Little Opsreys Graduation 2022

Term 6 Week 6

It has been a warm, sticky and busy week as always in our wonderful class. The story this weeks is every childs favourite book, We're going on a Bear Hunt. We followed the the story, joining in the family's excitement as they waded through the grass, splash through the river and squelch through the mud in search of a bear untill they reach the suprise in the cave at the end.

Some of the children retold the story in picture form by creating thier own story using wool for snow, grass and brown paint for the mud. We have been on our bear hunt to see what we can find in our forest area.
We are also going to have our very own sports day on Friday so our children feel a part of the school event. 
The children who will be leaving us in September to join the Proud Puffins class had their move up day on Wednesday and came back to Little Ospreys on Thursday full of excitement and stories to tell of what they did. Although it was a much quieter day Mrs Jones and myself really missed them being in class.

Move Up Day 

Term 6 Week 5

This week we have enjoyed the story The Singing Mermaid by the wonderful Julia Donaldson. Tempted by the promise of fame and fortune, the Singing Mermaid joins a circus. The crowds love her, but the poor mermaid is kept in a tank by the wicked circus owner Sam Sly, and she soon longs for her freedom and to return to her ocean home.  Lucky for her she has some wonderful friends that help her return to her ocean home. Because of the story the children wanted to create thier own Mermaid so, firstly, they painted a paper plate with a colour of thier choice. Togehter, we cut the plate to create the mermaids tail and adding the body and face, then they made the mermaids magical by adding glitter, sequins and gems. 
The children have also enjoyed their weekly swim session in the pool and write dance in the hall. There was also a wonderful maths sorting activity outside, practising early STEM concepts with a simple size ordering activity.  I used the Compare Bears to do this and they are great for consolidating visual size recognition skills. Some of our older children were practicing adding and subtracting with thier bears too. 
 

Term 6 Week 4

Another busy week in Little Ospreys embracing everything on offer in class to keep being curious and love learning. Our story this week is called The Street Beneath My Feet by Charlotte Guillain and its a double sided foldout book taking us on a fascinating journey deep underground. One side of the foldout shows the ground beneath the city, whilst the reverse side shows the ground beneath the countryside. The underground pictures include tunnels, pipes, creatures burrows, layers of rock and the molten core of the Earth and run seamlessly into the next. The children have been fascinated to see what is under us and have been experiencing a little geology, archaeology and natural history.  Some of their questions have been very inquisitive, showing how they are thinking when hearing all about the ground we live on. This resulted with them ending the week rememebring  all about what they had learnt and drawing their own street beneath thier feet. This was a spectactular array of colour, thoughts and knowledge of what they had learnt from the story.  Wednesday we all celebrated International Mud Day which the children thoroughly enjoyed. They had several muddy activities they could participate in such as painting, handprints, face painting, mud kitchen, splashing in it, making mud pies and using the construction vehicles moving the soil around. All the children took part who were in on Wednesday, well done!
The school celebrated Armed Forces Day and the children came in non uniform and in Little Ospreys the children finger printed the most beautiful dandelion pictures. The dandelion is the official flower of the military child, dandelions put down roots almost anywhere and military children bloom everywhere, they are well rounded, culturally aware, tolerant and extremely resilient. They learn from an early age that home is where their hearts are and a good friend can be found in every corner of the world. Our dandelions are now on display as you walk into school. Fantastic work Little Ospreys, we are so proud of you.
 

The Street Beneath my Feet 

International Mud Day

Term 6 Week 3

This week we have had a very magical fairy week, really enjoying the story Fairy Felicity's Moonlight Adventure where one night, Fairy Felicity opens her door to find a mysterious invitation from a friendly silver snail. His trail leads Felicity to a very special surprise, her birthday party! The children have been making fairy peg dolls to use in our fairy garden, with the fairy houses they have made and pdecorated with Mrs Jones. I think the highlight of our busy week has got to have been the Fairy Castle we made together. Firstly we cut the boxes into pieces to join onto our wooden steps, then came the fun bit which was to paint them. The colour choice from the children was pink and purple and covered in glitter. Painting this was a huge task with the pieces being quite big, so I brought in some bigger paint brushes to make this easier. Once dried we all worked together to join the pieces back together and adding the final piece which was  the flag they had made for the pirate ship last week. The week was finished off by enjoying International Fairy Day on Friday and of course we had the oppurtunity to dress up as Fairies and enjoyed those yummy cupcakes that they had made and decorated with Mrs Jones. 🧚‍♀️🧚🧚‍♂️

Term 6 Week 2

Wow, what an incredible busy time we have had in Little Ospreys this week. The story is called The Night Pirates and the children have really enjoyed this listening to the text and understanding about shadows in the night being made by the moon and how the pirates in the story are girls and a little boy Tom joins in the night time adventure to get treasure back from the adult pirates. We have been singing pirate songs throughout the week and made treasure maps staining the paper brown first using tea bags and then once dried, drawing features on the map and of course the red X to mark the spot where the treasure is! The children have had fun turning the climbing frame into a pirate ship and today made telescopes. Also enjoying a pirate themed yoga exercise.  During one afternoon we talked about how we get shadows outside and realised you need to have the sun out to make them. We had lots of fun making different shadows using our bodies particularly our arms and hands and even stepped on each other! The children have all made special pirate cards for Sunday which I am sure all the fathers will enjoy very much. Wednesday was a fantastic experience for us all meeting Keba and his West African Drums. The children enjoyed tapping the drums of all different sizes going around in a loop in the hall stopping an starting listening to the instruction and then each child had the opportunity to beat three cylindrical shaped drums with beaters. What fun and well done Little Ospreys we were very proud of you all 😊

Our Pirate Ship 

Week 6 Week 1

What a busy first week back and so lovely to see everyone return on Tuesday. We hope our class photograph will be fabulous, the children all looked very smart. Then it was straight into a fantastic swimming session with everyone pleased to be back in the pool, and some of the children have grown a little so can now touch the bottom of the pool, the delight on their faces is a wonder to see. Well done Little Ospreys your confidence keeps growing.
We have had a very energetic PE session in the hall using a variety of apparatus, again wonderful to see how the childrens confidence and agility is improving all the time and their enjoyment. Lots of the children have enjoyed brilliant maths activities outside showing us how clever they all are. We are looking forward to lots of exciting activities this term, our topic is called ' Magical World ' where we will be dabbling in all sorts of curiosity, awe and wonder. We shall look forward particularly to our International Fairy Day on Friday 24th June and International Mud Day on Wednesday 29th June, you can be sure we will get muddy that day! Here's to looking forward to an amazing final term this school .

   

Term 5 Week 5

We started the week by introducing the children to our monarch, Queen Elizabeth ll. We showed the children  pictures of her and where she lives when in London. We talked about her family and how many children she had with our children being excited she has a daughter called Princess Anne. They were suprised to find out she doesn't wear "princess" clothing like big flowing dresses. We also chatted about some famous landmarks in London and after seeing it, the children wanted to go on a trip to the London Eye. We watched a wonderful video explaining about celebrating the Jubilee and how long she has served as our wonderful Queen. With this in mind the children have been busy making crowns for our street party on Friday afternoon, along with table decorations and the Union Jack bunting thats around our school. We have also shared a book with the children called The Queen's Hat where she looses her hat in a very windy London and it manages to visit all the famous places in and around the city with her soldiers and corgies following. 👸🌉

We hope you all have a wonderful half term and we look forward seeing you back on the 7th June. 

JUBILEE STREET PARTY

Term 5 Week 4

The story this week has been the Go-Away Bird by Julia Donaldson. All the birds one by one fly into her tree, wanting to talk or to play, but the Go-Away bird just shakes her head and sends them all away. Then the dangerous Get-You bird, an eagle comes along, and she soon realises that she might need some friends after all to help keep the eagle away. The children were able to make their own bird either choosing one from the book or one using their imagination. One child decided to make a rainbow bird and brought sunshine and happiness with it. We've also had some fantatsic shape making, painting feathers and then using them for printing. We finished the week off with a wonderful visit to the Rutland Water Nature Reserve and met their brilliant and entusiastic staff, with Ken telling the children all about the Osprey Maya and her partner, number 33. We were told they have just had three chicks hatch with the latest hatchling being only a week old and we got to watch them on the live camera. 
We came back to class and coloured in some Osprey templates and Mrs Jones kindly dropped them at the nature reserve as a gift to the brilliant team from all our curious Little Ospreys children.
 

Rutland Nature Reserve Visit

Term 5 Week 3

We have had another busy week in Little Ospreys enjoying a few stories about posting a letter and what happens to it once it has been written and posted. The children have listened and asked some very interesting questions about how it happens and what to do. We watched a childrens documentary on this. We asked the children to write or draw their own letter/picture, put it in an envelope which we addressed to their home and then went for a walk through the village to the Post Office. The children were given money to buy a stamp by themselves, stick it on their envelope and then go to the postbox and post it. We are looking forward to finding out who receives theirs first! On the way to the Village Shop the children found lots of puddles and had great fun jumping in them making huge splashes. We also popped into the church where the children looked around noticing lots of different objects and asked good question about this old building. We passed The Wheatsheaf pub and some of the children said they visited it with their parents, with one child saying she has her tea there sometimes!! Unfortunately the heavens opened on our way back to school, the skies darkened and we got drenched, even having to take shelter under some trees for a little while because it had become so wild. The children didn't complain at all, and even though we were cold and wet walked back to school brilliantly. What an adventure Little Ospreys, very well done to you all.

Term 5 Week 2

Our story this week has been "Brilliant Boats" where the children have been learning about the different kinds of boats like sailing boats, rowing boats, ferries and motor boats. In the book the animal characters take a cruise on an ocean liner, in a jolly, rhyming journey. The children were able watch a short video of Barnaby Bear where he took a trip with the RNLI and on a ferry. The children then had the oppurtunity to make thier own boats, using bottle tops, bluetac, straws and card using it to create the sail for their boat. They were very excited and thrilled to hear they would be getting the opportunity to see if their boats would sink or float later that morning. Some of the boats managed to stay afloat and others sank. The ones that sank, the children experimented with the postitioning of the bluetac to see if that affected it's ability to float.  The week saw us conduct a fantatsic "Write Dance" linked to boats painting the shape of the boats and the movement of the waves which ended up with most children going home with paint on them. 

Term 5 Week 1

Hello and welcome back, we hope you all have had a wonderful half term with your families.
We have started our first week back with an introduction to the topic "Edith Weston", where we had carpet time and talked about things in and around the village which some children and staff are very fortunate to call home. We spoke about the village shop, the parks, Rutland Water and the beautiful church. The children were excited to hear that we will be visiting the post office to post a letter. I explained to the children why the village is called Edith Weston after Edith of Wessex who was the Queen many many years ago and showed them a photograph of her. We then discussed about how we all live on a street which has a name and how each house will have a number. We will also be having a look at each child's home on google maps. Linking in with our topic, we chose the Three Little Pigs story and discussed how they had three types of houses, made of different materials, with the chidlren creating their own houses made of straw, sticks and bricks. 

Term 4 Week 7

Another fun filled week we have had in Little Ospreys. Our story was a new Supertato collection called "The Great Eggscape" starring Supertato and the Evil Pea! It's night-time in the supermarket and SOMEONE has stolen ALL the Easter eggs! Never fear! Supertato and the veggies have a plan to get them back. It's EGGciting, it's EGGcellent, but will it also be...foiled. This has led to a fantatstic role play with myself and the boys recreating the castle from the story, making our own Supertato and Evil Pea from real patatoes. The boys then captured the pea turning him into pea soup using a patato masher. Some children have also taken part in an Easter colouring competition run by Peterbourough United and hopefully the lucky winner will win some football tickets. 
We ended the week with a choclate egg hunt in our garden which saw lots of happy excitable children, then this afternoon we had the brilliant Easter Assembly. We were very proud of how our children sat quietly then and sang their hearts out during the assembly. Thank you to all the parents who were able to watch. We hope you liked their singing.

🐥We wish you all a very Happy Easter and hope you have an enjoyable half term🐥

Term 4 Week 6

Another busy week in Little Ospreys, we have been very curious learning all about life cycles, particularly frogs. Our story this week is called Growing Frogs by Vivian French which is about a little girl finding out about the life cycle of frogs and how they start off as frogspawn and slowly evolve into frogs. The children have listened very carefully and love to retell the story when we look at the book. They have been very busy being creative, making their own life cycle of a frog, making frogspawn, then a tadpole, then a froglet and then a fully grown frog. Their creations look amazing and very effective, so well done. Some of the children have used pictures of the life cycle of a frog and stuck them to paper, ordering them correctly. The children have used all sorts of materials like frogs, stones and glass beads to create their own ponds.
We had a very energetic PE session trying to incorporate maths with exercise. The children leapt around the hall like frogs, croaking around too and after we made a pond with our blue gym mats, the children leapt into the pond when the number they were holding was called out. 🐸

Term 4 Week 5

What a beautiful sunny week it has been, all the children have enjoyed every minute outside. We had pretend cooking in our wonderful mud kitchen, making patterns with differnt coloured/sized beens and making obsticle courses. I think the childrens favourite activity had to be taking thier shoes and socks off playing in the sandpit. We have also had story time and snacks outside too. 
Our story this week has been "Olivers Vegaetables". It's about a young boy called Oliver who only eats chips, until he goes to visit his grandparents for the week who have a beautiful veggie garden. After reading the story, the children enjoyed learning how to prepare vegeatbles for cooking by slicing and chopping them up ready to cook in our home corner. Today they had the oppurtunity to have vegetable crudites for snack with lots of yummy dips. 
💐The Little Ospreys team would like to wish all of Mummies a very Happy Mother's Day and hope you like all your wonderful handmade gifts the children have made. Hope you have a restful Sunday. 💐

Term 4 Week 4 

This week has been 'Science week' which sits very nicely with our jump into spring topic. The children have learned how to make ice by putting some of our Daffodil petals, stalks and some tulips into water and popped them into the freezer. When frozen they got to look at the colouful creations and watch it melt again to retrieve our flowers. We will put a little salt on the ice to speed up the melting process, to cause more cracking and produce interesting patterns within the flowers.

We have been keeping a very close eye on our sunflowers, with some children noticing the roots are starting to show at the bottom of the pots. So with this in mind the next science activity was to germinate seeds in a bag for the children to watch how the seeds transform into plants right before their eyes. They placed a bean each into a plastic bag and placed them in a sunny spot and will learn how the seeds sprout, which is a process normally hidden by dirt. 

We ended the week fund raising for Red Nose Day with this year being all about 'you'. We will have the opportunity to buy cakes which im sure our Little Ospreys will enjoy.  

Term 4 Week 3

It really felt like spring was in the air this week, although slightly cooler at the begining of the week, this has seen the children spending lots of time outdoors. We were all thrilled to see our beautful Daffodils, which have now flowered, and the children's Sunflowers are sprouting nicely, with us keeping a close eye on them daily. We have a new outdoor painting area which the children have thoroughly enjoyed. Some of the chidlren were working hard on the maths challenege which was for the children to see if they could order numbers 1-10 and also find the same amount of shells. The highlight of our week has got to be the Scarewell Farm Trip on Wednesday! We got to enjoy a very bumpy tractor ride, see some goats which had thier very own playbarn which the chidlren found hillarious. We also had a very enegertic day enjoying the indoor and outdoor playbarn for humans. A very tiring day was for all the children and adults and there was lots of snoozing on our journey home. 

Term 4 Week 2

The story we've shared this week is 'Mister Magnolia' by the very talented Quentin Blake. 

In this witty rhyming picture book, Mr Magnolia has a full and happy life except for one serious problem - a boot. One day, he receives a mysterious parcel, an odd boot and at last Mr Magnolia can splash in the puddles with everyone else. With this in mind the chidlren have been designing thier own boots, and just like Mr Magnolia the children brought in thier own scooters enjoyed scooting around the hall and the playground which was thorughly enjoyed. Pancake day was on Tuesday and this saw them enjoy lots pancakes with Golden Syrup.

We've ending the week by celebrating "World Book Day" and all of our children looked amazing and the costumes were well thought out by parents. Mrs Jones and myself were Mr Magnolia and only wore one boot all day with the children finding this very amusing. The end of today the chidlren were given the oppurtunity to share the story from their dressed up character to us all and what a brilliant, confident job they did. 

Term 4 Week 1 21.02.22

What a fantstic first week we have had! The chidren came back full of excitment and enthusiasm but was shocked to see that the space theme was no more. However our new topic 'Jump Into Spring' started with the children planting sunflower seeds in readiness for all the Mums' special day that is coming up. The children did thier weekly write dance and the theme is called "Little Sun" and hopefully it can bring brighter days to our week. This did work with Friday bringing the glorious sunshine and we spent the whole day outside. We have done lots of mark making this week, using water and paint brushes, and a giant roll of paper to create a flower murial which ended with lots of imaginative drawing, language and brilliant wrinting from some of our Little Ospreys children. 

Term 3 Week 5 07.02.22

Our final week of this term has seen us enjoy another space story called The Way Back Home.  It’s about a boy that one day, found an aeroplane in his cupboard.

He didn’t remember leaving it there, but he thought he’d take it out right away to go flying. At first, all went well and the plane flew higher and higher until suddenly, with a splutter, it ran out of petrol. The boy was then stuck on the moon but he was not alone, he was on the moon with a friendly Martian that had also broken down. They used their individual strengths to fix each other’s planes. It’s was a great story to show friendship, kindness and being helpful to each other.

In maths, the children have been counting moon rocks to match the numbers with great success and we are very proud of all our little Ospreys. 
We then enjoyed our very energetic PE session, practicing jumping with two feet on and off objects, throwing beanbags underarm to try and get them into the hoops which gradually got further away. 
We had a lovely surprise visit from the team at Oakham FireStation and their fire engine. The firemen were very good chatting to the children telling them they were from Oakham and what animals they saved as well as people and cars. The children looked for the firehose and found it on the side of the truck and some of them were able to flick a lever over and spray the trees in the hedge nearby with a little bit of help.

We have been learning and practicing our song for Fridays Assembly called Zoom, zoom, zoom and we look forward to you all seeing the fantastic things the children have been learning and making. 

We hope you all have a fantastic half term and we will see you back on the 21st of February.
Mrs Davison, Mrs Jones & Mrs Bodily 

Term 3 Week 5 31.01.22

The week has seen us celebrate Chinese New Year and this year is the year of the Tiger. We watched a brilliant story about the animals of the Chinese zodiac and how they all took part in a race across the river to decide which one would have that year named after them. We then looked at another story that shows more about Chinese culture. It was about how Abbie and her brother cleaned their home, dressed up in their best clothes and got ready to celebrate Chinese new year with their family.

The children have had the opportunity to make mosaic tigers, good fortune envelopes which contained chocolate coins and Chinese lanterns.

I think the best bit of the week was having Chinese food on Friday, we had noodles, prawn toast, spring rolls and each child was given a fortune cookie to open. Bertie also brought in some beautiful traditional Chinese clothing for us to share with the class. 
 

HAPPY GUNG HAY FAT CHOY

Term 3 Week 4 24.01.22

Our story this week has been “Aliens love Underpants” which has been enjoyed and laughed at by all the children. This crazy, hilarious tale is delightfully brought to life by really colourful illustrations. There’s lots of rhyming text which has seen us all amused. This has lead into some inquisitive questioning from children about their friend’s underpant designs, including asking myself and Mrs Jones if we wore bloomers like the aliens do in the book.
We started the week with the children cutting out their aliens and designing the  underpants, then onto making some spaceships for them, but the most fun we all had was having our own “ping-tastic pants race”. This saw the children bring in their own pants and they had to master pinging them into the air, then we measured where they landed to see who’s had travelled the furthest. We all thoroughly enjoyed the pants race and have now pegged the pants on the fence of the playground to see if the Aliens come and take ours like they do in the book. The children have counted them to see if we will have the same amount there tomorrow.
They have also had a great sensory Rainbow Write Dance session this week and their confidence is definitely growing in the weekly swimming lessons. 

Term 3 Week 3 17.01.22

We have had another fun packed space week with the children really enjoying our topic this term. We started the week by introducing our story of “Rocket Countdown” where the astronauts count down from 10 ready for lift off.  Each number is paired with a sentence to help the children to learn the number sequence. This has seen us doing lots of maths activities, counting and recognising the numbers. A fun activity this week has been making tube/bottle rockets. The children used lots of different materials such as paint, sticky back plastic, sequins and gems to make their rockets which saw most children make one with some making two. The children then created our own solar system in the foyet of class using the blow up planets and the rockets they had made. 
We had lots of outside play where we had a look at some planet fizz bombs. Using warm water the children watched intently as they fizzed, shrunk down creating craters and saw the water change to many different colours. 

Term 3 Week 2 10.1.22

Our story this week has been “Whatever Next” which is space themed, where Bear wants to go to the moon. He finds a rocket and some space boots and he is ready to go! So with this is mind, on Monday the children and I planned to go on our Moon adventure. So we made up a picnic basket with the children making their own sandwiches choosing which spread they would like on it. We then set to by putting on our warm outdoor clothing and our moon boots (wellington boots). The children were very excited to have their own colanders for space helmets and the children were using lots of the planet names they had been learning all week. They used pre cut shapes to make space rockets, afterwards using enough shapes to match the number of letters in their name. They also had a try at naming the shape correctly. We have set up a small Space Station which the children have really enjoyed playing with along with a messy planet tuff tray, where we added lots of white substances like shaving foam and icing sugar and then added paint to them to make them look like planets and enjoy our rockets in the mess. 🌍 ☀️ 🪐 🌑

Term 3 Week 1 4.1.22

Hello and a very Happy New Year to all our Little Ospreys and their families. They have come back full of excitement and keen to tell us about what they have been getting up to during the holiday period. I shared some of my enjoyment by telling them about my trip to London with my family. They enjoyed celebrating my birthday too as I brought them all a little treat for snack time whilst they sang me Happy Birthday and I got to blow out the candles just in time before they did. 
The week saw the frosty weather return, but the children enjoyed being outside playing in the water, then the Ice the next day, with some children collecting pieces of the broken ice and putting it into the sunshine to watch it melt back to water. There was lots of question asking like ‘how do you make ice?’ and ‘why is it melting?’, they were however very keen to get back inside to warm up too. 
The latter part of the week saw us introduce our new topic of Awe and Wonder and introducing Space. We watched a great video that talked about the different planets and our own planet earth. Friday afternoon the children helped set up a space ship control station ready for Monday.

Term 2 Week 7

It’s been a very busy week in Term 2 for Little Ospreys. The children have been busy with Christmas arts and crafts, printing and colouring in. They also enjoyed making a melted snowman picture out of paint, practising their fine motor skills by cutting out the snowman’s accessories. On Tuesday we had our Christmas party, which was great fun and we had lots of wonderful party food. We played some games, had a dance to Christmas songs around our magical tree in the hall. We also filmed the children’s Christmas songs, for you to enjoy on Tapestry, and we hope you enjoy watching them as much as we did. We would like to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a fantastic New Year. Enjoy the break and have lots of fun. The Little Ospreys Team. 🎄

Term 2 Week 6

During week 6 we have enjoyed the fantastic book Stick Man by Julia Donaldson. Stick Man lives in the family tree with his Stick Lady Love and Stick Children Three, and after getting lost when out for a run, he heads on an epic adventure across the seasons trying to get back home. We then decided to take our stick man teddy on an adventure to find our own Stick Man home. We think we found it in the schools forest area and how he uses ladders to get him and his family home. This was an enjoyable hunt with lots of imagination with some children wanting to go again the very next day but we made our own stick men instead. Little Ospreys children had the opportunity to go into the hall with the whole school and enjoy Mrs Major’s delicious Christmas lunch, with the chocolate cake being a scrumptious favourite of them all. 

Term 2 Week 5

This week saw us enjoy a story called Robins Winter Song which is a dazzlingly beautiful book bringing the glories of the changing seasons. All the animals were busy flying south or burying food, because winter was coming. Robin decided he didn't like the sound of winter one bit but that was before the snow came. This saw the children get their creativity heads on to make their own robins which are now perching on our tree hanging from the ceiling that we’ve made in class. The beginning of the week the children made our own Advent Calendar where one lucky child is chosen to open it each day. They’ve also been creating their festive cards, with the children choosing their design a few weeks ago. The last day of the week saw us enjoy a whole school Christmas Activity Day where Mrs Smith gave us lots of goodies to create some brilliant decorations and yummy treats to eat. 

Term 2 Week 4

This week the cold weather has come just in time to introduce winter to the children. We shared a lovely story called “Winter is Here” which celebrates the sights, sounds and smells of the season. We’ve also discussed about the animals that live in cold climates. This led to a fantastic carpet time with Mrs Jones where she brought in lots of winter clothing like hats, gloves and scarfs and why we wear them to keep warm. The children have done a little bit of science also, learning how to make different shaped ice. They will then get the opportunity, once frozen solid, to paint the ice and talk about how the ice feels and watch it melt in their hands.

Term 2 Week 3

We’ve been very busy again this week in Little Ospreys, celebrating Diwali the Hindu festival of light. The children enjoyed listening to stories about this celebration and how the Hindu communities get ready for the celebrations by cleaning, cooking and decorating their houses with flowers and lots of little diya lamps and Rangoli patterns made out of coloured rice or sand. To finish off their celebrations they get together and have a huge fire-work display. In PE, we learned how to dance like the Hindu’s, dancing to the music with sticks and other fantastic Diwali movements. 
The children made some beautiful Rangoli patterns concentrating brilliantly. We made and decorated milk bottles to look like elephants, an animal that is important to Hindus and we have enjoyed making Laddoos, which are special sweets always eaten during Diwali. Plus on Friday the children and staff enjoyed celebrating Children in Need, doing lots of fun activities and dancing to the drumathon. 
    

Term 2 Week 2

We’ve had a very busy yet fun week in Little Ospreys with our main focus being Remembrance Day. The children have been making poppies out of Play-dough and creating their own Poppy cards using lots of different shades of red paper or card. The children had to learn how to rip up paper using their fingers rather than use scissors, which was a little tricky however, practice makes perfect. They’ve also been watching a brilliant short film about Remembrance Day. It’s a beautiful animation that sees war through the eyes of a rabbit who’s home is affected by fighting and how the poppy fields became beautiful once the war was over. The afternoon children had a great time in their swimming session and everyone loved our weekly write dance session. This was seen by Mrs Rawlings our deputy head and she said it was so great to the see the children so engaged and thouroughly having fun.  

Term 2 week 1

Hello and welcome back. We hope you all had a wonderful half term and enjoyed Halloween and fun times with your families. Our topic this term is Celebrations of Light, so we've started by talking about bonfire night and how to keep safe from fire and fireworks. They have learned a song about fireworks too! Please see if they can sing it to you! To end our week we had a very messy, but fun firework splatter painting activity creating a fantastic bonfire night sky.

Term 1 Week 7

Our final week of this term is coming to end which saw us doing everything around pumpkins. We started off with a very exciting cookery class making pumpkin soup with Mrs Gay and her soup maker. The children were talking and learning all about the ingredients they were using and cutting up the pumpkin, onion, carrot and adding some vegetable stock. The children have then been building strength in their hands by learning how to hammer golf tees into pumpkins. This was an exciting activity with them asking to do it daily. They also learnt about Harvest Festival it’s meaning and how we help people who are less fortunate than ourselves by giving food. We’ve been practising our autumn songs and I will share the finished videos onto Tapestry for you all to enjoy. 
We ended the week by making delicious pumpkin biscuits that were devoured and probably did not make them home this time. 
Little Ospreys team would like to wish you a very happy, restful half term and it’s been so lovely to have you all back and have lots of new children join our class. 🎃 

Term 1 week 6

Keeping in with our autumn activities the children have enjoyed collecting conkers everyday from the horse chestnut tree just outside our classroom and using them to roll down guttering. We placed the guttering at different heights to see the variations in distance the conkers travelled. The children had a try at apple printing using a halved apple dipped in paint and placing it on paper.  The paper was cut into the shape of an apple and holes punched around the edge so the children could weave string through the holes. The children have enjoyed learning about how we make bread, the ingredients used and watched it being made in the bread maker. Obviously the eating of it over the next few days was a highlight. They have also done some conker rolling through paint to create fantastic lines, dots and swirls and their great artistic creations will take pride of place in our gallery. We ended the week with our second “Write Dance” scrimbling, where we created marks using shaving foam and cornflour which was a great messy morning. Such a busy week we’ve had and hope you all have an enjoyable weekend.

Term 1 Week 5

Autumn has well and truly rolled into Little Ospreys this week with our story being “We’re going on a Leaf Hunt” with the children going out to find lots of colourful leaves, conkers and spiky conker shells.  The children made clay hedgehogs, then handprint hedgehogs using the most beautiful autumnal colours. They enjoyed lots of wet play outside loving the damp, muddy digging area and lots of jumping in puddles. This week saw us introduce a programme called “Write Dance” which provides movement opportunities so children can develop the physical skills needed to develop their handwriting. Rhythm is closely linked to rhyme and children are encouraged to use their voices to describe the actions as they move and dance.  Mark-making and movement drawings ensure the children progress from whole body dance moves to fine-motor movements with fluency and speed. They would listen to the story and after there was a song with movements linked to the story and then the “Srimbling” which was enthusiastically enjoyed. 

Term 1 Week 4 

What another brilliant week we’ve had spending lots of time outside. The children have been making friends, learning to share and lots of modelling our play. They have been planting flowers with Mrs Jones and digging up potatoes from our vegetable patch with Mrs Gay. Today saw them enjoy some vegetable shape printing and learning some new vegetable names. Last week saw us introduce our music CD called Wiggly Woo and it’s becoming a bit if a favourite with the children and they’re asking to do it most days, so they may come home singing the songs and dance moves they’re learning.  

Term 1 Week 3

This week we've enjoyed lots of time outside with Mrs Gay and myself. The children have been busy using the water from the water tray creating a swampy dinosaur land.  This looked good so Mrs Gay moved it to create a new permanent area within the garden using more natural resources. The children were very curious with the changes we've started making in the sand area, changing from the plastic toys to metal and everyday cooking utensils. We have been trying to finish the children's self portraits for us to hang in the classroom along with their home boxes. The story this week was "The Giant Jam Sandwich" which saw a little village like ours work together to make a trap for four million wasps that had invaded the village. The book had lots of rhyme and was very funny indeed. We decided to do our own, so I brought in bread and jam so the children could learn how to make their very own jam sandwich. To finish the week off, the children made delicious pizza faces with Mrs Jones and they even made a spare one for the grown ups to share. 

Term 1 Week 1 & 2

What a fantastic few weeks we’ve had to start off our wonderful term. We’ve welcomed lots of new children and have been blessed with some long awaited sunshine, so we’ve  enjoyed lots of outdoor play. We went on a ramble around the school on Wednesday and the children have been busy making friends and getting to know each other. All the children have settled in brilliantly, getting to know a few routines within the class. We look forward to the year ahead with our Little Ospreys.