Pre-Prep Life

During the January lockdown, the Nursery was allowed to remain open, and some of the children still came to site. They spent their weeks going through the alphabet, learning individual sounds of letters.

In ‘p’ week there was a lot of discussion about where potatoes come from and what potatoes can be made in to. The children watched as Mrs Banks cut potatoes in half, and then enjoyed printing patterns on paper.

When the children discovered ‘b’ they had much fun bouncing balls, bubble painting and button sorting and fastening. The children were introduced to a new approach to writing called ‘squiggle while you wriggle’, involving gross motor skills to write. They held a piece of material in each hand and copied Mrs Banks’ moves. With large sheets of paper and crayons held in both hands, they did the same moves on the floor.

When a very exciting, handwritten letter arrived in Nursery from Miss Patterson, this inspired the children to write letters back to her with their new-found squiggle wriggle techniques.

When Dylan went on a walk to Perranporth Beach with his family, it ended up as a rescue mission.

Dylan wrote about what happened: “My dad spotted a seal at the very corner of the beach. He thought it was unwell as it looked tired because it was trying to climb up onto the rocks but it couldn’t, so dad called the seal rescue people. The seal rescue people came and they weighed and measured the seal and they took his temperature. The temperature was too high for a seal. They thought he was too skinny so they stuck a tube with a funnel down his neck and gave him some liquids to drink. The seal rescue people said that the mother leaves the baby seal when it’s fluffy. This seal was still quite young so maybe it still needed its mum!” Year 2 wrote the front-page news for their own newspaper, based on the Highway Rat. They had the option to then record this as a newsreader or to make their own front page.

Extra! Extra!

Lockdown projects

There was an abundance of activity during remote learning, with plenty of stories and poems written, working out with Just Dance, folding origami birds and recreating the famous ‘A Starry Night’ painting, as well as bringing alive science by eating the moon and modelling the solar system out of household objects. Spiderman even led a PE lesson!

Forest School

Excited for their Forest School lessons once again, Year 2 made their own wormeries and found plenty of worms to put in their new homes.

Making music

Year 2 were heard strumming away on their ukuleles, learning the basic chords for ‘A Sailor went to Sea Sea Sea’ and singing along. In the same tune, they also made up an Easter version about how much they like to eat chocolate eggs…

Phonics

Every day in the afternoons, Nursery practised phonics. The children’s abilities to put the sounds together to make a word got stronger by the day. They wrote three-letter words on a whiteboard and also identified them on an interactive magnetic board, helping to boost their memories.