Class Hughes will have swimming on Wednesday mornings and PE on Friday mornings....

Please sign up to help with swimming.... Please talk to any adult in Reception who will sign you up....

 Normally, each half term I change the class topic, however, the children have asked if we can carry on our topic of Minibeasts after half term.....they are really enjoying it, and often ask to take pots and magnifying glasses out onto the field at lunchtimes to find minibeasts.
......next term we hope to watch some tadpoles grow into frogs and 'grow our own butterflies from caterpillars'!

Also, just to let you know that although she had a slight set-back and required a little more recovery time, Mrs Rushbrooke is doing well and we are sure she will be able to return to school after half term!

For this weeks cooking session, we made cupcake spiders! We used strawberry laces for their 8 legs, and mouth, buttons and chocolate chips for their eyes and coated the 'body' with red butter-cream icing. We even drew a web for our spiders to sit on! 
Once again, thank-you to Miss Boggis for helping us make these yummy Minibeasts!

Today, our school took part in the 'Outdoor Classroom' day. Class Hughes decided that we wanted to do some 'rubbings' with crayons outside. Armed with a trolley full of paper and crayons, we all went out onto the school field in the lovely sunshine and created some fantastic rubbings from trees and leaves to benches and parts of the apparatus. We all had lots of fun and some of us filled numerous pieces of paper with colourful rubbings and patterns! Such a simple, but fun activity!

Thank you to those who have filled in and returned permission/payment slips for our class trip to Colchester Zoo. We are just waiting on the last few slips to be returned, and then we can put the parent/helper names into a hat and determine who will be accompanying us on the trip, and let you know.
We use the 'names in a hat' system to ensure all those who have volunteered to help are given a fair chance.

Many thanks,
​Miss Rushbrooke

Again, linked with our Minibeasts topic, this weeks cooking was 'fruit butterflies'. We used orange segments for the wings, grapes for the body and chip-sticks for the antenna. This was all held together with cocktail sticks- these were quite sharp so Miss Boggis talked us through how to carefully thread them through the pieces of fruit. 
Once again, a big thank-you to Miss Boggis for helping us today! 

This afternoon, we were in luck with the glorious weather, and ventured out onto the school field to undertake our minibeast hunt. Each of us had a minibeast checklist, a clipboard and a pencil, and explored the forest areas and hedgerows of the school field, searching for bugs and beetles, and once we had spotted each minibeast, we could give it a tick on our checklist.
We found everything from ants and spiders to butterflies and millipedes. We all had lots of fun, seeing who could spot each of the minibeasts first, and some of us even found some minibeasts which weren't on our checklists!
In our literacy lesson tomorrow, we are going to be writing about some of the minibeasts we saw, but for now, take a look at some of the photos from our hunt....

As you know, we had our class and individual photos taken this morning - we all gave our biggest, cheesiest smiles for the camera!

It was lovely to see Mrs Rushbrooke this morning, who came in to join in with the photos, and then very kindly planted some potatos, carrot seeds and sweet peas with us. We have to look after them by watering them regulary, and then later on in the summer term when they have grown, Mrs Rushbrooke witl cook the carrots and potatos, and we will try them for our snack!

During today's cooking session, we created some rather cute looking buzzy bees. With some help from Miss Boggis and Alex, we were each given 1 chocolate and 1 vanilla mini-roll each, which we had to cut into 8 pieces. We made a pattern of chocolate then vanilla sponge, to resemble the stripes of a bee, and stuck these together with a little bit of butter-cream icing. We then chose two matching colour rainbow drops for the eyes, and of course, added some grease-proof paper wings!

Thank-you again to Miss Boggis and Alex for their help today!
Have a look at our buzzing creations!.....

As mentioned in the 'Curriculum Map' which was emailed to you recently, I have had to make the decision to no longer allow the children to  bring toys into school.
I have previously allowed for the children to bring their toys in, as long as they stayed in their bags during the school day. However, despite reminders, some of the children were still getting them out of their bags and sitting with them on the carpet, which would them become a distraction to others and disrupt lessons.

We have already had a toy go missing this week, so please can I ask that toys stay at home.
Thank you for your understanding and co-operation,

Miss Rushbrooke