This week we launched our Gruffalo Talk for Writing unit with a trail in the school woods. The children were tasked with spotting the creatures who had appeared in the wood and they kept a tally of how many they could find. There were lots of creatures but only one Gruffalo!

We created a beautiful piece of artwork to remember and honour all those who have served and sacrificed for our country. We used our fine motor skills to carefully cut out the shapes of our hands and then painted our beautiful red poppies.

We had lots of fun getting creative while developing our cutting and painting skills and learning about the importance of Remembrance Day.

This week has been a busy one in RTG! We have been learning all about Diwali, discovering how and why it is celebrated.

In Maths, we have been working super hard on numbers 1, 2 and 3, exploring different ways of making and breaking these numbers (number composition). We have been practising lots and developing our number skills!

We also had a very special moment this week as we held our first assembly with parents joining us! It was wonderful to welcome families and share this experience together.

From now on, we will be having our class assembly every Wednesday. We hope to see lots of our grown-ups joining us throughout the school year!

Thank you to everyone who came along and made our first assembly so special

Today was our first school trip in Reception and we took all of the children and 17 of their family members to Harlow Carr in Harrogate. The children loved looking out for signs of Autumn; collecting leaves in our leaf boxes and building a winter house for the hedgehog. After a lunch in the sunshine we enjoyed some time playing in the Logness Monster playground and creating some Autumn pictures!

At ACE we have carefully woven the history of notable BAME people through our general history, however during Black History Month we also take a pause to consider individuals we may not previously have heard of or know about. In Reception we looked at 3 notable inventors : Philip Downing who invented the post box; Garrett Morgan who invented the modern traffic light and Patricia Bath’s laserphaco probe.

We encouraged the children to come up with their own inventions in the DT area! Madina designed her own laptop and phone with a case designed to carry and protect it!

We also learnt the African folk tale of how the giraffe grew his long neck! We re-enacted this in our story heroes session and the children made their own drawings and stories from our inspiration.

In RTG, we have absolutely loved learning the story of Little Rabbit Foo Foo as part of our Talk for Writing journey! We have enjoyed becoming familiar with the characters, retelling the story and using actions to help us remember the sequence of events.

Once we felt confident with the original story, we had great fun innovating it and using our imagination to create our very own version: Little Flamingo Foo Foo!

In RTG, we have been enjoying one of our favourite 5 books: The Animals Would Not Go to Sleep! We explored the story and discovered how Marco tried to organise all his animals so that they could settle down and go to sleep.

After sharing the story together, the children had the opportunity to retell it in their own books, recalling key events. It was wonderful to see the children engaging so enthusiastically with the story and using their books to express their understanding and bring the narrative to life!

We have been exploring lots of mark-making activities while lying on our tummies! These experiences help to strengthen our core and shoulder stability, developing the physical foundations needed for effective pencil grip and early writing skills.

Inspired by the setting of our Talk for Writing (T4W) text, Little Rabbit Foo Foo, we created our own beautiful forest artwork. We had so much fun bringing our forest to life! This activity also encouraged the children to observe and think about the natural world, introducing ideas linked to the changing seasons and helping us begin to explore the colours, textures and features of autumn.

We’ve been very enthused by our mark making this week in red room. From big patterns, stories, huge watercolour marks and pictures we’ve been very excited to get involved which is so fantastic to see!