Advent

In Mckee class we have been learning about Advent and why it is an important time for Christians.

We started with learning about the Advent wreath. We now know that the four red candles symbolise Peace, Hope, Love and Joy, that the white candle stands for the birth of Jesus and that the green wreath is a symbol of eternal life and God's never ending love and mercy.

We also looked at how we prepare for Christmas, during the Advent season, and came up with all sorts of ideas from visiting Father Christmas at Van Hages, to writing our Christmas list or hoovering the house to baking special biscuits, or even making cards or watching Polar Express and The Grinch!

What do you do to prepare for Christmas? We would really love to know - please let us know by commenting below.

Anti Bullying week

A week ago, house captains as part of antibullying week organised and led an assembly.

The audience found it very comical but the message got through. If bullying happened in the future hopefully the children would know what to do in the situation.

In our assembly we included a drama that showed what bullying is, a puppet show to keep the younger children interested, a song about a boy affected by bullying and also a quiz to test the children’s knowledge about bullying and show how much they had been listening.

By: Cameron, Stanley, Samuel S, Josie and Francesca

Booktime

Last week the children in Mckee and Carle were given their Booktime bags.

Booktime is the national free books programme for reception-aged children, providing a free book pack for every child aged 4-5 years to share and enjoy with their family and friends. Booktime aims to promote the pleasure of books by encouraging families to have fun reading together. It also provides online resources.

In Mckee class, before giving the packs out, we opened one of the bags and read the books together. The class loved both books and enjoyed the fact that they could read Face Painting by themselves.

We read Why elephant has a trunk and talked about fables and what they are. This book proved a huge hit with the class many having seen Tinga tales on CBeebies.

Face painting activities

The next day, almost every child said they had shared the books at home that night and had enjoyed talking about them with their families.

In the classroom, we have made use of the printable activities and have enjoyed following up the books. The face painting survey and the tortoise and monkey colouring sheets being the favourite activities.

Scooter safety

Today we had a visitor in assembly. She came to tell us how to be safe on our scooters and how to avoid accidents

We now know:

• we should take time to learn how to stop on our scooters
• to wear reflective clothing and to go slowly
• we should look out for the lights on cars to see if they are reversing, turning or stopping
• to be aware of other people
• to find out how to use our brakes
• to make sure our scooter is in good condition
• we must take responsibility for ourselves when scootering

We were also reminded that we must not ride our scooters in the school playground because it is too crowded and not safe for us, or others, to do so.

Cinema night

On Friday evening the PSA screened Cars 2 in the school hall.

Nearly 70 children came with cushions and settled down to watch.

In the interval there was time for a drink and a biscuit.

Fred said "the best bit was at the beginning when Finn McMissile blew up the ship".

Jake liked the bit when "the big truck tipped over and was shooting the cars".

Lucy liked the bit "when they went splashing in the water".

Tom thought  Cars 2 was better than the last film we showed and he had fun.

Abigail said " it was really good fun to watch and having two biscuits was a bonus!"

It sounds like everyone enjoyed themselves. 

McKee class assembly

This morning McKee class invited their families to share their assembly and join us back in the classroom afterwards. 

McKee explained the six areas of learning, in the foundation stage, and showed some of the things they do on a daily basis such as singing, phonics, being creative, numbers, experimenting and of course they also mentioned they enjoy helping write this blog.

The class have written a little bit about their day and what they enjoyed. This is what they said:

G, G, R, O, E, M, Z, A, N - We liked singing a lot.

J, A ,D, O, E- We enjoyed holding our mask up best.

M - I liked holding my model up.

H, E, D - Holding up our pictures was best.

R - Sitting on the bench and watching myself!

L - Saying my words was fun.

A - I loved doing the phonics.

After this, they said, they enjoyed sharing the outside area and the book corner with their grown ups, making a Rapunzel bookmark, making a clock, colouring the pictures, playing with the Lego  with Mummy and Daddy and reading stories.

Several of the parents commented that they had enjoyed seeing what the school day was like for their child and how it was lovely to see the children showing how independent they can be (and yes they do usually wash up their own paint pots and brushes!).

Thank you for sharing the morning with us and we hope you enjoyed it and had fun, as well as learning a lot.

Overseas friends

We were told today that our blog is being viewed by some friends in a school across the water. Hello!

Please do comment and tell us what you have enjoyed on our blog.

If you write something and email it to Mrs Vaughan we can post it here for all to read.

Children in Need

The St. Trinian's otherwise known as Iris, Josie, Maisie, Ellie, Imogen, Amelia, Ruby, Francesca and Cameron from Year 6 held a Blue Peter 'Bake A Difference' sale on the 18th of November after school.
We think we (and our Mums) baked over 600 cakes, biscuits and pieces of fudge. We also had many kind donations from other parents and helpers. We sold everything for 20p, and held the sale after school on Friday. Amelia in particular was a real salesman barking out "everything's 20p". And Mr Urquhart also helped count the money in his dress!
We managed to sell every cake and biscuit, and the bake sale raised £131.30 for Children In Need. A very worthy cause. Iris

Foundation Golden time

Today in Golden time we had the choice of Playdough, Lego challenge, dressing up or art and craft. In the Lego challenge we had to build a digger to help the Lego builders dig a hole. We really enjoyed this and can not wait until next week for the next challenge!

In Playdough we got to make our own playdough! We measured the ingredients, mixed them, and then played with them. We had great fun.



McKee CIN

Blush twins

Thank you to all the parents in McKee class who helped their children dress up as book characters or in spots today. Mrs Matthews, Mrs Johnson and Mrs Anstead (also all in spots) thank you for helping us support Children in Need and were delighted that all the children in Mckee took part.

Children in Need - Matt Baker

Everyone at school was very excited to hear that Matt Baker (ex British Gymnast, Blue Peter presenter, Strictly Come Dancing contestant, the One Show and Countryfile presenter) was going to be passing through Ware on his epic Children in Need Rickshaw challenge.

The children in Keystage 2 were fortunate enough to be able to walk to the high street and cheer him on. They will blog about this next week, but in the mean time here is a short video clip.

Year 5/6 LONDON topic

These are a selection of the fantastic 3D and 2D work that our children have created as part of class and homework.

Ware in Bloom awards

Last school year, when they were in Mckee and Carle class, the present year 1 children entered Ware in Bloom. They took part in the Wheelbarrow category. The children were delighted to hear that they had won best storyboard and we mentioned it on the Blog in August.

Today Mr And Mrs Wing kindly came to school and presented us with a certificate and a trophy. Mrs Matthews, Lola, Evie, Finlay and Fionn, four of the children who were involved, were invited to collected it.

Mrs Wing also told us, that as part of the prize, we would receive some bulbs, which we will be able to plant in school. Well done to the Year 1 children for their hard work last term. The present reception children are now looking forward to the summer and their turn to enter.

Henry Hoover

The award for the tidiest classroom

McKee class always try their best to leave their classroom tidy.

Everyone washes up their own paint brushes, pots and palettes, they wipe the paint off the tables and wash up glue spreaders and pots. The whole class know where the dustpan and brush is kept and they know how to use it. They are also great at using the broom to sweep the floor when they spill sand, split peas etc and hanging up their aprons.

The whole of McKee knows not to leave paper, pencils or equipment on the floor or tables at the end of the day. They have been doing this ever since they joined the class.

This is why they were so excited to finally be awarded Henry Hoover! He will live in McKee classroom until next week, when he will move to another room to reward another class for leaving their classroom tidy enough to be cleaned.

Well Done and thank you  to McKee from Mrs Matthews

Hedgehog adventure

Today, Thursday 17th November Potter class found a hedgehog.

Just before lunch, Miss Stickley opened the back door and Ronja spotted the hedgehog. It was trying to make a nest out of the leaves. It looked fine, but it would die soon because it was probably less than 300grams - it looked small. It would not have survived hibernation. We picked it up and put it in a box. We found out where to take it where it could be collected.

So Miss Stickley and Miss Glazebrook took the hedgehog to the vet where it could be looked after. A lady was going to collect it later and take it to where it belonged in an animal rescue centre.

Sports for schools

The children of Carle and McKee been showing how much they enjoy sport!

Whilst the rest of the school were taking part in sport sessions run by Sports for school and earning their sponsorship money, the reception classes held their own event.

After donning their P.E kits and warming up the children ran around the school field twice, undertook two circuits of the wooden play equipment and then lined up in house groups to see which house could throw the most quoits into a hoop in 5 minutes.

A great time was had by all and the smiles and ruddy cheeks of the children were a testament to their enjoyment. The older children are being sponsored for their event and we are asking for a small donation to be given by each reception child. This will be added to the sponsor money and so will benefit our school and  the charity Action for children. 

Potter Ice-cream Party

Potter Class Ice-cream Party

Members of Potter class have been behaving well and earning rewards!

It hasn’t been the weather for a teddy-bears’ picnic so it was decided to hold an indoor ice-cream party and invite the toys to join in. Strawberry Swirl, Chocolate and Mintilicious ice-cream was enjoyed by all, including Miss Stickley.

We will remember them

Today all the members of the school gathered on the front playground at 11am and observed the silence to mark Armistice Day.The children were a credit to themselves by honouring the silence and standing still.

Many had spent some time this week learning about Remembrance day and why we mark this on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month and on the Sunday nearest to this. They also supported the Royal British Legion by buying a poppy. Thank you

Golden time

In golden time this week, those of us in McKee and Carle had the choice of four activities. We could a) collect, dry , painted and print with leaves, b) dress up, c) take part in some colouring cutting and sticking activities or  d) do the Lego challenge!

In the Lego challenge we were told that a cat was stuck up a tree and the Legoland fireman needed help to get it down. We had to build something to reach up the tree and then a box to put the cat in to keep it safe. 

ladder

We rose to the challenge and with the help of an adult and two year six girls we made ladders, staircases, slopes and steps. We also made a few boxes for the cat to try for size.  

box



steps and box



steps

What do you think? Do you think we managed to help the Legoland fireman rescue the poor cat?

Sainsbury Active Kid Voucher trees

McKee class received a box of trees from the Sainsbury active kids programme

First we filled the raised beds with soil.  Daniel R

We filled up the buckets with soil.     Zachary

We planted the trees, one was a crab apple.   Naomi

We had to water the trees.  Hollie

From the computer we found pictures of each tree, so that we could see how the trees would look when they have grown.   Rimini