Alula – "I liked meeting new people and talking to them. I spoke to someone who was 100 years old!"

Isabella – "I really enjoyed going. It was good talking to the people and learning things about them. "

Charlie – "My favourite song was The hot cross bunny song. I also enjoyed it when we had a drink and talked to the people."

Kian – "I felt proud of myself playing the keyboard for everyone. "

Henry – "I liked singing all the songs and playing on the keyboard. I've been practising lots at home!"

It was wonderful to see so many examples of our “Carly Can Do” attitude and “Timmy Teamworker” spirit throughout the session. Well done to everyone for their effort, enthusiasm, and positive approach!

We rolled a dice and challenged our partners to find the double using a tens frame. This helped us to visualise and understand doubles in a fun, practical way.

We also listened to a doubles rap to help us recall doubles more fluently. You can listen to the doubles rap here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jOzhiACB68&list=RD8jOzhiACB68&start_radio=1

We also recapped our number bonds to 10 and used this knowledge to help us find number bonds to 20. The children showed great confidence in using what they know to solve new problems and explaining their thinking clearly.

We also spent time making special cards for Mother’s Day and for the wonderful women in our lives. The children worked carefully and thoughtfully to create something special, putting lots of effort into their designs.

The class worked brilliantly and showed great pride in their creations. I hope you enjoy receiving their cards and artwork at home this weekend.

The children tested a variety of materials and carefully observed what happened. We discovered that some objects floated on the surface of the water while others sank to the bottom. After each test, we talked about whether our predictions were correct and discussed why this might have happened.

This investigation helped us to understand that density affects whether something floats or sinks. The children enjoyed being scientists by making predictions, carrying out experiments and sharing their ideas with the class.

To help us practise, we wrote our own sentences about our missing class teddy bear, Ted. The children used their imagination to describe where Ted might have gone and what he might be doing. This activity helped us to improve our typing accuracy while also remembering important punctuation rules.

The children worked very hard to type carefully and check that their sentences included capital letters and full stops in the correct places.

One of the highlights of the day was trying four different types of honey. We discovered that honey can taste different depending on the types of flowers the bees visit to collect nectar.

We also enjoyed making our own beeswax candles by warming the wax and rolling a wick inside. It was very exciting to look closely at bees inside the hive and learn more about how they live. We learnt that bees make a special glue to hold their hive together, and we even saw baby bees inside the bee houses.

There were lots of fun activities throughout the day. We dressed up as bees and pretended to prepare our hives, just like real bees do. We also planted a broad bean seed to take home and grow.

It was a fun and exciting experience, and we all learnt so much about these amazing insects and the important job they do.

The children were very well-behaved throughout the visit and impressed the staff with the thoughtful questions they asked.

A big thank you to the grown-ups who kindly volunteered to help with the trip.

Mrs Powley organised a special catwalk so that each class could show off their outfits. Classes took turns walking along the catwalk while the rest of the school watched and admired the fantastic costumes.

Our school theme was Traditional Tales and there were lots of brilliant characters from well-known stories. It was wonderful to see so many creative ideas and colourful costumes. We hope you enjoy our photos.

We all had a fantastic time celebrating our love of books and stories!

After cutting their crowns, the children had the opportunity to decorate them, showing their creativity and making each crown unique. It was a fun activity that helped the children practise their fine motor skills while also encouraging creativity. 👑✂️

We have also been learning about odd and even numbers, using the counters to help us see which numbers can be shared into pairs and which cannot.

As we explored, we compared what has stayed the same in Barnstaple over time and what has changed. It was a great opportunity to see history in the places around us.

A big thank you to our lovely helpers who joined us on the day! 😊

If you'd like, I can also make it shorter, more child-friendly, or more formal, depending on the style your school website usually uses.

If you would like to try this at home, you can download the Bee-Bot app on most tablet devices and have a go at creating your own algorithms.

If you'd like, I can also:

• Make it more formal for a school newsletter,

• Shorten it, or

• Add a parent-friendly explanation of algorithms.

During the session, the children learnt how mindfulness can help with self-regulation, recognising and understanding their emotions, building a sense of calm, managing anxiety, and developing empathy and concentration. Rob explained these important skills in a way that was accessible and meaningful for all age groups.

Our pupils thoroughly enjoyed asking questions about what it’s like to be a children’s author and discovering how stories are created. To top it all off, each child received a mindful bookmark to take home — a lovely reminder to pause, breathe and reflect.

It was a truly inspiring visit that we know will have a lasting impact on our school community.

We spent some time looking closely at the page all about hats, which inspired lots of excitement and creativity. The children decided they would like to design and make their own hats, so we created cone hats using card. They carefully decorated them with colours and patterns of their choice, showing fantastic creativity and fine motor skills.

We have also been focusing on our handwriting skills. The children have been practising their “crocodile grip” to hold their pens correctly and comfortably. We have been reminding ourselves how to form our letters carefully, starting and finishing them in the right places. It has been wonderful to see the care and concentration the children are showing as they develop both their spelling and handwriting skills.

To deepen our understanding, we used practical equipment to build towers of cubes. By placing towers side by side and in front of one another, the children could see which towers were taller and which were shorter. They discovered that a taller tower can hide a shorter tower behind it because it has more cubes. For example, a tower of 3 cubes can be hidden behind a tower of 5 cubes, as 5 is more than 3.

This hands-on learning has helped the children to visualise number relationships and strengthen their understanding of comparing and ordering numbers. We are very proud of the thoughtful explanations they have been giving using their mathematical stem sentences.

The children explored how these artists used colour to create perspective in their landscapes. They discovered that objects in the distance are often lighter and less detailed, while features in the foreground appear darker, brighter and more detailed. This clever use of colour and tone helps to make a painting look three-dimensional.

This week, the children put their learning into practice. They experimented with different oil pastel techniques, including blending, layering and creating texture, to produce their own landscape artwork inspired by these famous artists. We were so impressed with how thoughtfully they used colour to show depth and distance in their pictures.

Well done, Year 2 — what fantastic young artists you are becoming! 🎨

As part of our celebrations, we worked in pairs to learn a medieval dance. We practised staying on beat and worked carefully with our partners to follow the pattern of the dance steps. It was fantastic to see everyone cooperating so well and supporting one another as we learnt the routine.

We all had so much fun taking part and it was a brilliant way to bring our learning about the past to life!

For example:
First, there were 3 children at the park. Then 4 more joined them. Now there are 7 children at the park.

The children enjoyed acting out their number stories to bring their learning to life. We used our giant tens frame and the children became the different parts of the story – some were the “first” group, some were the “then” group, and together they made the “now” total!

This practical approach helped us to see addition in action and strengthened our understanding of how two parts make a whole.

We began the day by designing and making our own crowns. First, we carefully coloured them in, choosing bright and beautiful colours. Then we decorated them with sparkling “gems” to make them look extra royal! We had to measure and adjust our crowns to make sure they fitted our heads perfectly.

We all looked fantastic and truly felt like kings and queens for the day! 👑

We practised encouraging one another by saying phrases such as, “Don’t give up,” “Try again,” and “Be a Bobby Bounce Back,” reminding ourselves that resilience helps us to grow.

To put our learning into action, we took on the challenge of creating a ‘stretchy learning’ flower. We had to think carefully about the easiest and most effective way to create the flower shape and securely attach the stem. This activity encouraged us to persevere, try different approaches and celebrate our efforts as well as our successes.

We applied our sketching skills to create accurate outlines and used shading techniques to add depth and detail. By experimenting with light and dark tones, we were able to make our portraits look more realistic and three-dimensional. We were very proud of how our hard work and perseverance helped us to produce thoughtful and detailed final pieces.

Year 1 have been mastering their understanding of teen numbers by placing them onto a blank number line. We began by recapping number lines to 10 and noticed that 5 sits in the middle because it is half of 10. Using this knowledge, we realised that 15 would sit in the middle of 10 and 20. We then used this understanding to help us accurately place the remaining numbers on the number line, building our confidence and number sense.

The children created their own examples to show their understanding and did a fantastic job explaining their thinking.

Jacob was so excited about his maths learning that he continued practising in his own time - well done, Jacob! 😊