Stanningley Primary School

I am sure everyone will remember the trip our Reception children enjoyed when they visited the Art Gallery earlier this year. We’re excited, the sketchbooks of words and pictures made with their families and teachers have inspired for a poem by Leeds’ poet Khadjiah Ibrahim. Combining her words with their responses to the many things that they found on a journey through the gallery on a multi sensory exploration of 3D art. Enjoy listening to Khadijah, imagine the visit and what everyone experienced. Now create a little poem of your own, or perhaps you could make another sketch book and fill it with new words and pictures relating to the things that you can see from your home, your garden or somewhere magical that you can imagine ..... Here’s how to make a sketchbook Amanda show’s how – I can make you a little amateur film if it helps

Mrs Pritchatt thought you might like a challenge to make a origami cat. Follow the steps on the photos and see what you can create. Post your pictures on your tapestry account.

We made pancakes and they tasted yummy!!!! The children followed the instructions from the recipe book to add the ingredients to the jug or bowl. Once the ingredients were mixed together we cooked them and some children had a turn at flipping them. We added toppings of our choice and ate them and shared them with our friends.

Outdoor explore time is so much fun…. We built an obstacle course where we could balance, climb, jump, crawl and move in many different ways. We added bricks, tunnels and balancing bars to make a course to try and complete. When we had become more confident Mrs. Goodwin added more challenges to keep us developing our gross motor skills. Some times we had to hold a balance on one foot and others we had to walk backwards across a low balancing bar. We encouraged our friends when they found part of the course tricky and when the ‘cheated’ we made them start again!

We have been making shadows using torches and other light sources. We used puppets and our bodies to create shadows on the wall and using the puppets we told shadow stories. We used shapes and buttons to create patterns and see how we can change their shadows. We looked at the shadows our bodies made when the sun came out as we did our daily mile. We noticed our shadows were sometimes small and sometimes tall.

We are learning to write our names using our special name cards. Some of us are very good at remember which letters we need, so we are working on writing the letters the correct way.

The weather was lovely and to follow a child’s lead of playing dinosaurs we got the small dinosaurs out along with bricks and fencing for the children to play and create with. The children enjoyed using the dinosaurs to make a story to go with their movements. “The pterodactyl is flying” said one child.

The children have enjoyed making bubbles in warm water whilst they have explored outside. The children have discovered they can move their hands rapidly under the water to make more bubbles. They have enjoyed blowing the bubbles so the wind could take them on a journey.

On a Tuesday morning adults are invited to stay and play with their child or children. Together they play games, build models, paint and see their children in the early years environment.

Christmas We had a fabulous time enjoying the celebrations of Christmas. We were invited by Santa himself to join him in the North Pole via video link to listen to him tell a story of the Night Before Christmas. He told the story and talked about what he likes as he flies around the world to deliver presents. Mrs Claus told him he ate too many mince pies!!! Santa asked us lots of questions about the story during the quiz and we got lots of them right. Can you name Santa’s Reindeers… all 9 of them??? We had a wonderful party day; we played games and enjoyed some lovely party food. Santa even did a quick stop off to see us as he finished all his plans for Christmas.

Christmas Postal Service This year the children across school have enjoyed sending Christmas cards to each other which have been posted in our Stanningley post box. Children from the older year groups have helped to sort the post into class order and then children from Early Years have delivered the post to the whole school to help us recognise numbers around the school We are encouraging children to recycle the cards after the festive period by either taking them to a recycle box (often found in local supermarkets or bring them to school where we will recycle them. Merry Christmas.

The children in reception put on an amazing show for our Christmas Tale nativity. Lots of grown ups came to see the children as they sang songs and used their big voices for their line that they had practiced.

The children in nursery celebrated Christmas by inviting family members to share in the fun activities . Together they made Christmas baubles, little winter gardens and decorated paper stars and homemade biscuits. The nursery children sang songs and everyone enjoyed watching some video clips of music time in nursery with Mrs Rivers. Merry Christmas Everyone !

Rice Krispies To encourage the children to be independent we gave the children the opportunity to make their own snack. We gave instructions to a small group of children and allowed them to show their friends.

We had a great time making soup out of our giant pumpkin. Some children went to Tesco with Mrs Holgate to buy some ingredients that we needed, including carrots, pepper and vegetable stock cubes. We then spent a morning chopping all the food for the pan of soup and Mrs Goodwin cooked it. At the end of the day we all tried the soup which some of us thought it was 'yummy' and others weren't too keen.

The cold weather turned the water in our tray into ice. The children explored it’s smooth texture and brittle nature. They felt it in their hands and against their tongues. They noticed that when it was dropped it shattered and Oliver even found pieces that were triangular in shape ! Luis wondered if the sun would come and melt the ice but Georgia said it was too cold and hard.

We have learnt lots of sounds during our phonic session. We have been playing lots of games to embed our knowledge of the letters and sounds.

Sorting and ordering In numeracy we have been sorting objects into different groups. We have learnt we can sort things into colour, size and shape. We have shown mathematical skills by sorting dinosaurs and the families into 2 groups and then challenging to sort into many different groups.

Charity Events As a school we try and support many, many charities across the year. So far we have had a great time eating cakes at the McMillian Coffee Morning. Each child had the opportunity to buy a cupcake and help to raise money for McMillian cancer support. We raised a fabulous £238.10 We have also dressed up colourful to help raise money for children in need. We were lucky enough to be visited by Pudsey Bear and received a sticker from the lovely ladies who were with Pudsey Bear when we had a photo taken with him. We raised just over £300 We dressed up Christmassy for Cash for kids, we looked wonderful in lots of bright colours which helped to get us into the Christmas spirit. We raised close to £200 Thank you for all your help to raise money for this amazing charities.

We used the interactive white board to match the pictures to the sounds we heard. We worked as a team and took turns to move the pictures with our hands to the box on the screen. We were very proud of each other when we got them right.

Our snack time routine has changed and we now enjoy our milk and fruit as a social time with our friends at the snack table.

We have enjoyed sharing books with our friends. In reception we have shared stories every day and talked about our favourite stories to build our story tree. In nursery we have been ordering pictures from a lovely story called Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carle.

The children in Reception were lucky enough to be invited to Leeds Art Gallery to take part in an activity with some of our grown-ups We had an adventure on a bus which we though was great fun we even sat upstairs so we could see lots of interesting things from above. When we were at the gallery we made a scrap book with Amanda and looked at some sculptures that had been created by talented artists With a grown-up we talked about the sculptures, what we thought they could be used for, why they were there, where they had been… and our grown-ups wrote down what we said. We even became artists ourselves. We are looking forward to seeing the poem that is going to be created using our words and thoughts.

Whilst playing outside we have discovered lots of bugs in their natural habitat. We have talked about the different bugs we have found and how we can keep them safe. We looked at how the bugs moved and discussed what we thought they would feel like. We even built safe houses for them.

We had a visit from the road safety team who taught us how to stay safe when we are crossing and walking near a road. We placed pictures on a road scene so we knew what could be a danger to us when we cross a road. We listened to the story about the little teddy who fell out of his car seat and we sang some songs.

Mrs Rivers Music time Mrs Rivers comes to see us on a Thursday and together we play instruments and learn lots of wonderful songs. We move and dance to different pieces of music, our favourite is syncopated clock.

Look at our listening ears! We created our ears to help us hear all the different noises in the environment. We walked around the school grounds and listened carefully to all the different noises we could hear. This will help us when we begin to learn our letters and sounds.

Exploring outside We have enjoyed exploring in our outside area. We have shown our building and climbing skills, and we have explored with water and mud to create some lovely meals for our friends. Our sand pit has been very popular and lots of things have been made including castles and cement for building a house.

Exploring the environment We have had lots of fun and learnt some amazing things as we have explored through our environment. We have built, painted, been imaginative, cooked, cleaned, poured and emptied in all the different areas. We have also been learning the rules which help us to learn safely.