Our Autumn Learning Journey

We had great fun enjoying lots of Christmas activities- and LOVED our party day and seeing Santa 🎅 We told him we were ALL on the good list

The children helped us design a stable for our role play, they decorated our Christmas 🎄 independently . We regularly follow the children s interests and extended their learning. They decided to create a theatre and put on a show - they organised the chairs asked for a till and some tickets. The majority of the children join in with the " show" either as a performer or in the audience.

We shared a beautiful day of prayer on our whole school " Retreat Day" Our focus was Mother Mary we explored and discussed how she would be feeling when travelling to Bethlehem and how she loved and cared for baby Jesus. One of the children dressed up as Mary and the other children asked her questions. The children painted pictures of Mother Mary , made Mary crowns, wrote prayers and shared a prayer service dedicated to her.

Forest School is one of our favourite places to be - we love the open space, we enjoy climbing the trees, rolling down the hills and playing hide and seek.

For science we frozen some water in a variety of containers - the children noticed the changes and they discussed what had happened to the liquid. They enjoyed exploring the ice with their hands and were excited as it began to melt. During the afternoon we went to forest school and noticed changes in the seasons we even found blocks of ice and talked about how it had happened.

Well done everyone for a fantastic Reindeer Run for Mary Stevens Hospice. Thank you to all who have donated!

Each Friday afternoon we visit the school library. We enjoy sharing stories with one another and look at the different books we have to read 📚 We hope you enjoy sharing these stories with your children at home!

National Tree Week 🌳 This week we shared the story of Gretta and the Giants, the children were able to recognise that the actions of the Giants were wrong and bad. We discussed the importance of trees and shared ideas of how we could help save God's Creation by taking care our trees. In Forest school we showed appreciation to all of the wonderful trees, exploring their textures and patterns through making tree rubbings.

Wow, what keen writers we have in Pre-school! We have been recognising and writing our names and using these skills to write our very own letters to Santa 🎅 📮

The children have impressed us so much with all of their knowledge of the Nativity. We created our very own stable and are using the costumes to retell the story. We are using our creative skills to design our our stable, recalling the characters and events, AMAZING!

In class worship we recalled our prior learning, remembering what we had learnt about Noah's Ark and how to help the poor. We then introduced Advent, learning that it is a time where we wait and prepare for the birth of Jesus. We also discussed the different ways in which we get ready for different occasions and explored this through continuous provision. The children recognised how many candles were on an advent wreath and we then collected resources to create our very own Advent Wreath.

Pre-school were introduced to Christmas as a celebration of Jesus as it his birthday! 🎂 We then explored making birthday cakes for him, writing cards and wrapping presents, we now know that Jesus was born on Christmas Day!

The children were fantastic during our PE session. They are aware why we need to warm up and majority notice the changes in their body as we do so. The focus was " Balancing " and we explored different ways to balance on different body parts, we then introduced a beanbag . To really challenge ourselves we practiced balancing on the small apparatus.

Linked to our Story of Rama and Sita we were exploring " Light" so we took a collection of materials to create Dens and investigate which was the best one and discussing why. The Foundation Stage worked together as a team to collaborate and really great to see who took the lead and others whom listened and got the job done.

We have explored the clay whilst making Diva lamps we talked about the texture and used words like rolling, pinching, squeezing, squashing the majority of children enjoyed wetting their hands to soften the clay to make it more malleable. Each Diva lamp is unique as they decorated them with paints, sequins and glitter.

Bonjour everyone- look at all the learning which took place on " Community Language Day" today. Please discuss with your child what they learnt 🇫🇷

Every week our Pre-School prayer bag is sent home with a different child. This is a lovey opportunity for the children to set up their own prayer area and share prayers and Bible stories with their family 🙏

Happy Diwali 🪔 Pre-school have been learning all about the festival of light. We have shared the story, Rama and Sita and explored making our own Rangoli patterns and danced along to Indian music.

On Fridays Elma joins us to learn all about Maths! Today we sang a range of nursery rhymes, explored sizes and repeated patterns. We also had a trip to our school library where the children shared stories together and chose a story to take home 📚

During Forest School we were talking and thinking about " Stewardship of Gods Creation " and showing care and respect towards our environment and Gods creatures.

Today in PE, we explored making a range of fireworks with both instruments and the ribbons. First we warmed our bodies up and then practiced each of the movements. Then as a group we created the different firework sounds and shapes using our bodies and the props 🎇🎗️🪇

We have been learning about Remembrance Day, we can now recognise a Poppy and can share details about why we have a Remembrance Day. The children were so respectful as we recreated a parade march just like the soldiers. 💂‍♂️

What a wonderful first day back in Preschool 🎇👩‍🚒 The children have shared their half term experiences with us and we've created our own bonfire in our home corner for children to revisit their experiences. Pre-school have been using a range of materials to create their very own firework pictures and with the help of fireman Sam, we have learnt lots about fire safety. 🔥🧯

Autumn 1

Today we made Silly Soup, focusing on the sound S. The children worked together to identify a range of items beginning with that letter. We also learnt all about rhyming, we used our rhyming houses to identify the different objects names that rhyme with each other.

We have been creating and designing our very owl owl babies! We have used a range of different materials to create our textured owls, our knowledge of the story, Owl Babies' is continuing to expand!🦉

Today we carried out our Ten-Ten learning in the hall. We had to work together to find Billy Bird - it was such an adventure! We had to use our amazing skilful bodies to travel in different ways - balancing on the wobbly log, crossing the river using the stepping stones and crawl under the trees 🌳 we then had some choosing time, to continue exploring the different equipment.

This morning Pre-School and Reception joined together to learn about Pope Francis' initiative to Campaign for Peace and Unity and pray the rosary together . 🙏🏻📿

What a fabulous day we have had exploring another Early Years classroom! Pre-school were so confident in Reception and had a lovely welcome from the children. Together we learnt about a range of places we live, and extended this knowledge through play! We came together for a musical session, working as a team to keep the beat for Beat Baby and suggesting instruments for the song, 'I am the music man' 🥁🎹 We ended our day with some calming mindfulness 🧘‍♀️

Continuing our learning of Bears, we thought about the different kind of bears around the world! We explored observational painting of bears, and colouring of a chosen type of bear 🐻 We were all so good at our turn taking game, whereby we had to complete a shopping list of items; remembering where each picture card is.

What a wonderful PE session we had this week. We retold the story, 'peace at last' recalling all of the different sounds Mr Bear heard. We then practiced the different ways we will move to a range of music before displaying these using the ribbons.

Elma joined us today to learn all about numbers! We explored recognising and writing numbers; ranging from 0 to 10. We then experimented with the ice creams, counting out the correct number of scoops for a specific cone. Yesterday we learnt all about numbers 1 and 2 and represented these in a variety of ways.

Science Week: We gathered our knowledge of space before learning more about the solar system! We then created our very own space station and blasted to space! We used the pipettes to experiment with water, testing which colours we could make when we mixed them together.

After our Active Maths session, we used the natural objects to explore counting 0-10. We encouraged the children to touch count the items to check their total 🔟. We used the instruments to create our own music alongside a range of autumn songs.

A huge Thank You for all of the Harvest Donations! Before they are collected by the food bank we discussed the different foods and items that you have all donated. We worked in small groups to sort the foods into the different food groups, grains, fruits, vegetables and fish.

Wow, we have loved exploring all of the different Harvest vegetables! We have been discussing the different textures, colours and smells they have as we explore them 🥔🌽🥕 We cut into the different vegetables and explored what was inside and used them create our own printed pictures, looking closely at the shapes each vegetable created.

Today we joined Reception to learn more about Harvest. We held our own Harvest Service, with our very own Farmer! We shared our knowledge of the work of farmers during this time of year, discussing the different foods they harvest. We discussed where our Harvest Donations will be going and who they will be helping. We then visited Forest School and created two scarecrows, explored the natural materials and investigated different creations within our environment.

It is lovely to see the children building up relationships with their new friends. They are becoming active and independent learners engaged in their own learning. They are also becoming aware of their peers and considering their feelings.

Physical Development is one of our prime areas - the children love being outside and it is good for their Gross motor skills and their mental health. They enjoy being active and interacting with their peers.

Active Maths - and Focus Friday is great " We used a dice took turns and suggested actions" We were all wearing GREEN to support and celebrate Macmillan- Thank You our wonderful families.

We visited school to appreciate the beautiful stained glass window which celebrates " Gods Creation " we were great detectives finding all the wonderful things he made. We also saw Jesus ( well to be fair they walk that same route every day for lunch BUT today they stopped and noticed him on the cross) We visited Mary's Chapel and saw Saint Francis.

We went on a listening walk to hear environmental sounds- we wore our Elmer ears to help us focus. We heard so many sounds in Forest school. We sat and enjoyed our snack around our campfire. We used binoculars to look up and appreciate things higher than us. Some of our friends wore Mouse ears to remind us to be quiet and use our sense of " Hearing"

Today we shared the Bible story, Adam and Eve. Pre-school showed understanding of how eating the apple was a bad choice. We later discussed making the right choices through talking about what makes a kind friend.

We have loved exploring our other Elmer themed activities!

Welcome Service

Thank you for being here today.

we welcome you and your child to our school.
We are so thrilled that you are joining us on your child’s journey through the Early Years of your child’s education.
Your children have settled beautifully into school life, made new friends, and are becoming active learners.
This is the year for our youngest learners to shine brightly in our classrooms.

This is the year for them to grow and develop into shining stars.

We have a year filled with exciting learning.
Learning all about ourselves and the world around us.
Learning all about God through our curriculum of Catholic Social Teaching.
Exploring our forest school and learning how to read and write.
And learning to love each other.
It will be a magical year of growth for your child as we teach them to reach for the stars.

Communication is the key to success; so please remember we are here to support you all.

We are here to listen.
We are here to help.
Welcome to Our Lady and St Kenelm Family.