We may have had a soggy start to our Sunday morning, but it certainly didn’t dampen the spirits. A big thank you to all of the parents, children and the FACT team who turned up to help us to show some love to our amazing school pond. Over the last few years the pond had become very overgrown which meant that we were unable to use it as we would like with our pupils. FACT (Fakenham Area Conservation Trust) worked tirelessly to create space for the wildlife to thrive. Families and staff tackled the overgrowth around the site, and we have been left with a beautiful space to share with our children. A huge thank you, especially to the children who turned up and showed an awesome work ethic! We will be inviting parents back in the near future so watch this space. There is likely to be a Christmas theme to the warming snacks!
Nursery
Celebration time with reception
Today the nursery children joined the reception class to celebrate some of their amazing achievements.
The children were awesome they listened beautifully and joined in with the dancing.
Congratulations to all the children who received certificates 
Remembrance Day activities 11/12/22
Today we provided different activities around Remembrance Day for the children to explore, making poppy cookies, potato printing, looses parts and a special display of military items, which led to lots of questions being asked by the children about the objects.
The children also watched the Cbeebis ‘Poppies’ animated film, which is a 2 minute silence alternative for children.
They were amazing and sat all the way through.
Child – initiated Large scale mark making
✍️
Today the children chose to listen to the story of the Colour Monster.
One child suggested drawing his own picture of the colour monster, this sparked a big interest with his peers. The adult provided resources the children had asked for, sheets of paper and chalk.
The children showed deep levels of engagement as they went about their chosen task, some working on their own and some with their peers.
The impact was amazing, the children created some wonderful pictures sharing their ideas with the adults, these included lots of colour monsters, roads, circles and lines, family pictures and writing their letters.
One child was very excited to show the adults how well his car went around the road he created. ‘Look at my road, it work’.
Story café 21/10/22. (Pumpkin soup)
Today we ran our first story café, inviting parents to come and join in with the story and activities.
We began the session reading the story, then families were invited to join in with the activities and explore the nursery with their child. One little boy was very keen to show his mum around the nursery.
Activities on offer were pumpkin scooping, pumpkin tasting soup, roasted and seeds, (which was very popular), leaf threading creating mobiles and making chocolate apples.
We had a fantastic response having over 20 families attend, and some amazing feedback.
Thank you to all who attended, see you next time 🙂🙂
Big Loose Parts
Some of the boys have been busy with the large loose parts in the garden.
Group one built a den together then added a small ramp to roll down their logs very successfully.
Another group decided to build a tractor ‘like daddies’. They used pencils with rulers to make marks on their tractor, working collaboratively to move the wood into and onto the machine.
The boys showed great problem solving skills and physical strength transporting and lifting the wood into place, discussing where each piece should go.
When children lead their own learning and can follow their own lines of enquiry
they have high levels of engagement and learning. This is because what they are doing what interests them and is relevant to their thoughts and ideas.
Woodland Exploration
The children show lots of independence, resilience and collaboration exploring in the woods.
They worked together to create a den, using small sticks to make a fire to keep them warm. They collected different sized sticks and logs, learning about mathematical concepts in a practical way.. Big, small, heavy, light, few and many and how it affects their bodies. Counting, with an adult, how many puffs it took to blow the dandelion fairies away. 
Some children chose to spend time mark making in the soil and bark rubbing on the trees and logs.
One child chose a sit spot, under a tree to spend time on her own with a feather she had found. 
The children were curious about the beautiful fungi, together, with an adult, they used the I pad to identify the species and found it was safe, but the children understand they must not touch fungi, and tell an adult if they see any in the woods..
The outdoor environment is a wonderful way to support all children’s development in an holistic way.
The Enormous Pumpkin
Today Mrs McConnell brought a big pumpkin into nursery, the children very very excited. They worked collaboratively to move the pumpkin to the tray, some of the children used fantastic words to describe the size of the pumpkin ….
Gigantic, ginormous, humongous and even creating their own word hunormous.
They had opportunities to paint their own pumpkin, learning to mix red and yellow to make orange.
We talked about all the pattens on the skin, and why they were on there whilst tracking them with their fingers.
The morning session finished with the children acting out the story of The enormous pumpkin. (an adaptation of The enormous turnip).
So many learning opportunities with a pumpkin.
Nursery – Loose Parts Play
The children have shown interest in loose parts, so we gathered some objects for them to create their own pictures.
Some children explored symmetry, creating pictures made up of exactly similar parts facing each other.
We talked about other things that may be symmetrical, such as Butterflies, ladybirds and faces, this lead other children to create their own faces.
