Highbury Infant School and Nursery

Purple Class 

Summer 1

We visited Hitchin Museum to have a look at their Paddington Bear exhibition. Mrs Newbery also brought in her Paddington teddy from when she was a little girl. 

Here are some pictures of other activities we have done this half term. 

This half term we had some caterpillars delivered. We watched them as they created their chrysalis and emerged. When they emerge, their wings are wet and we had to give them time to dry off. When they were ready, we watched them fly away. 

To start off our topic of Minibeasts, we had a visit from Safari Stu.  He had lots of different animals to show us. We had the opportunity to hold all of the animals apart from the skunk but if we didn't want to hold we could touch and look at the animals.

We saw Pebbles the tortoise, Bob the Lesser Tenrec, Diego the Cameleon, Jack the Chuckawalla Lizard, Kevin the Kenyan Sand Boa snake (small), Keith Lemon the Royal Python , Arnold the Albino Skunk and Twiggy the Mexican Redknee Tarantula.

It was an amazing experience and enjoyed by everybody.

Spring 2

We read the story The Three Billy Goats Gruff and took part in lots of activities to help us remember the story. We cut out bridges, acted out the story and practised writing key words in gloop. 

In maths, we practised our number bonds using flowers and their pots and shaving foam to practise writing numbers. 

For World Book Day, we dressed up as our favourite book characters. 

When reading books about pirates, we went on a treasure hunt around the school. A pirate had left some treasure somewhere in the school grounds and we had to find it! We went on an adventure to the woods, following the clues. The treasure was delicious! 

Spring 1

Welcome back and  Happy New Year to everyone.  We hope you enjoyed your Christmas celebrations.  

Our topic for this half term is 'The world around us'. 

We started by sharing news of our Christmas holidays and celebrations.  It was a lovely opportunity to allow each child a chance to talk to the rest of the class about what was important to them and to share some pictures on Tapestry in some cases. 

We learned about our own homes and locality and each drew a map of our journey to school.  We had to look carefully on the way to school and see what we could notice to put on our map.  It was fun comparing how different our friends' journeys are. Then we talked about and compared our houses, looking at similarities and differences, and talked about what is important in our home. We all enjoyed making houses out of boxes and used them to create our very own 'Highbury Avenue'.   

We used our ICT skills to build houses on the computer too.  

We widened our horizons to learn about houses all around the world and how and why they are different from our own homes.  We looked at himba huts, rainbow houses, floating houses and gers amongst others.  We all painted a house that is different from our own. 

We all contributed something that we have learned about houses and homes to make our very own class book. 

In maths we have been learning about subitising and now we are enjoying learning about money and playing in our class shop. 

Autumn 2

 We started this half term learning about Diwali. We enjoyed the story of Rama and Sita and finding out about how Diwali is celebrated around the world.  

The same week we celebrated  bonfire night. We worked in groups to make up fantastic firework poems thinking about what fireworks and bonfires look like and the sounds they make. We had fun with glittery and sparkly firework pictures and used out ICT skills to paint pictures on the computer. 

We marked Remembrance Day along with the rest of the school as we stood silently to remember all those who have given so much in so many wars. We wore our lovely felt poppies which we made using our sewing skills. We also painted poppies in different ways using different textures. 
 

Continuing our theme of light  and dark, we have been thinking about things that give us light and those that do not. We also talked about the differences between natural and made made light. We have enjoyed a dark den in the classroom.  We are all very much enjoyed our Pyjama day when we wore our PJs to school, had hot chocolate and enjoyed stories by torch light. We also talked about nocturnal and diurnal animals and the things we do in the day time and at night. 

Now that we are into December we are starting on lots of fun Christmas activities. We have put our tree up in the classroom and have an Advent Calendar we are opening each day. We have been making paper chains to decorate the room. 

Last week we made a display called ‘Winter Penguins’. Some of us painted penguins and some of us made penguins out of 2D shapes. 

In the run up to Christmas we have had lots of fun 'cooking' Peppermint Creams and Gingerbread biscuits. The classroom smelled fantastic! 

It was fun to make our own paper chains and a sparkly Christmas decoration to take home. ..

We really enjoyed learning all the songs for our Christmas 'Born in a Barn' production, which we  hope parents have all been able to enjoy. 

Happy Christmas Everyone! 

Autumn 1

Hello and Welcome to Purple Class. 

We have had a very enjoyable start to the new term getting to know each other and learning all about school life and routines.  We are pleased to say that everybody has settled in well.  We are enjoying sharing the children's 'All about Me' books with them, it is a perfect way to get to know a little more about them and for them to start to build relationships with us.  

The children have each painted a self-portrait using a mirror to look at their hair, skin, eyes and lips and choose the colours they thought appropriate for them.  The results are gorgeous and as individual as they children themselves. 

Over the next weeks we will continue to think about some of our favourite things, our feelings and our senses.  We will start on some work exploring numbers and read lots of our favourite stories as well as beginning to learn our phonics sounds. 

...

Summer 1 

To celebrate World Book Day, we created a display to show our favourite book characters. 

We talked about the different seasons and what happens in each season. We created a spring display and used our phonics to label our pictures. 

During our topic of knights, kings, queens and princesses, we created a whole class story. We also created our own shields and split pin knights. 

Spring 1 

Our topic this half term is The World Around Us. We will be looking at a wide range of fiction and non-fiction books. Some of these will include; Kipper’s Toy Box, A place to call home, There’s a boy like me, Time to play and Clothes around the world. We will also be learning about Chinese New Year and how people may celebrate.

In foundation stage, we had a PJ day. As part of PJ day we had stories in the hall read by torch light. In class we had a bedtime drink and snack (hot chocolate and a biscuit) and designed pyjamas. It was a really fun day!