2017-2018
Park with our buddies
Thank you buddies for being amazing this year! We enjoyed our time at the park and we will miss you!
Lifeguard visit
Class R had another special visitor from Mr Barwise who worked at our school as a trainee teacher! Mr Barwise is a lifeguard for the RNLI and works in Liverpool where he lives. He talked to us about what the RNLI is and how important it is. We learnt about the different coloured and patterned flags that we see on beaches and in the sea that are there to keep us all safe. Mrs Evans and I were impressed with Class Rs listening, which is very helpful when learning about safety.
Mr Barwise showed us the lifeguard equipment and we even got to dress up as real lifeguards!!
Firefighter visit
As part of our ‘Let’s Pretend’ topic, Class R have been learning about different people who can help us. We had a special visit from firefighter Dean or as we know him- Edie’s daddy!
Dean talked to us about what firefighters do in their jobs, showed us a special video about Derbyshire fire and rescue and also let us try on his uniform and look at his special car!
We really enjoyed meeting Dean and learning lots of new things. Some of Class R said they would like to be firefighters when they grow up.
Boogie beats!
Class R enjoyed another lovely session of Boogie Beats at Smalley Hall residential home. This session, our teacher Becky taught us the story of the tortoise and the hare and we retold the story using song, dance and signs.
Well done Class R for being superstars as always and making lots of people smile!
Football fever!
Class R have got football fever!!! We are loving the World Cup at the moment and it has meant we can learn about teams, countries, flags, winning, losing, keeping on trying and being a team!
We were so excited about England winning yesterday so we set up our own penalty shootout game. The children came up with ideas of what to use for goalposts and they enjoyed trying to score goals!
Come on England 🏴😊
Our Boogie Beat and Smalley Hall partnership
After lunch on Friday, 15 of the children from Class R walked down to Smalley Hall residential home to meet Becky from Boogie Beat and some of the residents and carers from Smalley Hall.
The children participated in a music and story session all about the 3 Billy Goats Gruff. The children learnt to sign characters and objects from the story as well as sing all about the goats. The residents also joined in, using the instruments and singing the songs; the residents loved seeing the children.
After the session, using the Derby Rocks that the residents had painted, the children went into the newly developed courtyard and found all 19 rocks. The children then had fun hiding them on the way back to school. We all enjoyed a light refreshment before heading back to school.
The children were an absolute credit to our school, they listened so well, were very polite and participated in all of the activities.
We look forward to our partnership continuing and we are looking forward to next month already.
Flower festival with our buddies
A day of celebration!
Class R enjoying a day of Royal Wedding celebrations.
Congratulations Harry and Meghan 🎉
Royal Reception 👑
We had a really fun day celebrating the royal wedding!
From caterpillar to butterfly...
In Class R we have been learning about lots of different minibeasts that we see in our gardens. Over the past few weeks we have been following the lives of our very own class caterpillars. They started as tiny caterpillars and grew and grew whilst munching away on their special food. After a couple of weeks we saw them change into chrysalides. We had to be really careful at this stage as the magical change was happening! About 10 days later, we discovered that our beautiful butterflies had emerged. Class R have amazed us with the amount they have learnt over the past few weeks about our caterpillars and butterflies. It has been so wonderful to see the curiosities develop and to hear that children have been telling their grown ups at home all about it!
Our trip to Bluebells
We had a wonderful trip last week at Bluebell Dairy. Here are some photos of some of the things we did. We had a brilliant trip teacher called Kelly and she taught us lots of new facts about the animals at the farm. It was a super day and to finish off the day we enjoyed the play area and of course, tasted some delicious ice cream!
The Cup of Courage
Can you remember why the girls received the Eddy Parry Cup of Courage
in our Gold Book assembly today?
Robin Hood record
If anyone likes dressing up, supporting charity and spending time with family and friends this could be for you 😊
Archery
Here is Class R enjoying their archery lesson in PE this week. It was tricky to begin with, but the more we practised, the easier it became. Well done Class R!
What’s in the garden?
We have started our new topic in Class R called ‘What’s in the garden?’ This week we have been planting seeds to grow different plants for our playground. We’ve planted a sunflower each and lots of nasturtiums. We can’t wait to see them growing, it’s very exciting!
Competition spotting!
I spotted this!
A chance to design a national book token and win prizes!
https://www.worldbookday.com/competitions/design-national-book-token-competition-2018/
Easter holiday sunshine!
Happy Easter holidays from the school hens! Here they are enjoying the lovely sunshine... the sunshine gives them a great opportunity to preen themselves and have a dustbath. It also makes them feel relaxed as you can see 😊
Beautiful Easter Hats and a gorgeous parade!
Ready steady go!
Thank you Class R for taking part and raising money for Sport Relief. We had a great afternoon with Mr Wildig organising skipping and boxercise activities for us.
Newts!
Wow! Class R had some very special visitors today! We found 2 smooth newts in our outdoor area. How fantastic that we have amazing wildlife visiting us- we are very lucky! We are now going to use these visitors to inspire learning.
See if you can find out some facts about smooth newts and comment below.
A special Mother's Day service
Thank you so much to the ten members of our SING group who performed at the Mother's Day service at church this morning.
You all sang beautifully and made us all very proud.
We hope you've enjoyed the rest of your day. Thank you for sharing your time with us this morning
I love my mum because...
Class R sharing with each other why they love their mum. Here are just a few reasons why... ‘she makes nice cakes’ ‘she gives me kisses and cuddles’ ‘she lets me play outside’
Happy Mother’s Day to all our lovely mums!
World Book Day 2018
It may have been a week later than planned - but we all had great fun dressing up as book characters today. Thank you for all of the beautiful costumes and ideas about books and stories. What a great day we've had!
Book Fair 2018
A very BIG thank you to all the children, parents, grandparents, carers, teaching assistants and teachers who attended our travelling book fair over the last week. It was wonderful to feel the buzz and excitement for the books on the shelves. The children's faces were full of smiles as they glanced over all of the books that were on offer. For some children it was very hard to choose which one to have and for some they zoomed in for the book they had had their eye on for a while!
As you can see from our poster, from our sales, we have been able to choose nearly £500 worth of brand new books for the children to enjoy in school - BRILLIANT!
If your child didn't get chance to visit the book fair this time, then they will have been given a £1 book voucher towards the cost of a book at your local book shop today. The details on where you can spend the voucher are on the back of it.
Just a reminder that tomorrow we will be dressing up.......
Look forward to seeing you in your costumes tomorrow for World Book day - Smalley style!
Thank you!
Miss Tulley to the rescue!
Look at the photo I received from Miss Tulley today! Can you guess what it is and where it has come from?
It's from the water feeder that our chickens drink from! Miss Tulley has been keeping a special eye on the hens at her house and also on the water situation. The chickens must have fresh water at all times and these containers had frozen solid twice today. Miss Tulley has emptied and then refilled them with warm water. Thank you Miss Tulley, you're a Super Chicken Carer and the hens love you for it! xx
Here's one of my favourite photographs from warmer times!
Happy hens!
Brrrrrr! I hope that you have all enjoyed the snow today. It has been very, very cold... because of the forecast the school hens have been staying at my house so that I can regularly check their water and feed. Today they have had a big bowl of spaghetti to warm them up 😋 and some fresh (warm!) water. It was too cold for the chickens to have some exercise outside of their coop but they still got chance to experience the snow when they pecked it off my wellies!
Snow Day
Hope all the children in Class R are having a great day in the snow! Take lots of photographs and bring them into school to share with everyone.
Here are a few ideas:
Building a snowman, looking for footprints from animals and birds, sledging, building an igloo, snowballing, making a snow angel. Whatever you do enjoy it!
Oxford Owl
Calling all Parents and Carers,
To celebrate WORLD BOOK DAY and as a reminder of this super resource - here is a link to Oxford Owl, which allows you to read and share 250 free online books, ranging from age 3 up to age 11.
All you need to do is register (join us) with an email address (this is free) and then follow the link to the ebooks; lots of the books have fun, helpful activities to enjoy too.
Please click on the link to register:
https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/?selLanguage=en&mode=hub
Let us know what you think by commenting below - did you find it useful?
Happy reading!
Snow Challenges!
Can you think creatively and solve the following challenges?
Design a new vehicle that can travel through snow.
Build different size/denisity snowballs and measure their melt times.
Feed the Birds - in the snowy weather they need food. Try to hang food and put some on the ground so you can see which are ground feeders. Spend time identifying birds - they are lot easier to see against the snowy background. Sketch the birds, so you can identify them later at school (if no access to bird books or internet). Spend 30 mins watching the birds, count them, plot bar charts etc.
101 creative uses of a sledge
What is the best shape for a snow house. You want to build a snow house, but it takes a lot of time and a lot of snow. What shape house should you build to get the most floor area for the least amount of effort? What other ideas do you have? If you could build it against a wall (i.e. one side already made for you) what shape would you build?
Be creative and answer any of the 5 challenges above. Post pictures/comments as answers.
Fun in the snow
Class R wrapped up warm and enjoyed a play in the snow this week. We were playing just as more snow was falling! It reminded us of the Bear Hunt story and the swirling whirling snowstorm. We loved rolling up the snow into balls to make a little snowman.
What is your favourite thing to do in the snow?
Easter Hat Parade
A letter announcing a lovely event for children in Class R, 1 and 2 went out on the last day of term. Get your thinking hats on to create a gorgeous Easter hat for the last day of next half term.
We look forward to seeing your creations.
Super Bears!
Super bears are go! We’ve had a super time in Class R turning our teddy bears into superheroes. We each made a cape to help our super bears fly!
Me and my teddy bear
Class R are really enjoying their Teddy Bear topic. Here they are collaging teddies, tasting the three bears porridge and sharing bear story books with their friends. Keep checking our website for more bear activities from Class R.
Gymnastics fun!
Class R are really enjoying their PE lessons this term with Mr Willdig and Miss Tulley. Their learning focus is gymnastics look at them practising their skills.
Phonics in Class R
Class R have been working very hard in their Letters and Sounds lessons. We've been practising our blending of CVC words and remembering our tricky words. To help us with our writing we have been improving our fine motor skills through Dough Disco.
Team work reading and spelling!
In Class R, 1 and 2 we are all working together to learn how to read and spell all of the tricky words from our phonic and English lessons. These are those words that don't follow the normal segmenting and blending way of reading. We help the children to recognise these by sight.
In Class R, the children are working hard on the Phase 2 words.
In Class 1, the children are working hard on the 3 & 4 words.
In Class 2, the children are working hard on the Phase 5 and the Year 2 exception words.
Please help your child to read and spell these words.
Many thanks
The Early Years and Key Stage 1 Team
Keeping toasty warm in December
For the beginning of December we enjoyed a lovely treat of warm toast to start out day!
Independent snack time
This week in Class R we have started our new independent snack time. The children can choose when they would like their snack and help themselves. It's brilliant to see everyone being independent. First we have to find our name card, pop it in the basket, choose our fruit, take our milk from the fridge and then enjoy a snack and chat at our snack stop.
We have also been talking about where our fruit has travelled from each day. We have a world map on the wall so that we can see the fruit's journey before it ends up in our tummy! Today our clementines were from Spain and the pears were from Belgium.
Toy Story!
Our Harvest thanksgiving
Well done to all the children and staff involved in our special Harvest assembly today. Our hall was packed with warmth as we shared our special Harvest message; every child, from our youngest to our oldest, did their best to share our important message.
Thank you to the Year Two children who led our assembly today. You did yourselves so proud;all that practising, loud voices, team work and belief that you could do it - well done.
It was wonderful to have a full hall today. Thank you for supporting us.
With your kind donations, we raised £233.21 for The British Red Cross charity which will go towards helping the Caribbean children affected by the recent hurricanes. Thank you so very much.
Happy half term.
Grubby Club - week four finale!
What fun! Thank you everyone!
Grubby Club - week 3!
A lovely evening to be outside!
Meeting our buddies!
Class R had a wonderful time meeting their buddies.
Autumn Walk
What a beautiful day for an Autumn walk! Class R got their wellies, boots and coats on ready to look for the signs of Autumn on our walk. We found some beautiful leaves, berries, fungi, conkers and acorns. We had to think carefully about what we should and shouldn't touch as we saw lots of prickly leaves, berries and fungi and we talked about why we shouldn't touch everything we see.
For the very last part of our walk we enjoyed an exhilarating run all the way across the field!
Take a look at us on our walk and the things that we saw and found!
Superhero day 2017
Our annual superhero day for Gold September was another huge success this year.
The children looked amazing and we raised £396 by selling badges and wearing non uniform for this fabulous cause.
Well done to our super children!
Embark Federation - Forest schools training
All staff from Embark Federation received excellent training last night on Forest Schools/Outdoor Learning.
This was led by our very own Mr Goodburn at Kilburn Juniors and it was such an inspiring session that even the rain didn't dampen our spirits!
The staff took part in a number of well thought out activities that suit the outdoors rather than the classroom. What made the session even better was the enthusiasm of all of our staff and the creative thinking of how these can be adapted and used for different subjects and ages.
This is all part of our commitment to give our pupils a wide range of opportunities and a first class education.
Huge thank you to Mr Goodburn and all our staff for a memorable training session.
Enjoy the pictures below!
First Gold Book
Today was the first Gold Book Assembly of the year and it was EYFS and Key Stage 1's turn. This is a special assembly where the class teachers choose 6 children to celebrate something fantastic.
This week all of Class R had a mention in the Gold Book for settling in well and being independent at lunch times- we are very proud of them all.
There were also 6 children chosen for their hard work with reading at home and their super self-portraits. They got to stand at the front of the hall and collect a sticker from Mrs Mason and Mrs Reckless whilst everyone clapped.
Class R sat and listened very well to the assembly and we sensibly walked back to our classroom whilst the rest of the school sang us the Embark song. Well done Class R on another super week! :-)
First week in Class R
Well, we have had a brilliant first week of school in Class R! The children have made us very proud, settling in, making friends and growing in confidence in their brand new class. We have had a tour of the whole school, meeting the grown ups who work at Smalley and we even managed to squeeze all of us into Mrs Mason's office!!! We then had to be very quiet as Mrs Bounds answered the office telephone. We've also enjoyed some ring games in the big hall. Myself and Mrs Evans have really enjoyed the first week and we can't wait for many more fantastic weeks! Well done Class R :-)
Welcome back!
As you may have seen, the Smalley school hens have been away over the summer. They have had a holiday at Miss Tulley's house so that they could have some refurbishments on their coop. They are now back at school and ready to see everyone on Monday 😊
Chick news!
Yipeeee exciting news today- One of Mavis' eggs has hatched. Welcome to the world little chick! As you can see it isn't a yellow chick, but yellow and brown. The breed is called a Cream Legbar hen. Lovely addition to our last week of school :-)
