This week we have had a very exciting and busy time in class!

We were lucky to welcome a visitor from Royal Cornwall, who taught us all about farm to fork. The children were completely fascinated and did an amazing job retaining lots of the information they were told.

In English, we began to innovate the story Augustus and His Smile. The children enjoyed changing the animal, the location, and what Augustus loses, using their creativity and imagination. We also read two other stories by Catherine Rayner, which the children absolutely loved.

In Maths, we have been using tens and ones to help us with addition and subtraction, building confidence in understanding numbers.

During DT, we tasted a variety of fruits and compared their taste, sharing our opinions thoughtfully. In RE, we learned about Jesus and the lepers, focusing on how Jesus might have felt when only one person returned to say thank you.

In PSHE, we played group games and discussed the importance of challenging ourselves to try something new, learning that taking small steps and keeping on trying helps us succeed.

In PE, we continued to explore and practise different gymnastics moves, and in Music we sang using high and low voices, kept a steady beat, and learned a new song.

Finally, Reception really wowed us with their fantastic plant knowledge this week!

Well done to all the children for their enthusiasm and brilliant learning.

This week we have been exploring the properties of straw!

Some of the older children have found that it was really bendy and not very strong; they weren't sure how the first little pig was able to build a house with it, and they weren't surprised that the wolf was able to blow it down.

Other younger children enjoyed playing with it as a sensory experience; watching as it fell and moved with the air (the big bad wolf blowing!).

Friday 30th January

We have had a great week of learning in class.

In phonics we have continued to explore level 3. This week we have learnt /ai/ and /ee/ . The children have amazed Janet with their reading and writing this week.

In maths Miss Wilson explored the numbers 6, 7 and 8 with the children and then they began to explore 'one more'. We have great mathematicians in class that use wonderful mathematical vocabulary.  

In PE we used BIG parts of our body and small parts of our body to balance. The children were absolutely amazing at this!

In English the children have written key words and captions to match pictures from Snow White and have also explored what an adjective is and used adjectives to describe characters.

The children have also painted their tree snowflakes, discussed what it would be like if the world were frozen and decorated icy pictures, they have collaged polar animals , enjoyed playing with ice and using wonderful vocab to discuss what is happening to the ice as they were holding, and sooooo much more!

We wish you a wonderful weekend

The Foundation Team 

It's been another busy week at Darite with some wonderful learning going on across the school. It is always makes me smile to see what the children have been learning and for them to show me their work. There are a few exciting events happening over the final two weeks of this half term. Next Thursday we are welcoming Jane Griffiths - an author - to school to share her latest book and talk about how she gets her ideas. On the 10th of February, the PTFA are hosting their Valentine's Disco! I know a lot of children have signed up for this but if they haven't put their names down yet and would like to come, please let Mrs Norris know. Finally, a reminder that the 13th of February is an INSET day. School will be closed to pupils on that day. Safeguarding I am the designated safeguarding lead (DSL) for Darite Academy. All staff take safeguarding very seriously in school and will report any worries that they have or that are passed to them to me. Should I be unavailable, both Mrs Lake and Mrs Norris are trained to act as Deputy Designated Safeguard Leads (DDSL). They will be able to listen to you should I be unavailable.

This week at Storytellers, the children have been learning more about space by exploring the Sun, Moon and Earth, and discussing how they differ in size, colour and shape. They also enjoyed looking closely at our wooden planet models, using them to name the planets, compare sizes, and discuss what they noticed.

 To bring their learning to life, the children created their own papier-mache models using balloons, paper and glue. They loved ripping, sticking and layering the paper, carefully covering their shapes to make the Sun, Moon and Earth. We talked about which were bigger and which were smaller, and the children enjoyed comparing them as they worked.

 Once dry, the children had great fun painting their creations - bright yellow for the Sun, blue and green for the Earth, and soft greys and whites for the Moon. They were so proud to see them come to life and loved talking about what they had made.

 This activity supported creativity, fine motor skills, teamwork and early science learning - all while having lots of messy fun! We can't wait to display them in our space area soon!

Snow White writing and drawing shapes!

We've had a brilliant couple of weeks in Year 1 / Year 2. We have been finishing off our learning around traditional tales and finished writing our stories. We adapted the Snow White story to choose our own characters. We then wrote our stories up in neat to be displayed in the library. We have used adjectives, suffixes, capital letters and full stops in our writing. We have also done art work linked to Snow White and drew characters from the story in the magic mirror. 

On Tuesday there was Art club after school. We used colouring pens to decorate snakes and then used our cutting skills to make them move. The children were brilliant at taking their time to create their patterns and we were so happy with the finished result! 

Next week, we are moving onto writing about Mary Anning. We have been researching her in History and we're now going to write our own information texts about Mary Anning. 

We've had a great start to the half term. 

Year 1 / Year 2 Team 

Attention and Communication

Happy New Year.
We hope you had a lovely Christmas and New year. It is great to be back and continue our focus on language and Communication. By focusing on engaging the children in our group sessions, their  attention to the activities can then extend to other activities. In the pictures you will see two activities 'Fun with Food' and 'Attention Autism'.

Fun with Food is an actiivty to help focus the children using their senses. The activity starts with a transition song:

Its time for fun with food
Its time for fun with food 
Look, smell, touch and taste 
its time for fun with food

The song helps transition the children into the activity in a fun way. Once seated the children are able to see the food presented and can choose to smell, touch and play. There is no emphasis on tasting the food, althought they are welcome to try some, as the focus is to increase their attention span. For children that struggle with different foods, this can also be a fun way to experience different food without the pressure to taste any of it. A word mat is also produced with symbols and pictures, here words can be introduced to describe the food. 

Attention Autism is also an activity that focuses on maintaining the childrens attention. It is set up in 4 different stages:

Stage 1 - to help focus their attention on adult led, fun objects that often spin, wind or make a noise.
Stage 2 - to help sustain their attention also on an adult - led activity.
Stage 3 - where the children learn to shift their attention within a small group as they take turns in a game.
Stage 4 - children are given individual tasks  to complete after a group demonstration, encouraging independence and the ability to transition between activities while maintaining engagement. 

Currently we are up to Stage 3 and will soon be introducing Stage 4.

It has been a busy week at Brunel full of learning opportunities for our children. Please enjoy browsing through this week's edition of The Brunel Bulletin.

Exciting ice sculptures!

What a brilliant week it has been in Tregantle Class!

We thoroughly enjoyed a special session with our KS2 Reading Pioneers. The children were completely immersed in the stories and listened with such focus and excitement. The older children did a fantastic job with their storytelling - they were wonderful role models and made the experience really memorable for our EYFS learners.

This week also brought some very exciting science learning as we unveiled our ice sculptures from the freezer. The children were absolutely delighted with the results and fascinated as they watched the ice melt. They carefully observed how the sculptures changed in shape and consistency, sharing their ideas and predictions as the ice transformed.

We have also seen some amazing writing this week. Many children have become true authors, using their growing phonics skills to write books of their very own. We are so impressed with their enthusiasm, creativity, and confidence - very impressive work indeed!

In maths, we have had some marvellous mathematicians exploring numbers to 8. The children worked hard to find more and less, showing great understanding through practical activities and discussions.

What a wonderful week of learning, curiosity, and achievement. We are so proud of everything the children have accomplished - well done, Tregantle Class!

An Exciting Half-Term of Learning

This half term has been an incredibly busy and exciting one across Nessa and Kensa class, with both groups diving deep into fascinating topics and producing some truly impressive learning.

In Nessa Class, our theme has been Ancient Egypt, and the children have been fully immersed in discovering what life was like thousands of years ago along the River Nile. One of the highlights has certainly been our hands-on projects. The class worked brilliantly together to design and build their very own pyramids, exploring how these iconic structures were engineered and why they were so important in Egyptian culture. Even more impressively, the children created a large cardboard sarcophagus, complete with intricate designs and symbols inspired by the artefacts found inside real ancient tombs.

To bring history to life through creativity, the children also produced their own Egyptian-inspired artwork based on the vibrant and expressive style of contemporary Egyptian artist Hossam Dirar. Their pieces are full of colour, pattern, and personality, and we are incredibly proud of the artistic confidence they have shown.

Of course, no study of Ancient Egypt would be complete without a closer look at the hieroglyphic writing system, ancient burial traditions, and the vital role of the River Nile. The pupils have been intrigued by how people lived, farmed, travelled, and honoured their pharaohs. To add a delicious twist, we even spent time in the kitchen baking and constructing gingerbread pyramids, which brought plenty of excitement-and lovely smells-to the classroom.

Meanwhile, in Kensa Class, the focus has been on the Arctic, with the children exploring one of the most unique and extreme habitats on Earth. They have been researching Arctic animals and using what they have learned to create their own imaginative Arctic creatures. Their creative writing has been particularly impressive this term, with rich descriptions, adventurous plots and beautifully crafted ideas inspired by icy landscapes and wildlife.

Across the school, we have also continued running our popular Nintendo Switch Club, which has once again been a huge hit with pupils. The club offers a fun, social way to build teamwork, problem-solving and communication skills, and it has been wonderful to see so many children enjoying it each week. It has been a fantastic half term full of creativity, curiosity and enthusiasm-well done to everyone involved!

This week in pre-school the children have completed some lovely activities in relation to showing 'Kindness'.  We made our own kindness trees where we gave affirmations of kindness and powerful statements about each other to show how that person made a positive impact on their friendships.  We also wrote for the children their own ideas of how they are kind. We decorated the trees in lots of colourful hearts, and they made such a beautiful display above our big class kindness tree.

In our creative area the water colour paints have been popular to make special cards, and also to paint some pictures of people who can help us. 

This week in our phonics, the focus of our activities was on The Police, we enjoyed sound bingo, sound stories and other phonics games.

The children have really been enthusiastic about using their name mats in the morning to practice their names, and even some of our younger children have shown the beginnings of mark making.  This is a great start in their fine motor development.

Mrs. Butlins' music lesson was enjoyed with reception class; this week we did group songs and nursery rhymes using lots of actions.

Lastly, with an increase in a sickness bug going around the pre-school and school, can I send a polite reminder that it is our policy that it must be 48hours from the last episode of sickness and/or diarrhea before a child returns to pre-school.

This is to eliminate the spread of the bug as soon as possible.

Thank you for your understanding.

The Pre-School Team.