Rudolph's Weekend

Rudolph had a lovely weekend staying in Eastcombe. He showed the Littlest Elf around the village and the school. The elf very kindly sent us some photographs of Rudolph in his field in the valley! It is nice to see that Rudolph is washing his muddy hooves before he comes into the classroom!!
Today we left some peanut butter sandwiches for him to eat tonight. We read a story called 'The Littlest Reindeer' and he liked peanut butter. We are waiting to see whether Rudolph will enjoy his sandwiches.
The children made some maps today to help Rudolph find their houses, complete with 3 things to look out for on his way to help guide him.

Reminder: Nativity costumes are due in on Friday. Children will be barefoot so will not need alternative footwear for their costumes!

Muddy Footprints

Rudolph had a very muddy arrival last night and left muddy footprints all over the classroom. We thought it might be a good idea to draw maps and write instructions to make sure Rudolph can find his way around school and over to the valley. The stable helpers today had to clean up all the muddy mess he had left. Tonight we have left some soapy water and a towel for him to clean his feet before he comes in on the carpet! Mrs Grange also found some bells whilst out walking the dogs this morning and brought them into school as she thought they might be Rudolphs!

The Arrival of Rudolph

I am sure you have all heard that tonight is the grand arrival of Rudolph, who is 'staying' with us for the next 2 weeks. Stable helpers are responsible for preparing his stable and making sure Rudolph has everything that he needs. The class have prepared a list of things to do each day to make the reindeer comfortable and look after him well.

Here is our list of things to do to look after Rudolph:

1. Leave him some food. This consists of 2 chopped carrots, a handful of oats, a handful of reindeer nuts, 1 apple and a sprinkling of magic reindeer dust.
2. Fluff up his straw.
3. Leave him some water.
4. Put his rug on the floor to keep him warm.

Each day the children will have tasks or problems to solve relating to Rudolph's stay.

Here are some photographs of the children preparing the stable:

Bed and Breakfast for Rudolph!

You may have heard that Rudolph will be coming to stay at school over the next 2 weeks. Father Christmas wrote us a letter saying that he is so busy preparing presents that he needs some help with the reindeers. Class 1 have the very important job of looking after Rudolph. We have a stable in the classroom for him. The children are very excited about Rudolph's arrival. They have been preparing by planning signs and drawing maps to help Rudolph find the juiciest grass to eat in the daytime whilst we are in class. Each day his stable will be prepared for him to rest in over night with food, water and a blanket!

Instructions

Year 1 are looking at instruction writing for the next 2 weeks. Today they read the story 'Pass the jam Jim' and had a go at making their own jam sandwiches using verbal instructions. We, of course, had to taste test the sandwiches after making! As you can see we enjoyed them very much and thought they were yummy!

Marvellous Me...

Today the children brought their 'Marvellous Me' boxes into school. Many thanks to parents who helped to put the boxes together. They were absolutely beautiful and clearly lots of effort and time had been put into them. The children were all very proud of their boxes and enjoyed sharing the contents with the rest of the class. The activity was particularly useful in encouraging the children's speaking and listening skills in group situations.

Vehicles

Today Year 1 began making their vehicles. They have spent lots of time deciding on their vehicle and creating a design. The main criteria for their design was that it will transport Crispin from one side of the classroom to the other.

There are a huge variety of different vehicles being made including a aeroplane, hot air balloon, hovercraft and a double decker bus.

FS2 will be making their vehicles tomorrow and into the beginning of next week.

Reminder: Non-uniform day tomorrow and cake sale.

Autumn Walk

 Today Class 1 went on an Autumn walk around the village. We were hunting for signs of Autumn. We got out our binoculars to look at the differences that were happening to the trees. 

 We collected different leaves of many colours.

We enjoyed our walk very much and had lots of 'finds' to take back to school with us.

Life Skills!

 In preparation for the new FS2 children arriving we have a new table and chairs for the home corner. The year 1 children were keen to build it themselves and learnt a new and very important life skill, constructing IKEA furniture! As you can see, they followed the instructions carefully and successfully made the furniture!

Arts Week: Day 2,3 and 4!

 Tuesday: Otto's grandfather, who is a sculptor, came to visit all the way from Holland to show us his work. He also helped us make our own sculptures of ourselves.

 Wednesday: Judy Davies came to do some drama with us. It was all about 'The Rainbow Fish'.

 We made a ocean from blue material. Some sharks were chosen who had to swim under the material and find people.

We also had a go at using our observational skills to make sketches of the woodland animals in our classroom.

 We went out in the local area to sketch the local landscape. Looking carefully at what we could actually see.

 Thursday: Inspired by the latest work by David Hockney, we created paintings based upon the sketches that we did yesterday of Eastcombe.

Arts Week: Day 1

Today we met John Dunne, a professional illustrator. He showed us lots of his work, both digital drawings and animations.

John showed the children how to approach drawing a cartoon. First starting with a basic shape and then adding further shapes to create a cartoon.

 The children really enjoyed drawing cartoons and produced some fantastic work.

He was very impressed with the effort that the children made. They were very inspired by his work and he was a fantastic teacher.

Come back tomorrow to see pictures of our clay portraits.