes we learnt about earlier in the year and to select shapes for a particular purpose. They have been encouraged to explain why they chose a particular shape and why
other shapes would not be suitable.

There was much excitement when we used the logic blocks to complete the templates, which necessitated the rotation and manipulation of shapes. Children then made their
own arrangements of shapes and pictures and their partner guessed what they had created. We also had a contest to create the biggest triangle from a pile of small card triangles: this was very challenging but rewarding for the children when they finally worked out how to grow thier shape.

I wonder if you can tell which of these pictures depicts a bumble bee?….. Someone’s family? ….A dragon?…. A caterpillar?….A man with very strong arms?

At home, why not take a favourite photo and stick it on card, then cut it into shapes? Talk about turning, rotating and flipping each piece as you complete the jigsaw.