Bears Blog (Resource Base)

Welcome to our blog!  We hope to share all the wonderful things we are learning about in school.

 

 

 

February 2021

Week 5 - Monday 1st February

I have been really impressed with the quizzes that group 2 have completed today.  What a lot you have learnt about the United Kingdom in such a short space of time.  This can also be seen in the work that is on display in the classroom.  I haven't yet seen any of the fire engine pictures from group 1 but I am sure they were all brilliant and I love the 'People who help us' display which is up in class 6.   

 

 

 

January 2021 

Week 4 - Friday 29th January

As we come to the end of another busy week, I just have a few notices to share:

Assemblies - from next week we will only be holding one assembly on Wednesday starting at 1:10.  I will put the link on the remote learning page and will email those parents who currently have the link for the later assembly slot.

Photos of work - We only need to see photos of your wonderful work once a week (although we are happy for you to send in more if you wish) and you don't need to be in it. We obviously love seeing your smiley faces but if you don't want to be in the picture that is absolutely fine!

PE - Mrs Kerbey has asked us to collect in your scores for your 'Personal Best Challenges' that you have been doing.  It would be great to have these before we break up for half term so if you haven't already done so, please could you have a go over the next couple of weeks and let us know how you got on.

 

Ellie has sent in some pictures this week of her experiment to find out why the Titanic sank.  She asked lots of great questions whilst carrying out the experiment and is now able to explain why the ship sank when it crashed into an iceberg.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday 28th January

Let me start the blog today by wishing Jack a very happy birthday!  I hope you had a super day today and get to enjoy some yummy birthday cake this evening!

 

 

 

Wow! Several of you have been super busy this week; working hard on both your RWI and maths and it is great to see one or two of you trying the extra challenge tasks that we set.  Well done.  See if you can spot your work below:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monday 25th January

Good afternoon everyone!  I hope you all had fun in the snow yesterday.  My family and I built such a big snowman that it took three of us to put its head on!! If you have any snowy pictures that you would like to share then please email them to us and I can share them on this blog.

As well as having fun in the snow, Phoebe has been busy drawing and labelling pictures of her kittens.  Take a look at her work and her snowy pictures below.

 

 

 

Week 3 - Friday 22nd January

There has been some marvellous measuring and some fantastic drawings of British landmarks this week.  Well done Bears, you are all working so hard!  Take a look at the photos below and see if you can spot your work or any of your friends.

 

Wednesday 20th January 

 

 

 

 

 

Week 2 - Friday 15th January

Good afternoon to you all!  It has been great to see so many of you sending in pictures of all the hard work you are doing at home.  We really do miss having you all in school and it brightens up our day when we receive your photos.  Keep up the hard work - you are all doing fantastically well.

Take a look at the photos from this week.  See if you can spot any of your friends.

 We hope you all have a lovely weekend.  

Week 2 - Wednesday 13th January

A little bird told me that it is Teddy-Ray's birthday today so, I thought I would  use this Blog to say a massive happy birthday to him.   If we all sing 'Happy Birthday'  you never know, he might just hear us! Teddy-Ray, we hope that you had a very special day.

 

Thank you to those of you who have sent through pictures of your work.  It is really lovely that we can celebrate what you are doing at home as we can see that you are working so hard.  The children in school this week have especially enjoyed their topic work and have been really interested in finding out about different landmarks in England and creating their own maps.  I wonder if those of you at home have too?

As promised, here is a selection of photographs to showcase some of the work from this week's home learning. I hope you enjoy seeing what your friends have been doing at home.

Have a lovely evening, 

From the Bears Team

 

 

Week 2 - Monday 11th January

Welcome to another week of home learning.  We hope you have had a good day today and enjoyed your learning.  Remember, if you have any problems with your learning, please contact us via the online chat or class email and we will get back to you as quickly as possible.

A big shout out to Oscar for completing his Reading Eggs activity. Don't forget to login and have a go for yourself.

 

 

Week 1

What a week!  Well done to everyone, both in school and at home, for working so hard this week.  We have had some lovely pictures of the work and other activities that you have been doing and it has been great to see some of your smiling faces too!  

 

 

 

Well done to those of you completing the Reading eggs activities. We will be checking to see who is doing these so please try and have a go.  It would also be great to see more of you joining in with the PE activities.   Exercise is really good for you physically  and it  helps you to feel good too!  You don't have to wait for PE sessions to do exercise though.  Perhaps you could go for a walk, practise skipping using the skipping rope we gave you or maybe you could choose some of your "personal best challenges" to have a go at.

Personal Best Challenges

Can you skip for 30 seconds without a rope?

How many star jump can you do in 30 seconds?

How many times can you hop on one leg in 30 seconds?

How many underarm throws into a target can you do in 30 seconds?

How many times can you jump (from 2 feet) in 30 seconds?

Can you balance on one leg for 30 seconds?

 

 

 Day 1

Happy New Year everyone!  We hope you all enjoyed the Christmas holidays.

Although it is not the start of the new term that we had all expected, it has been lovely to hear from some of you today and to see some of the work that you have been doing at home.  Please remember that you can contact us via email or through the live chat on the front page of the website if you have any questions or problems and we will do our best to help you solve them asap.

A big well done to Michael for staying focused this morning and completing all of his work - we are all super proud of you!

     If, like Michael, you have some work to share with us, please ask your grown-up to send us a picture and we can then put it on our class blog.

  

Autumn Term 2020

Autumn Term 2 2020

16.12.20 The children in Bears class have been making lots of Christmas decorations and drawing and colouring lots of pictures, and we hope you really like them as much as we do. The slide show below show the children making their wonderful Christmas bells, which hopefully you will be able to ring on your doorsteps at 6pm on Christmas Eve.  

 

All that remains for us to say is MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR. Take care of each other and have fun. We look forward to seeing everyone on January 5th 2021.

 

11.12.20 This year’s Christmas performance has had to be different at WIS as with many other schools far and wide but we have made it as special as we can and the children’s faces show just how much they have enjoyed singing the songs and doing the actions. Although we can’t all be together in the hall, we have managed to make it just as special but in a different way. Today, all the children thoroughly enjoyed watching each other’s Christmas performance videos during our virtual celebration assembly.  We hope you enjoy watching them at home as much as we enjoyed making them for you.  Plus the beauty of this is that you can watch them over and over again!  Fantastic!

Week 4

This week we have been busy being playground designers.  We started by looking at some different playground equipment and drawing our favourite things to play on at the park.  Then we looked at the different structures and had a go at making some of our own.  We found out that in order to make a frame stronger you need to have a wide base and  you can make this base even sturdier by adding triangular shapes to the frame.  Take a minute or two to look at some of the structures that we made below:

Phonics support

Below is a short video showing how to say each of the individual sounds for those who are new to our school.

 

Term 2 Week 2

We have had a lovely week in the Bears celebrating Remembrance Day and Children in Need alongside all the other learning that has taken place this week.  We have painted poppy pictures using finger painting and made our own Pudsey masks.

In topic this week we have been learning about the similarities and differences between a village, town and city settlement.  We discovered that a city is much larger than a town or village and often has millions of people living there, whereas, a town is home to a few thousand people and a village is home to only a few hundred.   There are some similarities though, for example, shops, schools and possibly a place of worship too, however, there are more of each of these things in a city whereas a village may only have one.

 

Term 2 Week 1

Welcome back!  We have had a very busy week in the Bears.  We have been on a bicycle adventure in PE, practised our letters and sounds in phonics, found out about Autumn and cooked our own pasta salad.  

In maths this week, whilst our reception children were busy practising their counting and number recognition, the rest of us were learning about part, part, whole models (PPW models) like these below:

These PPW models help us to solve addition and subtraction problems and help us to spot the relationships between numbers. For example, from the first model we can derive that 5+2=7, 2+5=7, 7-2=5 and 7-5=2.   

 

 

 

 

Autumn Term 1 2020

The 3 of us in the Reception year have also been working hard and we are listening well during the carpet sessions. We are now learning new letter sounds each week and are completing some writing every day. 

Lots of opportunities are provided for all of us to practice our cooperation and sharing skills. We are working together really well and enjoy all the different activities we complete during the school day.

Week 5

We have had lots of fun this week in our DT (design and technology) lessons.  Next week we are going to be making alien faces to complete our space topic for this term.  In order to help us prepare for the designing and making process, we have been busy this week finding out about different fabrics, investigating different ways to join materials and thinking about materials that we can use to make hair.  Some of us have also had a go at sewing using a running stitch.  We found this tricky but with a little help, we were able to successfully use the running stitch.

In addition to our textiles work, we have made pizza faces on a pitta bread base.  We had to carefully spread the tomato puree over the pitta bread, sprinkle on some cheese and herbs and then we had to cut and place tomatoes, cucumber and peppers to make our faces.  

 

Week 4

This week we have been working hard, but we have also had lots of fun in PE. We all practiced following the rules in the hall when we are having PE and we learnt that we have to know when to stop if we are asked to. Mr Mould rang some musical bells to tell us when we needed to stop and we all followed this rule really well.

We travelled around the room in different ways - walking, jogging (a slow run), skipping, hopping and jumping (from 2 feet to 2 feet). Everyone joined in and was able to have a really good try at travelling in the right way, even with the skipping. After we had been exercising for a while, we put our hand on our chest to feel how fast our heart was beating. Everyone could feel their heart beating a little bit faster. We are going to use these different ways of travelling around the room to warm up before we start each PE session.

At the end of our PE session we all had the chance to have a rest before going back to the classroom. Mr Mould was very proud of us all.

 

Week 3

What a busy week we've had in Bears class!   In Maths, we have been practising our number recognition and counting skills.  Some of us have worked with numbers to 5, some to 10, some to 20 and some to 50.  We have used lots of different resources to help us represent the numbers in different ways and we have been supported to count accurately, one object at a time.

In topic this week, we have been learning about materials and their properties.  We looked at a range of different objects and sorted them by the materials from which they are made.  We have touched and described the different materials and talked about their properties.  We used our knowledge of properties to help us explain why some materials can not be used to make an object.  For example, we decided that a window could not be made out of wood "because you wouldn't be able to see through it." 

In addition to our English, Topic and Maths work, we have made cheese and ham wraps and we were very lucky to be visited by Rosie, our school dog.   Please take a moment to look through the gallery below:

 

A very warm welcome to you all!  

The children have been busy getting back into the swing of school life and getting to know our new Bear children.  It has been lovely to see them working and playing collaboratively together; sharing and taking turns with one another.

As well as exploring the classrooms, all of the children have enjoyed icing and decorating biscuits, making rockets out of playdough and recyclable materials, playing team games using the parachute and taking part in a skipping workshop.   It has all been great fun and there has been lots of smiles, excitement and laughter!

 We have also begun our topic about space and have discovered that both animals and people have been into space but that only two astronauts have actually walked on the moon.  Take a look at the gallery below to see some of the lovely activities that we have been doing. 

 

 

 

Singing Make a Wish Videos

 

Story Time with  Mrs Watts and Ms New

 

June 2020 

Week 4

This week the children in school have been busy looking at minibeasts.  Minibeasts are all the different bugs and creepy crawlies that we might find in our gardens.  The children have been on a minibeast hunt, looked closely at minibeasts under a microscope/magnifying glass, sorted and classified minibeasts, labelled minibeasts, looked at the life cycle of a ladybird, make 3D ladybirds, painted a minibeast garden using their fingerprints and painted their favourite minibeast for our display.  They have also looked closely at insects (part of the minibeast family).  They found out that insects have six legs, 3 body parts and many of them can fly using two or four wings.   Please take a look at the gallery below to see some of the lovely work that the children have completed this week.

 

Week 3

It was lovely to welcome back some more of our bears into Class 5 this week.  They settled really quickly and it was lovely to see them playing happily with their friends again.  We hope that those of you at home are still safe and well. 

Using the story 'The Princess and the Wizard' as a stimulus, the children in school have been busy being wizards and princesses; creating their own potions and casting spells!  They have made wizard/princess hats, wands and cauldrons and have thought carefully about the spells they might create and what those spells might be used for.  Some of the children also had a go at writing their own wizard/princess stories.  Take a look at some of the lovely work they have been doing below.

Week 2

Work continues both in school and at home.  Those in school have been busy making worry dolls, creating their own Kandinsky style pictures using only circles, painting sunflowers for our summertime display, making paper flowers, using collage to create hanging suns and making spiral hangers.  They have also carried out experiments to see how germs are spread and looked at the best way to wash your hands.   In addition to this they have followed their own interests and have used various different construction kits to build, used number lines to help them measure each other and practised writing numbers on the whiteboards.  Please take a look at the photos below.

It would be lovely to see what the rest of the Bears have been up to at home.  Perhaps you could ask your grown ups to send us some pictures and I can add them to our blog.

Welcome Back 

It has been lovely to welcome some of our bears back into class this week.  They have all been very happy to see each other and have played really well together.  As we are staying in bubbles at the minute, we have been busy creating lots of lovely bubble pictures.  We painted bubbles using circular objects, made painted bubble wrap rainbows, made bubbles using balloon painting, created bubbles with chalks and drew pictures of the different things that we have been doing during lockdown.  Please take a look at the photos below to see what we have been getting up to.

Whilst some of us have been back at school, many of you have been busy at home.  It looks like Jack has been busy using his binoculars to look at the birds and his local surroundings.  He has also been thinking about the things that he likes and dislikes.  

   

If you are still at home and would like to share some of the work that you have been busy doing then please send your pictures to RB@westbury-inf.wilts.sch.uk and I will add them to our blog.

 

May 2020

Home Learning 

It has been lovely to chat to a few of you again this week and find out what you have been up to.  It sounds like you are all very busy and having lots of fun.  Jack has been out to watch the trains pass by his house, Ellie has been celebrating her birthday and I believe she had a social distancing disco party  with some of her neighbours (Happy birthday Ellie!), Charlie has been busy making his own TV using a cardboard box and an IPad, Oscar has been practising making words with letter cards and creating different emoji faces, Toby, Safia and Alex have been in school making slow worms and putting on a puppet show and Kelton-Kade has been practising his handwriting.  Phew!   What a lot you have all been up to!

Take a look at the slideshow below to see some of Charlie and Oscar's work.  Well done boys.

VE Day Celebrations

Today marks the 75th Anniversary of VE day.  In May 1945 the war in Europe came to an end and millions of people up and down the country took to the streets and celebrated the news with singing and dancing.  My girls have been busy making bunting for our window and delicious cakes for us to share at a tea party later on today (in our back garden of course!). 

  

If you are celebrating VE day with your family,  it would be lovely to see some pictures or maybe you could write an email to us explaining what you did.

Happy VE Day!

 

Michael's Sunflowers

Michael sent me an update of his sunflowers which he would like me to share with you all.  They are getting so big now that he has had to put them out in the garden and hold them up with canes!  Take a look below.

I wonder how big they are going to grow?  Do you think they will be taller than Michael?  Perhaps you could keep a diary Michael and let us know how tall they are each week.

 

April 2020

Goodbye Butterflies!

Over the weekend we said goodbye to our butterflies and watched as they flew off into the distance.   It took them a little while to leave the hatching habitat but once they did they were gone very quickly.  It has been really lovely watching them grow and hatch into beautiful butterflies!  I hope have enjoyed watching them too.

 

I have received some lovely photos from Michael and Charlie over the past couple of weeks.  Michael has been busy planting sunflowers and is now watching them grow.  Apparently, they needs sticks to hold them up now because they are so big! 

     

He has also been busy practising his maths skills.

Charlie has  been busy practising his counting and reading too.  He has also been working hard to develop his fine motor control and has made a lovely pasta necklace.  Well done boys, keep up the hard work.

It was so lovely chatting to some of you last week and finding out about all the super things you have been up to.  We are all really missing you, so to hear your voices was just great!  I will try and contact you again in a few weeks time but if you want to let me know some of the super things you have been doing in the meantime please just email me.

 

 

Caterpillars and Butterflies

Since I last posted, the caterpillars have started to turn into butterflies.  Before they hatch the chrysalides turn darker. We have been keeping a close eye on the chrysalides when they have turned darker in the hope that we might see one hatch and luckily enough we did so I thought I would share it with you.  Look carefully at the chrysalis that is apart from the others.

 

Caterpillar Update

Hello everyone,

I hope you are all keeping well.  I thought I would post a quick update on the caterpillars as they have changed so much in the last few days.  At the end of last week the caterpillars climbed up to the top of the pot and hung in a j-shape.  They do this just before they turn into a chrysalis.  They hung there for about a day, then over the weekend they finally turned into chrysalides.  Take a look at the photos below.

  

We will be moving them into their butterfly habitat in the next couple of days so I will update you then.

 

Hello everyone

Mr Mould here. I hope you are all keeping well and enjoying the lovely sunshine. Hopefully you've all had a fantastic Easter and you're not too fed up with all the extra chocolate, if you were lucky enough to have an Easter egg or 2. 

I can't believe it's been such a long time since I last saw you all, and of course I miss seeing you every day at school. Mrs Mould is missing you all too. But hopefully you are having lots of opportunities to do your school work at home using the Home Learning packs. Do what you can, but don't forget to have a lovely time with your family too, especially if you can get out into a garden or go on a lovely springtime walk.

It's a difficult time for everyone, but I bet you are all being kind to each other in your homes and making the most of this extra time with your family. I look forward to being with everyone as soon as we can, but in the meantime remember to be nice to everyone, like I know you will.

Wow, hasn't Mrs Watts been a star with her lovely stories and the super video of her caterpillars. I hope you are enjoying listening to the stories and don't forget you can also visit your mainstream class blog for even more. Thank you Mrs Watts for all your hard work.  

 

Caterpillar update

Over the Easter weekend the caterpillars have doubled, if not trebled, in size (see the image in my last post to compare them).  They are very active now and there is a lot of the fine webbing around the pot. 

On Sunday, my daughters and I were very lucky to see one of the caterpillars shedding its exoskeleton.  They will do this up to five times before they turn into a chrysalis.  You can watch it shed its exoskeleton too as I managed to record some of it on my Ipad (watch the caterpillar at the top of the pot).

 

Happy Easter everyone!  

I have been in school today with Mrs Channon and we have been busy making Easter cards with the children.  We decided to make two each so that we could send the extra cards to the local nursing homes and spread a little Easter cheer.  Perhaps you could have a go at making an Easter card for someone in your family.  Ours looked like this:

If you do decide to make an Easter card, please send me a photo via the class email and I will share them on our blog.  Feel free to share any of the other lovely activities that you have been doing with us too as we miss you all very much!

We had an exciting arrival in the Watts household this week as five little caterpillars came to live with us.  We are going to watch them carefully as they grow over the next few weeks and are looking forward to seeing them change into butterflies, just like in the story 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'.   We will share their journey with you too.  How many caterpillars can you see?  Can you see all five of them?  The brown stuff at the bottom of the pot is food for the caterpillars.  At this time they are constantly nibbling at the food to help them grow big and fat and they are busy making silky webs around the inside of the pot.  In the wild, this webbing helps to protect the caterpillars from danger such as predators (other animals which eat them) and from being blown off of plants by the wind.  Perhaps you could think up some names for them!

I hope you all have a lovely Easter with your families and I hope you are all lucky enough to have a visit from the Easter bunny.  Remember to be kind and patient with those around you and have lots of fun!

 

Home Learning

I received these lovely pictures today from a couple of our Bear cubs.  Well done boys, keep up the hard work.

  

 

April 2020

Hello Bears, I hope you are all having a great week.  It has been lovely to hear about the fantastic work that you have been doing at home and great to see some photos too.  In addition to the work we set in your home learning packs, we have also heard about the fantastic homemade volcanoes,  baking, slime making, bird watching and PE sessions that you have participated in.  It sounds like your are all having a great time!

      

Please continue to keep in contact and let us know what you are getting up to as we are all missing you!  If you send some pictures of the work you have been doing to the class email then we can put them onto the blog.

Don't forget to log in to Reading eggs and have a go at the activities online.  You can also access Maths Seeds from this site.  We will be setting some challenges over the next few weeks for you to try.

Stay safe and keep in touch.

 Easter

Easter is just around the corner and it is going to feel very different from any other Easter.

But that doesn't mean that we can't all have a really lovely time with all the people in our household.

The weather is really sunny at the moment and hopefully this will last until the weekend, but whatever the weather Easter is a lovely time to have fun together and maybe even spoil yourself with a little extra treat here and there. If you are lucky enough to have a garden, maybe you'll be able to explore it and see all the signs of spring and Easter time.

We hope your home learning is going well and that you are able to carry on learning lots of  new things in these really unusual times. You can begin to use your new learning pack from 13th April.

We hope your time at home is going well and would like to remind all of you just how much we miss seeing you in school. I, Mr Mould, have been into school a few times and it's very strange and quiet without you all. Anyway, you all take care and try really hard to be kind and patient with all the people you share your house with. 

Home Learning 

What a strange week!  We hope you have all had a lovely time learning from home.  It has been very quiet in school without you all here!

We hope that you are all safe and well.  We have seen some lovely photos of you working from home, well done.  Keep up the good work and we look forward to seeing some more pictures of your learning next week. Please send them to deputyhead@westbury-inf.wilts.sch.uk

Check out the mainstream class pages as there are some links to different activities on there  which may be of interest to you.  

Stay safe and enjoy the lovely weather.

 

 

Week 3

Fantastic trips to the SS Great Britain and Caenhill Countryside Centre completed yet another busy week in the Bears.  

Over the past few weeks we have been learning about beat and rhythm in our music sessions and have been using instruments to play along to a given beat or rhythm.  We had great fun talking about the different sounds we could make and creating music together.  In our gardening session this week, we planted sunflower seeds.  We have been watering them over the week and are eagerly awaiting to see if they will grow.  We have also taken part in a running challenge for Sports Relief this week and had great fun running with our friends.  We had to run several times around the playground.  It was very tiring!  Please take a look at the slideshow below to see some of the fun we have been having in class.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We finished the week with our school trips.  Class 5 went to the SS Great Britain whilst Class 6 went to Caenhill Countryside Centre.  Both classes had a great time and learned lots of new things.  Class 5 took a tour on the ship and were able to make comparisons between life on the ship for first class and steerage passengers.  We found out that they kept animals on the upper deck to provide them with milk and fresh meat and that only first class passengers were entitled to drink the milk.  We also got to look into the cabins that people would have slept in.  The bunks in steerage were very small and would have been rather cramped.  The bunks in first class were not much bigger but were definitely better than those in steerage.  We had a look in the engine room and found out that it would have been a very hot, noisy and smelly  place to work.  We also got to look at the underneath of the boat and we were allowed to touch the huge propeller and rudder.   Please take a look at the photos below.

 

 

Class 6 enjoyed taking in part in various different activities at Caenhill Countryside Centre including planting hazel trees and feeding the lambs, pigs and cows.   The children got to handle many of the animals, most of which roamed freely around the farm in between the children!  Photographs will follow shortly.

Week 2

It has been another busy week in the Bears.   

At the beginning of the week, some eggs and an incubator arrived in Starfish and Sea turtle classes and the children in Class 6 have been closely monitoring the progress of the eggs over the course of the week.  The children are very excited to announce that many of them have now hatched and they have all been able to have a little cuddle with them!

 

 

 

 

The children in Class 5 were lucky enough to meet them too!  

In addition to meeting our new chick friends, the children in Class 5 have been busy making grass heads, cooking tasty Yogurt Bites, making finger puppets to help them create their own stories with their friends and making a calming bottle for when they are feeling a little annoyed.  It has been lovely to see the children helping each other with the different activities and using their manners when they need something that they don't have near to them.

 

 

   

 

 

 

Week 1

Welcome back to Term 4.  It has been a busy but enjoyable week in the Bears.  

We now start each day sitting up to the table together to eat toast.  It has been lovely to see the children using their manners and helping one another to set the table, pass round the toast, butter and cut the bread, pour water for everyone, clear over the table and wash and dry up.  It has also been lovely listening to them chat together about things they have done or seen; taking turns in a group conversation.

 

 

 

 

On Tuesday, the children ate pancakes with their favourite toppings.  They were given a small selection of toppings to choose from and were encouraged to independently spread their toppings over their pancakes, roll then up and cut them ready to eat.  The children all agreed that the pancakes were delicious!

 

 

The focus for the week across both classrooms has been 'sharing and turn taking'.  We have shared social stories and carried out role-play to help the children think about ways in which they can share the resources in the classroom.  The children have been trying really hard to achieve this and there have been lots of great examples across the week.  In addition, the children have been taking part in various different activities ranging from Superstars (with their mainstream classes), creating their own pop-art pictures, fruit tasting and playing games together.  All-in-all, a tiring but enjoyable week.

Term 3 January 2020

Week 5

Our Year One children have been very busy this week making lots of delicious treats from around the UK.  They have been practising their measuring skills and have made scones from England, shortbread from Scotland and cheese and leek muffins from Wales.  On Monday, they will be making soda bread from Ireland.

Our Year Two children have been having fun with shapes this week.  They have studied 2D and 3D shapes and have used straws and blu-tac to make their own 2D and 3D shapes.  They have also played games of 'Guess my shape' and 'What's in the bag?'

The Reception children have been just as busy learning their phonemes, practising their handwriting and orally blending and segmenting CVC words.  They have also been busy taking part in our dough and finger gym activities.  Dough gym consists of manipulating playdough to music to help build muscles in the arms, hands and fingers.  Finger gym includes activities such as threading beads, using tweezers to pick up pom poms, drawing, colouring and cutting to help with pincer grip and muscle development.

 

Week 4

In Reception this week we have looking at maps and we have been busy drawing some of our own.  We began by looking at the different places you find in Westbury such as the swimming pool, our school, the library, shops and houses.  We then talked about other things you find on a map such as roads, green spaces etc.  The children were really keen to draw some maps of their own and were having lots of interesting discussions as they did so.

In Year One we have been trying really hard with our maths.  We have been using bar models, tens frames and part/whole models to help us add and subtract, find related facts and interpret information.  We have also told our own number stories and represented these practically using the different models mentioned above.

In Year 2, we have been busy learning about 2D shapes.  We have made and named 2D shapes on a geo-board and have looked for lines of symmetry.  We have also been busy learning about Chinese New Year, pandas and China.  We made puppets to help us retell the story of the Chinese New Year and we have started to make our own panda hand puppets.  We look forward to sharing our lovely work with you at the exhibition.

 

Week 2 

After another busy week learning about Westbury, the UK and the wider world, the children enjoyed the chance to take part in a dance workshop related to their current topic.  They had a great time learning the different routines on Friday and listened well to the dance teacher.

In addition to the dance workshops, our Reception children have been busy creating collages of their homes, our Year One children have been exploring different landmarks around the UK from England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales and our Year Two children have been comparing the UK to China.   It has been a very interesting week for us all!

 

 Week 1

Welcome back and a Happy New Year to you all!  This term the children, from Reception to Year 2, will be learning about some aspect of the world around them. 

The Reception children started their topic about Westbury and the local environment by going on a walk around the local area looking at houses and talking about  things they might see such as traffic lights, post boxes and the White Horse. When we got back to school the children started making simple maps using chalk. They talked about where we had gone and which direction to go.

In Year One, the children recapped their work on seasons and specifically looked at winter.  They discussed how the different seasons might impact on the plants, animals and on ourselves.  We found out that in the winter the days are shorter and the nights are longer, that some animals hibernate (go into a deep sleep) and that we wear much warmer clothes such as coats, gloves, scarves and hats to keep the cold out.  Next week they will be starting their topic about the UK.  

Our Year Two children have been busy learning about the 7 continents and the 5 oceans that make up planet Earth.  They have been using an atlas to help them locate and label the different continents/oceans on a map and talking about what those different places might be like.

 

Term 2 2020

A busy week

This week our Year One children have been busy thinking about park designs.  They have  talked about and have drawn different park equipment and they have drawn their own park designs.  These will be made into 3D models over the next couple of weeks.

 

In Year Two, the children have been thinking about how to keep themselves fit and healthy.  They have drawn posters showing how to keep their bodies clean for example by brushing their teeth, having a bath, washing their hands etc. and they have discussed the impact that exercise has  on their bodies.  The children took part in various different exercises and then discussed how their heart rate had increased, their breathing had become more rapid, that they felt hot and their bodies felt a little tired.

Our Reception children have been busy in their mainstream classes making leaf pictures, playing outside with their friends and learning about the number 5.  They have played in the role play area and have been improving their letter formation.

Exciting Excursions

Our second trip of the year took our Reception children to the National Trust gardens at Stourhead. Despite a little drizzle the children enjoyed walking around the grounds finding a variety of leaves. They also had great fun climbing up the slippery slopes, walking through the dark tunnel, collecting natural objects from the woodland floor and splashing in the puddles. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Our Year Two children  had the most fantastic day living the life of a Victorian School child.  The children really embraced the role-play and threw themselves into everything they were asked to do. Girls spent the morning making lavender bags whilst the boys made candles. All the children had a go at using proper ink pens and Benjamin and Joshua were caught out by Miss Squire for stealing money and an apple and were punished. After lunch the children played on different sides of the lawn before saying prayers.  We were really proud of all the children. 

 

Autumn 

Welcome back to a new term in Bears class.  This week our Reception and Year One children have been busy looking for signs of autumn.  We have been looking at leaves and talking about how they are changing.  We have written about seasonal changes, completed some fingerprint tree paintings and taken rubbings of the leaves.  We have also created a display about the four seasons.

In Year Two we have started our topic about the Victorians.  So far we have been introduced to Queen Victoria and have created a timeline of her life.  We have also looked at the differences between rich and poor Victorians.  In addition to our topic work, we have been talking about the fireworks that we saw on Tuesday and have made some lovely firework pictures.  Please take a look at the pictures below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just a reminder that our Year Two children will be visiting Sevington School on Thursday 14th November and our Reception children will be visiting Stourhead and our Year One children will be visiting Warminster Park on Friday 15th November.

Parent events

After another busy week of testing materials, making alien faces and painting portraits, we would like to invite our parents and carers in for our first parent events of the year.  Please see below for times and dates.

Year 2 Bears (in Zebra class) - Monday 21st October at 2:00pm 

Year 1 Bears (in Hedgehog class) - Tuesday 22nd October at 2:00pm

Reception Bears (in Starfish and Sea Turtles) - Wednesday 23rd October at 2:00pm

We look forward to seeing you there. 

 

Bird Show

At the end of a busy week writing riddles, adding and subtracting using place value charts and number lines and learning about materials and their properties in Year 2; writing booklets about themselves, learning number bonds up to 10 and talking about their likes and dislikes in Year 1; learning to recognise and write more  phonemes and letters, recognising the number 2 and painting portraits of themselves in Reception, the children were invited to watch a performance called 'Bird Show'.  The children all joined in with the actors as they told their wonderful tale using puppets.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our feelings

This week we have been talking about our feelings.  We experience lots of different feelings such as anger, sadness, excitement,  happiness, tiredness, worry and fright.  .Sometimes we feel sad when people die or when our friends have to go home.  We feel happy when we go out for special treats.   (Written by one of the pupils.)

Out and about

The children in Bears have had an exciting and busy day on their school trips.  Our Reception children enjoyed being out in the sunshine and looking at portraits in the art gallery before creating their own self portraits.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Year One children have had a fun-filled, space adventure at We the Curious where they visited the planetarium, made flying rockets of their own and explored the various science exhibits.

Our Year Two children went off to Haynes Motor Museum to complete their topic about the history of cars.  They saw lots of very shiny cars from the past and present, made model cars both by themselves and as a team and played in the car themed play area.

They have all had a lovely day!

Another busy week in Bears 

Our Reception children have been busy learning some of the first sounds from RWI.  They had fun thinking of words which started with the different sounds learned, wrote the letters in the air, made them out of playdough and had a really good go at writing them.   The sounds introduced this week were s, a, m, d and t.

In Year 1, the children have been busy with their number work; counting objects accurately by pointing to each one as they say the number and comparing numbers to see which group has more or less.   They have also been busy finding out about space and have made their own rockets out of junk modelling.

In Year 2, the children have been busy learning about cars and how they have changed over time.  Some of the children have also been busy writing character descriptions using interesting adjectives whilst others have been busy counting and ordering numbers  or partitioning 2-digit numbers into tens and ones.

 

Welcome back!

Hello and welcome back for those who are returning to us and a warm welcome to those who have joined us for the first time this year.  The children have quickly settled into the classroom routines and have all been busy getting to know their new teachers, mainstream classes and class animals.

Our Reception children have explored the classroom this week and have been getting to know one another.  They have played alongside each other really well and have been showing good listening, sharing and turn-taking. A great start to the year!

Our Year 1 and 2 children have also been busy in their mainstream classes, learning about their class animals and writing sentences and fact files about them. 

This afternoon, the Year 2 children were introduced to their new topic on 'Transport' by washing the cars for different members of staff.  They had a great time and were able to get a really good look at the different components of the car in preparation for next week.  

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+2018-2019

June 2019

Longleat - Kidsout

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please see below photos from Boscombe beach.

Welcome back to the final term of the academic year. A week has already passed and the children have settled back into their school routines. The school trips introducing our new topics have taken place and photos will follow. In the meantime however, don't forget to look at your child's mainstream class blog for lots of pictures. Everybody seems to have had a lovely time, albeit rather wet in Bristol. The sun shone in Boscombe after a very wet journey down, and the children loved paddling in the choppy sea. So, lots of fun already had by many and lots more fun and learning to come, leading up to the long summer break.

Term 5

Hope you all have a super half-term week. Please enjoy some photos below showing the Bears class completing a number of different activities.

Well done Westbury Infant School for raising £1300.00 for the NSPCC. We are all very proud of you and thank each and everyone of you for taking part.

Welcome back to term 5, a short, but very busy term. All the children have now been on a trip to introduce their topic. Year R went to Aldi, Year 1 to Warminster park and Year 2 to The Matthew and M Shed in Bristol. Please look at the hedgehogs blog for the Warminster park photos. Enjoy the Year 2 photos below.

March 2019

Happy Easter

No photos this week, but a sincere Happy Easter to all the Bears and their families. I hope you all have a well deserved rest and have some Easter treats along the way. Take lots of care during the Easter break and we will look forward to seeing you back at school on Tuesday 23rd April, when our exciting new topics will begin. Hopefully the sun will shine throughout the holiday and for the new term 5.

A very busy week.

I hope you have all enjoyed the wonderful Mother's Day assemblies. The Bears worked really hard on their different art work and learning their special songs. Have a great day on Sunday and hopefully you will be treated to a very special time.

The daily curriculum has continued as usual and the Bears are trying really hard in their English, maths and topic work. Please enjoy some photos of some of the Bears working on their maths activities.

World Book Day 7th March 2019

Last week was a very busy week for the Bears class, and our Blog had pictures of the Reception children making and tasting pancakes. Although a little late, please now enjoy some pictures from our very interesting World Book Day, when the children had a visit from an author, completed a workshop with him and had lots of different activities going on in the mainstream classes. There was also lots of amazing costumes, so well done Bears for dressing up in a costume of your favourite book character and for participating so well in the days events.

This week has seen pancake day, and all the children, across all the year groups have had the opportunity to follow a basic recipe and cook a pancake. They then tasted their wares. Please see the Reception class Bears photos below.

Welcome back to all the Bears, we hope everyone had a lovely break from school and are now raring to go with their new topics. The topics are:

Reception - Let's Play

Year One - Superheroes

Year Two - Grow Your Own

This week the children have been introduced to their topics and everyone has taken part in introductory trips or special days.

The reception children have had a visit to the Egg theatre in bath and watched Muckers. All the Bears were really well behaved and enjoyed the coach journey, lunch time and the actual play. There are no photographs as we were asked not to take photos within the auditorium.

Year One had a fantastic 'Superhero' day at school, with great costumes and fun activities.

Year Two enjoyed a variety of workshops and an interesting walk to the 'Sunken Garden' in the Churchyard. 

See photos below, but don't forget to also look on your child's mainstream class blog.

February 2019

 The Year One children have been cooking Pizzas in preparation for the Around the World Exhibition. Their topic has been all about Italy and the culmination of their learning was 'How to make a Pizza' during an afternoon of cooking. Great fun was had by the three boys, and they worked hard on creating a tasty pizza. Please enjoy the photos below.

In PSHE, we were thinking about people that care for us at different times.  We thought about who does this important role in school, at home and in the outside world.  Lots of discussion and ideas were then recorded on sugar paper - we certainly thought of lots of examples.

Year Two children have been learning all about China and this week they have focused on learning about Chinese food. The children have tasted a range of foods - Prawn crackers, Seaweed, Rice noodles and Egg noodles. Well done to all the children for having a taste of these unusual foods - enjoy the photos below.

January 2019

 Winter trees

All the Bears class have been thinking about Winter and discussing the different signs of the season. Please enjoy looking at the beautiful pictures we have made.

Dance workshops

The children had lots of fun learning a new dance. Each Year group were able to perform a dance from the country they are learning about. Everyone had fun and were able to move to the music.

 

Welcome back Bears to a brand new year at Westbury Infant School, 2019.

Happy New Year to you all!!

All the children have returned to school happy and healthy and it seems that everyone had a lovely Christmas and a well deserved break from school. Now we are all ready to start a new topic - All Around the World.

Reception are learning about Great Britain.

Year 1 are learning about Italy.

Year 2 are learning about China.

The children from Bears class will continue to join their mainstream class for topic and for other learning when it is appropriate. They are always supported by the RB TA's or teacher and have already produced some good work.

Today the children have had a great introduction to the topic with different dance sessions relating to their particular country. Everyone joined in with enthusiasm and hopefully this has stimulated their desire to learn more about the different places in our world.

Don't forget to look on your child's mainstream class blog to see pictures or video of the dance sessions, and pictures will follow on our own blog too.

I hope your children enjoy their new topic and maybe they could even do a little research of their own. 

December 2018

Please enjoy some Christmas photos. I'm sure you agree they look 'very sweet'.

November 2018

Christmas plays are in full swing!

The children are now fully engrossed in practising and performing their Christmas plays (photos to follow). The Reception children are performing Busy, Busy Bethlehem, the Year One children are doing A Little Bird Told Me and Year Two are performing Lights, Camel, Action. I hope you are able to come and see at least one of your child's performances.

The RB children have also been completing lots of Christmas artwork in preparation for the BIG day look out for their decorations, tags or biscuits (depending on your child's year group) in the Christmas Market. They have particularly enjoyed taking part in role play activities, dressing up as elves, Father Christmas and reindeer.  

The Bears visit We the Curious

Please enjoy the photos from our recent visit to Bristol.

 

 

Monday 26th

Sorry for the lack of pictures and new entries. There have been a few problems on the Bears Blog, but hopefully these will be sorted shortly.

The children have been working well, since the last posting. They are joining their mainstream classes to complete a variety of topic work, but also for practising the Christmas play songs. All the children have now been assigned a part in the various plays and they will be practising them from next week. Posters are now in the windows to let you know when the plays take place. 

 Remembrance picture restored

All the children created a piece of poppy artwork to commemorate Remembrance Day on the 11th November.

 

 

Welcome back to term 2.

The children have returned to school full of excitement and enthusiasm. We have already been on our school trips for this term - Reception went to Brokerswood, Year One went to the Fire Station in Trowbridge and the Year Two children went to We the Curious in Bristol (look out for pictures over the coming weeks). All the children were well behaved and did their school proud!

On Monday 12th of November the whole school had a Remembrance Assembly, led by Mrs Budge. It was lovely to see the children listening and responding in a respectful and understanding way, to a subject that is quite difficult for younger children to fully appreciate. Well done all of you. The children also made pictures and wreaths in commemoration of all the men and women who have fought in order for us to have better lives.

 

Today, Tuesday 13th November, the children have had their school photograph taken, so look out for the order form in the next couple of weeks.  

October 2018

 Autumn Term 2

 Monday 15th October

Happy Monday to everyone. Just a quick update to keep you informed.

The children across all 3 year groups have continued to work hard in both their mainstream class and in the Bears classroom. Displays are now completed, showcasing some of the lovely work they have completed and hopefully you will be able to see this work when you come to parents evening (Wednesday and Thursday of this week).

All the children are taking part in Read, Write, Inc. lessons after assembly and the Reception children are now getting very familiar with the daily format. Following morning break the children complete a maths session, before lunch time at 12. Afternoons are devoted to topic based learning, including PE, music, art and design and history and geography. Again, as you already know, some of this learning takes part in the Bears classroom and some with the children's mainstream peers.

This week is looking particularly exciting with the opening of our new library on Wednesday, I'll say no more as I wouldn't like to spoil the surprise.

See you all on either Wednesday or Thursday for parent consultations and have a lovely week.

 Friday 19th October

This week saw the opening of our magnificent library and the children were thrilled to use it on Thursday and Friday. We owe a huge thank you to Mrs Rylands who has painted fabulous pictures of different fairy tales and well known stories around the room. We also need to say thank you to our caretaker, Anthony, for his incredible construction work, and also many thanks to Mrs Newbury and Mrs Budge for their hard work and vision.

If you haven't yet had the delight of visiting the library, please take a look as soon as you can - you will be amazed.

Please enjoy the slide show below.

 

Wednesday 24th October

Thank you to all the parents who were able to come to the 'end of topic' events this week. I think you will agree that the children have worked really hard this term and produced some very pleasing work.

We in the Bears class have especially enjoyed going into our mainstream classes to join in with the interesting work that has been going on. Thank you to all the mainstream teachers for their inventive topic ideas and their great activities. The Bears look forward to starting a new topic in November - see the website for the different year group topics.

And now I wish you all a very happy holiday from all the Resource Base staff. Stay safe, have fun and we'll see you again on Tuesday 6th November.

PS Don't forget that on Friday 9th November all the children will go on their next school trip. So there's lots to look forward to after the holiday is over. 

 

September 2018

 

Autumn Term 1

Welcome to Class 5 and 6, otherwise known as the Bears Class.

We hope you have all had a lovely summer break and feel ready and raring to go in this new academic year. All the Bears have returned to school happy and well, including the new Reception children, who have settled like the little superstars they are. The children are now attending school full time and have already had time in their mainstream classes.

We have lots to look forward to over the coming months, not least of all our school trips next Friday (21st). Reception children are going to Victoria Art Gallery and Museum in Bath, Year 1 children are going to Warleigh Farm near Bath and Year 2 children will visit Westbury White Horse. All these trips support the different topics in each year group.

We look forward to keeping you informed of all the different things we do in school, so visit our Blog regularly and enjoy.

Don't forget to also visit the Blogs of your child's mainstream class for more information and photographs. 

Year 2 trip to Westbury White Horse

The children had a wonderful time on Westbury White Horse, despite a few showers here and there. The views are spectacular and the windy weather was exhilarating. The children drew some lovely pictures and went for some very interesting walks. When they returned to school the children's kites flew really well in the windy weather. I think they are all looking forward to the next trip already.

Year R trip to The Victoria Art Gallery

The Reception children had a lovely time in Bath on their very first school trip. The children travelled to Bath on the coach, and on arrival their first port of call was a walk around the gardens in the centre of the city. Following a lovely look around and a well deserved snack, they then spent time in Victoria Art Gallery, where they could look at and discuss the paintings and then make a picture portrait of their own. All the Bears were very well behaved and had an enjoyable time.