Today Reception and Year 1 children went on a trip to Bowness to The World of Beatrix Potter Attraction.  We had a fantastic day out!  We loved looking round the exhibition and seeing all the different characters from her stories.  Then we went to watch a theatre production of ‘Where’s Peter Rabbit?’  The actors sang, danced and had large character puppets with which to tell the stories.  It was brilliant and we all sat and watched it intently.  Afterwards we went to Blockhole for our picnic lunch and then played on the climbing frames, swings and slides.  On the way home in the minibus the children agreed it was the best day ever!

We had a fabulous morning at castle Head Field Centre, continuing our Wildlife Explorers topic with some pond dipping.  There were lots of different creatures to discover in the pond, we looked carefully at them and tried to identify what they were.  It was a really interesting morning and nobody got wet!  It was fun when we pretended to get stuck in the giant spiders web.

We also saw bees and a damselfly and on the way back to school we found a slow worm crossing the pavement. 

At the moment we are finding out about different types of minibeasts that live here.  We have been doing lots of hunting for creatures in the garden and on the field, we have made web art and salt-dough minibeasts.

This afternoon the older children came to watch us perform a dance of ‘The Ugly Duckling’ that we have been working on for a couple of weeks.

We have really enjoyed reading week.  We have brought in books from home to share, designed book covers, read lots and lots of stories and dressed up as book characters.  The older children have also come to read to us.

We have been spending time outside enjoying the sun this week.  Lots of imaginative play; having picnics, outdoor shopping and camping trips.

We have been finding out about different birds as part of our Wildlife Explorers topic.  Today we made some bird feeders using pine cones, lard (sticky and yukky!) and bird seed. Now they are hung in the trees for the birds.

Outside in the Early Years garden, an area has been created especially for digging.  The children have been having great fun digging holes, raking, collecting stones, making ‘mud soup’ and discovering what happens when the hole gets flooded with water.

With Easter approaching we have been making cards with moving parts, finding out about the Easter story, painting and making chocolate nests – yum!

This morning we had a Toddler Taster session where pre-school children came across to the Early Years classroom to join in with some Springtime activities.  Everyone had a great time planting flowers, drawing, printing, playing with water and decorating biscuits (eating them too!)

We had a fantastic time on Monday for Science Day!  We made our own bouncy balls, explored colour changes, found out about oil and water, investigated Gloop, and made coins become clean and shiny. It was fun trying out lots of different things and working with children from other classes.