The Easter Bunny has been very kind and paid us an early visit. He scattered Easter eggs all over our playground for us to find! We divided ourselves into our house teams and had lots of fun collecting as many eggs as we could. We then helped Mrs Crooks count up all the eggs at the end.

We have kicked off the children's return to school with a very busy science week! We took part in a 'there's a hole in my bucket' experiment, where the children experimented with a number of materials to try and fix the bucket. Children also had the opportunity to take part in a fizzing rocks experiment, testing different substances on litmus papers and baking some yummy flapjack! Our classroom has also become home to some exciting new additions! We have a tank of tadpoles which we are watching closely as they grow and develop into frogs - the children have had some fantastic discussions about the changes they are expecting to see and talking about life cycles in general.

It has been so exciting welcoming all of the children back into class this week and it is lovely to see them settle so quickly into routine again. Whilst they were away, the FSU staff have been making lots of improvements to the outdoor area - the children were very eager to get creative upon their return! We have been making some fantastic obstacle courses, whizzing around on the bikes, constructing houses, experimenting with water play and lots more! 

We had a fantastic Christmas party in the FSU! We played lots of games including musical statues, musical chairs, pin the red nose on Rudolph and pass the parcel. It was so exciting winning prizes for the games, but we were happy when our friends won prizes too! Our snack time was different to usual too, we had some fruit but also some special party snacks! We all pulled a cracker each and wore our party hats while we listened to Christmas music and we spent lots of the day having a good dance... It has made us all very excited for Christmas! 

We followed a recipe to make some chocolate playdough! We had to measure each of the ingredients carefully and use our muscles to knead the dough. It was especially fun filling boxes of chocolates with our chocolate playdoh, they almost looked real and it made us all feel very hungry!

This week we spent some time reading the nativity story. After that, the children were challenged to reenact the story using our nativity figures and stable - they told a super story! The children were shocked to learn that Mary arrived in Bethlehem on a donkey and that Jesus was born in a stable! It was also an important reminder of why we celebrate Christmas. 

We have been getting into the Christmas spirit in the FSU! We started by putting up our Christmas tree together and we think it looks fantastic! We have also enjoyed using the Christmas dressing up costumes to create our own roleplay ideas, it has been especially fun getting cosy next to the fire in the home corner and some of us have taken on the role of Father Christmas' elves by writing Christmas lists and wrapping presents. Our Christmas decorations this year also look super and we hope you love hanging them on your trees at home!

The children spend lots of their time both outdoors and indoors building walls and houses, so we decided to work together to figure out how to construct a perfect wall. We spoke about how a wall should be built in order to keep it sturdy and looked at some pictures to help us with this. The children noticed how the bricks overlap so that there aren't any long cracks in the wall and this allowed them to create their own huge walls which stood strong! 

We have been using water colours to see what colours we can create by mixing two or more colours together. We each had the challenge of making a fire picture and we had to look closely at example photos to see what colour we need. We used a combination of reds, yellows, oranges and browns to create some super flames on our pages!

During a maths lesson the F2's took to the playground to make some different shapes using a range of equipment. We made some fantastic squares, triangles, rectangles and circles. We then had a hunt around the playground to see what different things we could find that are these shapes. 

We have been experimenting with the different sounds that musical instruments make and learning the names of some new instruments too. We have really enjoyed practicing creating rhythms and learning how to discover the rhythm in a song. Each of us had a turn at using different instruments, playing them in time with a piece of music and we must say, we are fantastic musicians!

In FSU we particularly enjoy looking after the environment and our outdoor area. We have been looking at growth, change and decay over time by planting new plants and helping to dig up those that are no longer alive. We have also been learning about how plants and nature can look different throughout the year. We have used some spare branches, grass, conkers and bulbs to create some fantastic masterpieces! Below you can see a huge man we worked together to create with all natural resources. 

We have enjoyed making some Halloween crafts this week, we used our best cutting and sticking skills to create our very own jack-o-lanterns! We have also made some skeletons with some white straws and we had to think very carefully about where to place the bones. They looked fantastic! We have also loved dressing up in spooky costumes, some of us have spent the week as witches and others as skeletons. On the last day before half-term we had our very own Halloween den filled with lights and decorations set up in the classroom and we had lots of fun roleplaying in there all day. 

This week we took part in outdoor learning with Mrs Butterworth and it was so much fun! Lots of us were excited to hunt for minibeasts and we came across lots of worms and ladybirds. We spoke about the different leaves that can be found on the trees, and how they look different depending on which tree they have come from and what time of year it is. We were also very busy pulling weeds from our outdoor area, making it look nice and tidy, ready to plant some new plants in the coming weeks. We did a super job!

We have loved taking part in dance sessions as a part of PE recently. We have been learning our very own dance routine and have been trying our best to stay in time with the music. We also get to play some of our favourite games to warm up, such as duck duck goose and musical statues!

Some of us have been making our own play dough this week as a part of a 'dough babies' science experiment. We followed a simple recipe using salt, flour and water and used our best mixing skills. Whilst we were making the dough we spoke about the changes we could see happening and how once it was all mixed together it couldn't be separated again! 

Our first few weeks back to school have been fantastic! All of the FSU staff are so proud of how the children have settled in after a long break. It has been lovely seeing the children busy catching up with friends and it sounds like everyone had a super summer! We have enjoyed playing outside on the bikes, making mud pies in the mud kitchen, experimenting with musical instruments and building some fantastic walls using a range of tools. During the sunny days we saw lots of different insects, and we were all especially excited by the ladybirds! We have even been using our mathematician heads to experiment with the weighing scales, sort some toys into size order and sort fruits into different colours. Some of you may have already seen our amazing paintings of trees, roses and rainbows we have created in connection to 'our wonderful world' topic and our display is looking great so far!