Herd Farm Residential February 2018
Following the meeting for parents this evening, here are photographs and the information we shared.
Home Link – Christmas celebrations and holiday activities
Home Link….for after the holidays!
We’d love to hear all about your Christmas celebrations or about any fun activities and visits that you do over the holidays.
We look forward to seeing and hearing all about your Christmas celebrations and other adventures. Remember you can e-mail us, too.
Thank you.
We wish you a Merry Christmas
Our Nursery Christmas celebrations are well under way! The children have loved using the large construction area in their play. They have taken on the roles of busy elves making and wrapping ‘presents’ before building Santa’s sleigh to deliver them. We were especially pleased to see so many children engaging in all manner of mark-making activities: writing lists to Santa, writing gift tags and cards and even invitations to their own pretend Christmas parties!
Thank you to all of you who came to the ‘Stay and Decorate’ sessions. We hope you enjoyed coming into Nursery with your child and having the opportunity to make some lovely decorations. For those of you who were unable to attend, rest assured that all children will have the opportunity to make the crafts over the next week, should they wish.
Our long awaited dress rehearsal on Thursday was a huge success. The children looked fantastic in their costumes and sang beautifully. You’re certainly in for a treat, so tissues at the ready for the performances this coming week. We were very lucky on Friday when Father Christmas himself came to school to read stories to the children in a beautifully decorated grotto. The children were very quiet and on their best behaviour as they told him what they had put on their Christmas lists!
What we’re learning this week
We’ll continue to play using the enhanced provision to enjoy all the ‘awe and wonder’ of this festive period. Our performances will, of course, be at the heart of this busy week. The children have done a wonderful job of learning the songs, actions and elements of the Christmas story.
We expect lots of excited children on Thursday when it’s not only Christmas dinner day but also our Nursery party in the afternoon. We’ll be playing lots of party games and of course having some festive party food which we expect will last until Friday!
Well done to our swimmers
Well done to our swimmers who represented the City of Leeds swim team at the Jingle Bells gala. They managed to get seven medals between them!
Rocks and Fossils
Year 3/4 children have enjoyed studying rocks and fossils this week – we even made our own fossil jelly!
Each day, we added a different colour of jelly to resemble the layers of rock in the earth. We added a variety of items to show how living things become cast and mould fossils.
Children also made some of their own fossils from clay.
Story with Santa and Golden Star
We enjoyed our second meeting with Santa this week. Year 1 and 2 experienced a story with Santa and each received a present. Thank you to FOSP for organising this. The grotto looked amazing!
Well done to our Golden Star this week.
Steam Train and Santa!
We had a fabulous time at Middleton Railway this week. All the children were a fantastic advert for our school. We learnt about fireboxes, pistons and crankshafts. Ask you child how a steam train works!
A special visitor…
Today, Father Christmas came to school to visit the children. We went to his Grotto and he read us a story and the children told him what they would like for Christmas.
The children have also enjoyed doing other Christmas activities such as decorating the arch outside and making salt dough decorations.
Please tell us about any Christmas activities you do this weekend by emailing scholesf2@spherefederation.org
We’re looking forward to seeing you next week for our Christmas performance.
Santa’s workshop!
Today, the children have been busy wrapping their own presents. They have enjoyed using Christmas paper to wrap up different modelling materials such as boxes – this has prompted lots of discussions about Christmas.
If you have any wrapping paper/cards/ decorations that you would like to donate we would greatly appreciate it.
Exploring the snow and ice!
On Friday, the children enjoyed going on a ‘Welly Walk’ to explore the snow and ice. They went onto the field to see what they could find.
The children found big pieces of ice which they were able to pick up and observe:
- “It’s freezing!”
- “I can see through it!”
- “It’s melting in my hands. It’s going to water.”
We collected some of the ice and brought it inside to explore further. We talked about how the ice was formed and why it started to melt when when we brought it inside.
Someone had paint on their hands and touched the ice – it changed the colour of the ice! The children decided to add paint to the ice. “It’s rainbow ice,” they said. It made a crunching noise when we pushed down hard with the brushes. They noticed the ice melted quicker if it had been painted. “The ice is melting if you put it in the paint.”
“Squeeze it tight. It’s melting…it’s water,” said whilst seeing what would happen if we held the ice in our hands.
We then predicted what would happen if we added salt to the ice. “It will melt,” the children predicted.
We then tried to make snow balls. “It won’t stick (ice)… It’s too hard,” they noted.