Since the new term began, we have been very busy in ICT. As you can see, we had lots of fun on our ICT treasure hunt. We managed to find lots of ICT around the school.

Reception Class have their assembly on Wednesday 27th January. We are working hard to practise our parts at school. Please help your child to learn their words. If they have a speaking part, their words will be in their book bags. We look forward to seeing you on Wednesday at 9.30. You are welcome to join us in the hall for a tea or coffee before.

Everyone had a good time at the Early Years party. After singing a rousing chorus of Jingle Bells, Santa came and the children all received a present from him.

On Wednesday 17th December the children from Reception Class enjoyed their trip to Fenwick's. The visit began when the children had the chance to visit Santa Claus in the Grotto. They discussed with each other what they were going to do for Santa and his reindeer on Christmas Eve. Some of the children had fantastic ideas and shared them with Santa. When the children went back outside they were mesmorised by the beautifully decorated shop window. The theme was 'Oliver Twist'. Many children said that they really enjoyed this part of the visit and they were keen to follow the story as they walked along.

Miss Dixon and the children from Reception Class

As part of our topic on 'Ourselves' the children have been learning about the importance of washing their hands.

Check out the size of these teeth! Children having been practising brushing their teeth and learning about the importance of regular brushing. They have also been trying to identify healthy and unhealthy food.

We have been developing our listening skills by identifying sounds made by musical instruments and the children are now making their own shakers by decorating small bottles and filling them with a variety of ingredients to help them distinguish the different sounds each make. Children will be using their shakers to accompany their singing too.

Children have also explored the different sounds made by tapping a variety of surfaces in the yard.

In Numeracy we have been learning about 2D and 3D shapes. We have been making models, shape pictures and doing a shape hunt outdoors.

We normally go for a walk in the locality to look for signs of Autumn but this year we are bringing Autumn into the classroom by having a variety of seasonal objects for children to explore at our 'Talking Table' which has just recently been introduced in Nursery and is proving to be very popular. Our next one will be on textures to develop the children's vocabulary related to touch.

On Friday 4th July school had a fun day. Our Early Years children dressed up as different characters and completed a CBeebies quiz to raise funds for our school. Children ate 'Sports candy' (Fruit) coloured pictures of characters from CBeebies and did some exercises and dancing to music from Lazy Town. As a result Reception children raised over £200 and morning and afternoon nursery raised over £200 for each session. I would just like to say a big well done to all of those children who took part and there'll be some prizes on the way for those who raised the most money,

Reception children have been learning French in the Spring Term. They have been learning to count to 20. learning colour names and names for family members. They have also been singing and responding to songs using actions to help reinforce the language. To celebrate their work they ended with a party, tasting French food which was very popular and not a scrap was wasted.

Reception children celebrated world book day by listening to German Fairy tales. They also learnt about some German traditions. They made paper chains to celebrate German unification, Shultutes- which are cones filled with sweets, toys and stationery, and given to children on their first day at school to sweeten the experience. They decorated gingerbread men and made the witch's house from Hansel and Gretel.

Reception children grew some hyacinths and entered them into theGateshead Spring Flower show. One of the entries won first prize and a second was highly commened.

In our Nursery we have lots of different areas that we like to explore and work in. We all have our own individual name cards that we put in the area that we are working in. On our name card we have a letterland character to help us identify our name. If the area is full we know that we have to visit a different area and put our name card in that area. We have over 14 different areas to work in every day and our teachers change the area activities regularly. We thought you might like to see some photographs of us in the different areas.

We are very proud of all our nursery children. The older boys and girls are being very kind and are looking after our new nursery children. The new children have settled in very well and are enjoying all of the nursery activities.The children particularly enjoyed making pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. We are also enjoying our current topic of Traditional Fairytales.The Early Years staff look forward to all of our children learning and growing.

The Nursery and Reception children have been reading Handra's Surprise. They have been identifying fruit, feeling the fruit and tasting it. They have done some art work and writing to create a display as well as learning about the country in which the story was set.

"I like painting with Mrs Spour and doing our exercises."

"Mrs Robson helps us with our work and helped us make puppets."

"I like it when Mrs Smith plays on the building carpet with me"