We have had another fantastic week with the children in Bubble B. We have been growing beanstalks, ordering number, learning tricky words, painting using watercolours as well as having lots of fun. Today we have been running our own Ninja Warrior course (the best time so far is 15 seconds!) everyone has loved having a go and what is really lovely is the encouragement that the children show their friends as they run the course. Think we might have to extend the course next week to really challenge them.

A huge well done to our Star of the Week. Thank you for always trying to do your best.

We collected leaves at forest school and then measured them. The children had to guess which one was bigger and then use counters to measure them and see if they were right. Some of us chose to measure lots of leaves and put them in size order!

Elna: “This one is 5 counters long but this one is only 3 counters long… it’s smaller.”
Farrah: “Mine are exactly the same! 9 for both of them!”

After a week of watching and waiting finally our beanstalks have sprouted. Watch this space and we will keep you posted on their progress

Unfortunately our carrot top growing experiment didn’t end well. Only Elysie’s carrot grew another top the others just went mouldy. But at least we had fun trying.

We worked together to find and order our numbers all the way up to 20.

Today it was very rainy so we did a lot of crafts inside. We had paper plates to paint, magic beans to colour in and giants to make for our cardboard town!

The finished products…

Some of the girls have been really enjoying the skipping ropes. On Monday they struggled to jump in time and were holding the rope too high.
They have been practising their jumping and timing all week and it has paid off because now they can skip! They do not need a grown up to hold the rope anymore – they know to go at the same time as their partner and not go too fast! Well done, girls.

Using water colours we painted paper plates so they looked like giant flowers to link with our growing theme.

We played number bingo and tricky word bingo. Anyone who thinks bingo is for the older generation should see how competitive our class are when we play. Here we are dabbers at the ready…..

We took full advantage of the good weather and enjoyed time in the sun. We did a scavenger hunt on the field and had to find something that matched the colour on our sheet.

We have been making castles and houses from Jack and the Beanstalk. Once we all made our own we stuck them all down on a big piece of cardboard and created an entire town!

We washed our hands and then decorated the town. We went to find a beanstalk outside and made clouds too!

Today we have been exploring subtraction.

We played subtraction splat with our playdough. You make 6 little balls of playdough (more if you like!) then roll the dice and splat that many. You then see how many are left.
Seth: “I had 6 and then I’ve splatted 4 so I’ve got 2 now…”
We then wrote the number sentences on the board.

We decorated a little homemade plant pot ready for our cress seeds!

Today we did some story sequencing! We had to cut out the pictures and decide which order they go in. Everyone knew what happened next in the story. I was very impressed!

Once upon a time there was a boy called Jack.

Jack lived in a cottage with his mother. They were very poor and their most valuable possession was a cow.

They had to sell the cow at the market. On the way, Jack met a man.

He gave Jack magic beans in exchange for his cow.

When Jack came home with the beans his mother was angry. She threw the beans out of the window and sent him to bed.

Jack went to bed and was very sad.

The next morning, Jack looked out of the window. A giant beanstalk had grown in the garden!

Jack decided to climb the beanstalk.

At the top of the beanstalk was a castle. Jack decided to go inside; all the furniture was huge!

Suddenly, Jack heard a loud noise. He ran into a cupboard to hide.

An enormous giant came into the room.
“Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman!” he bellowed.

The giant sat down at the table.
On the table was a hen and a golden harp.

Jack saw that the hen could lay golden eggs! The harp played peaceful music and soon the giant was asleep.

Jack jumped out of the cupboard and took the hen and the harp.

But the giant woke up!
“Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman!”

He chased Jack to the top of the beanstalk.

Jack climbed down the beanstalk and the giant followed him.

As Jack got to the bottom of the beanstalk he shouted, “Help!”

Jack’s mother came out with an axe.
She used it to chop the bottom of the beanstalk.

The giant fell and crashed to the ground.
He was never seen again.

With the golden eggs and the magic harp, Jack and his mother lived happily ever after.

THE END.

Our performers taking a bow! Super duper acting, everyone!

We hunted for magic beans at forest school. Once we found them all we realised they had words on. .e all had to read the word on our bean.

This sentence makes no sense – so we got to work on putting the words in the right place.
We knew a capital letter would be at the beginning and a full stop at the end.

I read out the sentence as the children swapped places – we kept going until we got it to make sense!
This was a very tricky job but with support we managed it! Well done, everyone.

Today we planted our own beans. We will water them and check them every day.

We discussed the parts of a plant – we knew roots, leaves and flower.

Today we have been measuring pictures of beanstalks using cubes and writing the numbers.

Today we went on a scavenger hunt.

Some of the things we had to find were:
Something green
Something round
3 sticks
2 different leaves
Something smooth
A weed
Something that smells nice
A seed
A feather

Why not have a go at home?

We collected all the items in our own bags and discussed what they had chosen and why.

After our natural art afternoon we printed off a picture and labeled it! Why not try this at home?

Today we did a floating and sinking experiment! Have a look at our outdoor exploring.

Lovely writing, girls.

The weather was glorious at school today! We got the tents and took them onto the field so we would be protected from the sun. We counted, coloured and labelled the shapes that made the picture of the castle.

We all really enjoyed our maths lesson outside!

Crystal: “Can we do this every day?”

Harry: “It’s like we’re off to the beach!”

Today we made a Jack and the Beanstalk picture using only natural resources! I think Reception Bubble A did a fantastic job. Loads of conversation, negotiation and artistic skills used!

The finished product!

Elna: “I’m really proud of this because we spent a lot of time on it!”

Well done Eden for achieving a silver certificate.

Well done for super phonics this week!

Today we did a magic painting.

We had to swirl the water three times and say the magic words ‘ABRACADABRA!!!’

Everyone’s magic worked and we were absolutely amazed at our magic water!

Today we revisited the ‘or’ sound. We thought of different words that had the ‘or’ sound in and tried to write them on our own whiteboards – everyone did a super job!

Then we explored the number 12. We found different ways of making 12 with our objects or numicon and then tried to write out the number sentence.

That’s a lot of adding!

N “I’ve got two rows of 6”

F: “6 and a 6.. 5 and a 5 and a 2.. 6 and a 2 and a 2 and a 2 ..and a 4 and a 4 and a 4”
H: “I’ve got two towers of 12… 24 when I count them all!”

We made our own castles today, just like the one at the top of the beanstalk!

First we chose our own cardboard box and then decided what other resources we might need for decoration.

We used our own tools to build and stick our pieces together. We made sure to wash our hands before and after building our creations. What a lovely afternoon!

The finished results! Wow!

N spent a long time making hers perfect – she added a garden with flowers, painted her towers and made sure her front door had symmetrical decorations.

We have been reading the story ‘Jack and the beanstalk’ – we all had a go at independently captioning the pictures. What super writing!!

We enjoyed an afternoon in the sun drawing trees. We wrote a matching sentence afterwards.
We were practising using the ‘ee’ sound independently.

We noticed that different trees have different shaped leaves and we thought carefully about how to spell the words in our sentence.

Check tomorrow for the finished result!

We have been adding today!

We all managed to write our own number sentences. Some of us worked out the answer using counters, some added on from the biggest number and some used mental maths.

We revisited the ‘oa’ sound today. We decided to make some posters to tell everyone to use soap when they wash their hands!

We drew around our hands and had one covered in germs and one nice and clean!

We have loved being back in our playground.

We have really missed being with our friends.

Look at our careful painting! Wow!

Today we revisited the ‘ee’ sound.

Then we counted jelly beans and wrote the amount! We are focusing on perfecting our number formation.

We also wrote our magic bean wishes.

Then we went to forest school and found some ‘beanstalks’!
“That one would be easier for Jack to climb because you can grab branches” – Harry

Finally we made beanstalk collages! What a busy day.

The girls started by making this structure.

It quickly turned into a McDonald’s restaurant! We wrote a sign so our friends would know.

It wasn’t long before we had some customers at the Drive-Thru.
C: “One happy meal, please!”

We are working in dollars, not pounds because “we just are!”

Menu ready – restaurant open for business!

Fantastic use of phonics, writing, role play and negotiation! Amazing work, girls. I wonder if  McDonalds will be open tomorrow too?

We have been working on pencil grip.

We have made special nests.

We had some warm toast at forest school.

We saw a baby bird learning to fly. We made sure to be very quiet while watching.

We have been recapping sounds we know and using them in words. Today we revisited the ‘ai’ sound. We made lists of words with the sound in and then at forest school we made words with sticks.

This turned into ‘rain’!

‘Train’ – the girls made a train too!

If you’ve read the story you might want to try this scavenger hunt! Send us some pictures if you manage to complete it. Enjoy! x

Amazing work Eden you received a bronze award and Bethany you have worked so hard to achieve a silver award. Well done

Hello!

We are starting our new topic ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ .

This week we will be reading the story, drawing magic beans, writing wishes, making beanstalk collages and exploring growth in our forest school area.

Why not have a go at home?

Keep checking the blog for pictures of how we get on!

Who is going to be singing ‘The Power in Me’ along with me and thousands of other children and adults across the world?  Live at 2:30 pm on YouTube or Facebook.

Practise the dance moves by using the breakdown videos below, then use the full run through when you’re confident.

(Please note: the dance moves are different to the ones we learnt at school.)

Can you join in with the repeated phrases in the story as it is read to you?

… I will huff… and I’ll puff and I’ll BLOW YOUR HOUSE DOWN!!

Let’s get creative! Can you draw a pig? Or maybe you could use paint or collage?

If you have been reading the story you should be able to say what happens next…

What does the first little pig use to build his house?

What does the second little pig use?

What happens at the end of the story?

Have a go at putting these pictures in order!

t-e-2549604-the-three-little-pigs-cut-and-stick-story-map-activity_ver_3

Happy Tuesday!

Masks and puppets are always very popular at our creative table.

Why not have a go at making three little pigs and a wolf and retell the story to your grown up or siblings?

What materials did the pigs use?

What would you use to build a house?

How does your version of the story end?

Good morning, Reception.

I hope you are all doing well and enjoying the outdoors as often as you can – remember your hats and sun cream this week, it’s meant to be very hot!

This week I want you to familiarise yourself with the story ‘The three little pigs’. We will be looking at many different traditional stories – starting with this one!

Once you have read it with a grown up, have a go at the activities below. I will post different tasks each day this week!

3 little pigs home learning

Those children who came to Mrs Rees’ University Singing group on a Friday afternoon will already know this song.

The Power in Me – Rehearsal Track

The Power in Me – Performance Track

The Power in Me – Lyrics and Music

Young Voices at Home – Power In Me

Music and lyrics for warm-up and other songs.

Young Voices at Home – The YV Isolation Warm Up

Young+Voices+at+Home+-+Get+Loud!

Young Voices at Home – Singing Together

Tutorials for these to be found on Young Voices media channels as mentioned above.

I think a lot of people in Reception class will enjoy this – click the link!

I am missing you all,

stay stafe xxx

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evfOzPrzIu0

F and B have been very busy at home learning all about butterfly life cycles – look at the poster they made. Wow!

They have also been baking, planting a vegetable patch, arts and crafts, lego challenges, going for walks… the list goes on! Very busy sisters.

Have a look at the video they made too! What lovely work, girls.

Well done Eden, Liam and Phoenix, fantastic work.

W and C had a great time playing football in the sun at school. They had missed each other a lot and tried their best to keep their distance by playing hide and seek, bike races and football.

Nice to see you staying busy, E. Those cookies look so yummy and I am loving your Easter mug!

Thanks for sending in your self portrait, H! You look like you’ve been very busy. I knew you would love watching Chester Zoo live!

“Since been at home harrison has learnt how to ride his bike, walked his dog bella lots and played with his little brother alfie. He loves watching chester zoo live on a friday morning.”

“We have done so much drawing over the last 5 weeks, this week we entered 2 competitions, one to draw a teacher for school and the other to draw some flowers for the Barnsley in Bloom competition. N also discovered an easy way to draw a rainbow bunching the colours together!!!”

Good Morning, I  hope you are all managing to keep safe and well.

After the success of the last competition, and well done to everyone,  I wondered if the children would like to take part in the competition below. It seems fitting to be able to say thank you and if we win, a banner will be made for the front of the school. Just follow the instructions below. Don’t worry about using the sheet if you don’t have printing facilities just ensure all the details are on the sheet before you send it.

Happy drawing keep safe,

Mr Bailey

So what have you got to do?

We’re looking for students to design a banner which thanks and shows support to the NHS and key workers, for their dedication and hard work during this pandemic.

We’ll pick 5 winners, who will have their artwork recreated by our talented designers and printed on to a big 3x1m banner for you to proudly attach to your school gates!

To enter, your students simply need to take a photograph of their completed worksheet and email it to hello@fsedesign.co.uk alongside their full name, age and details of their school.

DOWNLOAD WORKSHEET HERE.

The closing date is Friday 8th May at 5pm! Winners will be announced on Monday 11th May!
For more information, please visit our website www.fsedesign.co.uk and follow our Facebook and Twitter pages for updates.

Good Luck!
Kind regards,
Jessica

Thank you so much to all the parents and children who made the video below! It means so much to me and Ms Wright – we are missing you all SO much and it was so lovely to see you all.

If you haven’t seen it yet you can download it below:

https://we.tl/t-PTjSkFBdqx

Hello!

Happy Wednesday.

I’ve come across this website that has some nice ideas and apps/websites that you might like to use during this time at home. It is called ‘Hungry Little Minds’ and offers inspiration for things to do with your children during the coronavirus outbreak now that you and your children are spending more time at home.

Please look at the ‘3-5 years old’ section for activities relevant to Reception class.

Here are some examples of the apps.

Check out the website below:
https://hungrylittleminds.campaign.gov.uk/

Amazing art work..

Another great self portrait!

‘Inspired by the movie, A followed an online step by step video to draw Sonic the Hedgehog. I think he did an excellent job. This was completely independent!’

In our maths lessons we would be looking at repeating patterns!

Children should be encouraged to copy, continue and create their own simple repeating patterns. We will be focusing on AB and ABC patterns. Encourage them to say the pattern out loud to help them identify which part is repeats and supports them to continue the pattern (red triangle, yellow circle, red triangle, yellow circle…)

Here are some ideas of what you can do at home to help!

Can you use natural resources to make your own repeating pattern?
What would come next in these patterns?

Why not have a go on the shape pattern game we used in school?

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/ordering-and-sequencing/shape-patterns

A has been busy planting in the garden, colouring, using play dough and doing P.E. with his brother.

Some more beautiful self portraits. I am so impressed with your handwriting, girls. Wow!

I can’t wait to show you all the portraits you did on your first day of school!

E and his sister have been soo busy. Look at all this fantastic learning!

My favourite part is the big smiles. Well done! 🙂

The Book of Hopes: Words and Pictures to Comfort, Inspire and Entertain Children in Lockdown

Bailey’s Blog!

Good morning everyone, the work you have done on the art competition is fabulous. You have obviously spent a great deal of time working on these to create these images. I am so impressed and it has been an utter delight for myself and the rest of the staff to see these. They are so bright, colourful and detailed and using lots of different medium.
There have been so many to look through so it has been very challenging indeed to make a final decision. Well done to everyone who took part, however, there can only be one winner and that is Toby in Y4 for his lovely and accurate drawing of Mrs Buckley.
Thank you once again to everyone who took part and had a go, it has been so lovely to see your art work.
Mr Bailey

Well done, Toby!

Please see Year 6 blog for video version.

We combined clay, soil and wild flower seeds to make seed bombs. Hopefully these will grow into beautiful flowers ready for the bees to enjoy.

If we were at school we would be focusing on developing independent writing.

To support your child in writing it is important to help them sound out each word, and encourage them to write this down. If they need help then you can model what the letter looks like.

For example: If your child wants to write ‘I can see a cat.’ – they must first say the sentence out loud and then break it down into individual words, writing each letter as they go.

Gradually, after lots of practise and support they will gain the confidence to write words and full sentences independently. It is always better to ‘over learn’ writing skills  so the more the better!

I’d like you to start keeping a little diary of ‘news’ – this could be one sentence about something they enjoyed doing that day or what they had for their tea or what they watched on TV.
For example:

‘I had chicken and chips for my tea.’
‘I went for a walk and saw a butterfly.’
‘I watched frozen 2 on my tablet.’

Let them write about what THEY want. A matching picture would be great too.

( I went to London. I saw dinosaur bones. I went to the museum.)

I know you’ll do great!

Miss Carter x

Wow! Well done to everyone who has had a go at their self portrait. I have been so impressed with the effort so far.

Ella – I am so impressed with your careful handwriting!

Annalise – I love that you included your long, blonde hair!

Alice – I really like your colourful dress and your independent sentences.

Wow! Well done, A. I can see how much time and effort you have put in.

Don’t forget to send the portraits to me (h.carter@birdwellprimary.org.uk) – I have loved seeing them.

Miss Carter x

Click on the link below to watch us dance.

http://www.jibjab.com/view/make/happy/cfe33136-7d70-4e82-88e3-a3b301617a73

We had so much fun today transforming our poppy soldier into our tribute to the NHS.

Dear Parents and carers,

To support you during these difficult and challenging times the following link below is a new BBC Bitesize primary planner.  A ten minute daily Podcast commencing on the 20^th April covering the National Curriculum and links to other useful resources. This will also cover some elements of how to cope during these challenging times. This is available on BBC sounds via the web or via the BBC sounds App.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p089l43b

Thank you stay safe

Mr Bailey

Hi Reception – I wish we were together voting for a story.

I hope you are all continuing to do lots of reading at home. If you are needing a new book, then please don’t worry. You can read any book you fancy, from the Oxford Owl library online!

I’ve created a username and password for you to be able to read ANY book you fancy, from the Oxford Owl library!

Just follow the simple instructions – first log into http://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/books/free-ebooks/

Click on – browse the e book library.

Then choose my class log in 

 Next is to add the class name and password. 

My class name is – birdwellreception

My class password is – Read

Once you have logged in you can choose to read ANY book from the e library!

Happy reading!

Good afternoon Reception class.

I hope you and your families are keeping well and safe. I have been looking through the wonderful learning that you have been doing at home over the last few weeks. The art work, maths learning, science investigations, using different ways to explore words and sentences, spellings, Mathletics challenges and building with Lego and crafts have been amazing to see. I just want to say how much we are missing you at school, I keep checking in with staff and they are all happy and safe and are just missing having you around. We will get back to normal eventually so just enjoy all the times you are able to have together with your family, reading and going for walks and just talking about things around you. These are such special times that you may not get the opportunity to do again when things are back to normal. Take care, keep safe, keep smiling and keep putting your wonderful learning experiences up on the school BLOG they are so lovely to see.

I am so proud of you all. Take care see you all soon.

Mr Bailey

N has been writing sentences and decorating her back garden – how amazing is this?!

L has been baking, singing the tricky word song, doing lots of counting and making posters! Wow!

A has been very busy doing Joe Wickes PE, growing a fairy garden and enjoying her pool!

Barnsley Council’s annual Barnsley in Bloom poster competition will still go ahead, despite schools being closed. This year, instead of children designing their artwork in school, they are encouraged to get creative at home.
The poster competition will run from Wednesday 15 to Thursday 30 April. Children up to the age of 16 are encouraged to draw their best Barnsley in Bloom picture on a sheet of A4 paper, take a picture of it and email it to parkservices@barnsley.gov.uk with the subject: ‘Barnsley in Bloom entry’. Include the child’s age and name in your email. This year there is no specific theme – just get inspired by nature and the flowers blooming around your home this spring. Use colours and paints to brighten up your picture.

There will be three age categories: six and under, seven to 11 and 12-16. Our park services team will judge and shortlist the artwork, and then the Mayor will choose one winner from each age category. Each winner will receive a certificate over email, and their artwork will be shared on Barnsley Council’s social media channels, so everyone in the borough can celebrate them.
Cllr Pauline Markham, Mayor of Barnsley, said; “This year we’re doing the Barnsley in Bloom competition slightly differently, but we still want all of Barnsley’s budding young artists to get involved. This fun activity should hopefully keep children entertained for a while at home, and I encourage families to stick their artwork in their window so that other children can enjoy spotting them on their daily exercise.

“I’m sorry that I won’t be able to welcome the winners to lunch with me at the Town Hall, but hopefully they will enjoy seeing their artwork being celebrated online.”

This news is linked to Town Spirit, our new way of working better together. We believe, that if everyone in Barnsley does just one thing, we can make our borough a more welcoming place to live, work, invest and visit.

A has been exploring the wood, reading as much as she can and dancing with her sister!

S has been busy with aqua beads and word searches.

P has been on a bug hunt, counted them and done some lovely writing about what the hungry caterpillar ate.

Fantastic!

A has been recognising digraphs at home using a nerf gun – what  a great idea! He has also been doing some science experiments.

Well done to Bethany for achieving a Mathletics Certificate.

Our challenge today has been to make animals using plasticine.  Look at Miss Carter’s beautiful butterfly.

Look at all the other amazing designs.  Do you recognise the different animals?