Our trip to Kam Tong Garden and Toys R Us

We are so lucky because we went on the best school trip ever! First we visited Toys R Us, where we were shown around the store as well as the stock room. It was so exciting as there were hundreds of toys which we love!

Next, we went to lunch at the Chinese Restaurant to help us understand about the Chinese culture and the celebrations which take place during Chinese New Year. We had a delicious lunch and we were all very good at trying every dish at least once. Our manners were perfect throughout the day and we came back to school in a very happy mood!

Roller Printing

At the art table, we have been roller printing. This involves dipping marbles in paint and rolling them around in a tray so that they make lines on piece of paper.

We had to describe the direction that the marbles were travelling in, the lines they were making and what our finished work looked like. Here are some of Mrs Atherton’s favourite quotes:

Alexandra: “It’s making curly lines. We are twisting and turning the trays in different directions to make patterns.”

Emma: “We move the tray from side to side and backwards, and the marble rolls around making patterns.”

Jasper: “It rolls around fast making various patterns on the paper. It rolls forwards, across, backwards and diagonally. Mine looks like a splat.”

St Thomas Aquinas Feast Day

On Monday 28th January, it was the feast day of our school saint: St Thomas Aquinas. We celebrated by having Mass in the morning. In the afternoon, we had cakes and juice and we played musical statues. We also had a dance competition and the final five were all boys! The overall winner was Harry. Well done to him!

Diwali in Reception

We enjoyed learning about the celebrations which take place during the Hindu festival of Diwali. We listened to the story of Rama and Sita and we all made diva lamps out of clay which was how people helped Sita to find her way home. We also made Indian dance sticks and performed some dances on our stage in the undercover area. In maths, we made some fantastic symmetrical Rangoli patterns which Hindu people lay out on the floor to welcome the Gods into their homes and we wrote Diwali cards in the Literacy area. What an exciting week!

Catherine Wheels

During fireworks week we looked at some different types of fireworks and the movements they make. We all made a Catherine Wheel using paint, glitter, a secret spinning technique and some magical words!

Fireworks Dances

We have been learning about fireworks as part of our Festivals and Celebrations topic. Last week we learnt a dance where we had to make movements like a Catherine Wheel. We managed not to fall over as we were spinning around! This week we were imitating firework rockets. We used the dance scarves to represent a flame. We were very good at travelling fast without bumping into each other and we all managed to jump high into the air just like a firework rocket. Here are some pictures of us dancing in PE this week.

Autumn Leaves

We took the opportunity to look at the change in seasons with all of the autumn leaves on the ground. On our school field there were plenty of leaves to be found and we enjoyed walking through them in our wellies! We collected some leaves and twigs to make wonderful creations in our art area.

Pasta Skeleton

This week we have been learning about the inside of our bodies: the skeleton. We were amazed to find out that we have so many bones! We even learnt some of the names of these bones, such as skull, pelvis and ribcage.

We all had a go at making a picture of our skeleton using various pasta shapes. You can see some of them below.

European Day of Languages

We celebrated European Day of Languages for the whole week as we learnt to answer the register in some of our home languages, including Shona, Tamil and Italian.

On one of the days, we learnt some German with Mr Grendelmeier. He taught us how to greet each other and how to count to ten. We enjoyed this very much.

We are looking forward to learning even more languages next year.

Our first couple of weeks

We have settled in well in our new school.

In our playground, we have enjoyed using the train for all sorts of activities. We were lucky enough to have some good weather in the first week, so we all ate our lunch sitting on the train. We also ate our afternoon snack on there a few times. When it is activities time, we use the train for role play. We imagine that we are going to all sorts of far away places.

We enjoy the range of activities that there are to do. Some of the things we have done this week include finding our name cards in the sand tray, playing with the water, riding the scooters and bikes, playing parachute games and playing in the role play hospital.