Our school community working together to commemorate the Queen’s Jubilee.
As part of a Wetherby community group, our school has entered a Jubilee craft cake for the Royal Church and Community Fete and Queen’s Jubilee Cake Festival at St James’ Church, Wetherby.
The whole school contributed to this creation and they all thoroughly enjoyed making it.
Reception – Beefeaters
Year 1/2 – stamp rubbings and crowns
Year 3 – clay corgi dogs
Year 4 – clay postage stamps
Year 5/6 – Hama Beads flags
We are all very proud to have been part of this and if you would like to attend the festival, it takes place on Friday 3rd June, 10am till 2pm at St. James Church in Wetherby.
Beautiful butterflies and joyful Jubilee!
Wow! We’ve had a wonderful week, here at nursery. We’ve been celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and hoping our butterflies would come out of their chrysalises. At the beginning of the week we learned all about the Queen’s transport and looked at some of her special carriages. Then, we looked at some of her crowns and special jewels and, finally, we looked at some of her palaces around the UK. The children also had a look at the Union Jack flag and talked about the colours they could see. On Thursday morning, we had a little nursery tea party together and, in the afternoon, the children had a chance to make their own special crowns ready for the big Platinum Jubilee party on Friday.
All week, we have been wondering when the butterflies would emerge from their chrysalises and, on Wednesday, the first one appeared inside the special net cage. By Friday, all of them were flapping happily around the cage and we were very excited to be able to release them into the wild. We took them outside and opened the zip but the change in temperature and the windy conditions meant that the butterflies were reluctant to leave their safe environment. We decided that the best thing to do was to leave them outside and wait until the afternoon for another try.
The big party went really well and we were first on stage to perform our special dance which we had been practising. The children were fantastic and they were helped by some of our wonderful Year 6 friends. So, we send a big thank you to them. It was lovely to watch everyone else’s performances and we really enjoyed our special party lunch.
In the afternoon, we went outside again and found that the butterflies were ready to leave their home. One-by-one, they flew away until the last one was alone. It took a while for this little butterfly to fly out of the cage and it rested on the ground immediately. We all wondered why this had happened… The children decided that it might be tired or hungry so they all gathered daisies to help it to recover. We watched the butterfly feed and, after a while, it had the strength to fly away. It was a magical end to a magical day!
Please take a look at our fantastic photos from this week and we all wish you a very happy Platinum Jubilee weekend.
This week’s bible story
Jesus Gives Us Peace: John 14:27–31
In John 14, Jesus is talking to His disciples shortly before He is crucified. He knows they will be scared, but He promises them a spirit of peace. Even though He will leave them, He promises them “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you . . . Do not let your hearts be troubled.”
He doesn’t promise His disciples a peaceful, easy life when they will always relax and never experience conflict or fear. But He does promise that ultimately, they will live together again in peace when Jesus returns. That means that no matter what they face, the disciples’ future is secure because of Jesus. This gives them true peace, not a peace based on their situation. We can share in that same peace when we believe in Jesus!
Memory Verse: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. John 14:27
Prayer:
Dear God,
Help us to remember that you are always there for us. Help us to feel the peace that you have given us when we are in times of uncertainty.
Amen
Finding shapes
This week, our maths focus has been to understand and describe the properties of 2D shapes. We started off the week by looking at circles, squares, triangles and rectangles and talked about their similarities and differences. The children went on a shape hunt in the outside area and also created 2D shapes from sticks. These activities helped them to gain better understanding of ‘sides’, ‘corners’, ‘edges’ and ‘curves’ and use this vocabulary in their discussions. Lots of the children have been able to identify 2D shapes in real life and have realised that these shapes can be found in their lunches. One of the children told us that their sandwich was a rectangle and another exclaimed: “A fish finger is a rectangle shape, too!”
Our class caterpillars have all become chrysalises and we are keeping a close eye on them every day to see what happens next… We have been making more art inspired by our focus book: The Very Hungry Caterpillar and have even been creating our own painted papers in the style of Eric Carle. We have also looked at symmetry this week and used a mirror to understand the concept of both sides being identical.
Next week, we will be doing lots of Jubilee-inspired activities to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. We hope to have lots of fun while we learn.
Things to remember:
- Please bring a named water bottle and hat for your child as the weather is getting warmer.
- Please name all items of clothing as we have lots of cardigans and jumpers to return to their owners at the end of a warm day.
Dates for your diary:
- Thursday 26 May – Jubilee Coffee Morning from 9.15am (please bring your child into nursery as normal at 9am). Further details to follow…
- Friday 27 May – Jubilee Celebration Lunch. Please dress your child in red, white or blue.
This week’s bible story
Jesus in the temple: Matthew 21:12-13
Have ever been really angry? Is there a difference between being angry because we can’t get our own way and being angry because something really isn’t right or fair? Can they think of a story when Jesus was angry?
The following story probably happened during the week leading up to Easter. Jesus had just entered Jerusalem on a donkey. Crowds of people came to see him and cheered him as a hero. Many powerful people were worried about how popular Jesus had become and some didn’t like his teaching.
The Temple in Jerusalem was a place of pilgrimage, especially at the time of the Passover. People would bring offerings, often of animals, as symbols of thanksgiving or of sorrow for past sins. These animals could be bought at the entrance to the Temple. It seems likely that the people who sold the animals, the money-lenders or merchants of the story, were charging too much and cheating the poor. Jesus may have heard about this, although that is not recorded in the Gospels. listen carefully to the story and think about the following:
How they think Jesus is feeling.
What Jesus does.
What he says.
Read the story of Jesus in the temple.
Reflection:
How do you think Jesus was feeling?
What did he do?
What did he say?
Was Jesus putting himself in danger by expressing his anger? are surprised to hear a story in which Jesus expresses anger. Why do they think he was angry? Are there times when it is right to show we are angry? Is it right to be angry about injustice or unfairness? What was Jesus trying to change by his anger?
Think about a time when you have been angry. Was it right to be angry?
Prayer:
God of all creation,
Help us as we try to understand all our feelings.
Help us to recognize when we are angry
and to see when things we do or say make other people angry.
Help us to see the difference between anger that is selfish
and anger that seeks justice for others or ourselves.
Help us to choose our actions with care, courage and love.
Amen.
A lovely week of learning
Everyone’s been very busy this week! We’ve been busy learning all about worms and caterpillars, busy creating fantastic art and busy playing with our friends.
The children have enjoyed making lists of different sorts, including a wonderful list of ‘brown things’. We’ve drawn lots of different worms and talked about their lengths and we’ve also continued to develop our understanding of ‘one more’ and ‘one less’. We’ve been on another minibeast hunt and looked at different ways of sorting these fabulous creatures. We discovered that some have no legs, some have many legs and some have wings (and some have many legs AND wings). Our class caterpillars have been growing and changing each day and we’ve started to talk about their life cycles. Our focus book is currently ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ and we’ll be creating some Eric Carle-inspired art next week.
We hope that the weather will be kind to our beans and herbs and they will grow taller and stronger in the sunshine. Hopefully, we’ll have a tasting session soon.
Dates for your diary:
27.05.22 – Jubilee day. Please bring your child to school dressed in red, white and blue to help us celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.
This week’s bible story
Jacob steals Esau’s blessing: Genesis 27
The bible says that Peace comes through forgiveness and repentance (saying sorry).
Read the story about Jacob and Esau and see how they were not at peace with each other. After Jacob had stolen Esau’s birth right, he ran away and the brothers lived apart for many years.
Reflection:
How could he be at peace with his brother, when he had done so many wrong things? Would they be able to live peacefully? When they met, Jacob tried to give Esau gifts, but Esau just forgave him. This is a beautiful example of peace between two brothers after years of being angry and apart!
Prayer:
Dear God,
Thank you that there are examples in the bible where we can see peace between family and friends. Help us to be at peace with our friends and family.
Amen
Slugs and snails
This week at nursery, we’ve started to look at minibeasts with no legs. It’s been quite a contrast to the spiders we investigated and the children have enjoyed learning lots of facts about slugs and snails. Please ask your child if they can remember what the word ‘nocturnal’ means – we had a great discussion about it on the carpet.
At the beginning of the week, we continued to try out some recipes from last week’s focus book ‘Spider Sandwiches’ which were delicious! Then, we all enjoyed the opportunity to look at snail shells and think about the spiral patterns we could see. The children created some lovely artwork with their mark-making experiments which will be displayed in the classroom. We’ve also been making marks using dyed sand and a non-Newtonian fluid called Oobleck (cornflour and water). These experiments are a fun way to help the children with their letter formation and handwriting. In our maths sessions we’ve been thinking about ‘one more’ and in phonics, we’ve been listening out for words which begin with the same initial sounds.
Outside, we’ve been re-potting our herbs from their tiny indoor greenhouse and looking after our beans which are getting quite tall. We’ll also be starting to plant some other vegetables over the next couple of weeks and the children will have the opportunity to taste their own produce.
Our caterpillars arrived this week and we’ve been watching them grow. Next week we’ll begin reading ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ and we’ll talk about the life-cycle of a butterfly. Hopefully, in a few weeks time, we’ll be able to release our own butterflies into our garden area.
This week’s bible story
‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.’ John 14:27
What do you understand by the word ‘peace’.
The Oxford English Dictionary lists various definitions for the word ‘peace’.
– One definition is ‘freedom from disturbance; tranquillity’. Can you use this definition of peace in a sentence. For example, ‘The teacher wanted to have a few minutes’ peace in the staffroom.’
– Another definition is ‘a state or period in which there is no war or a war has ended’. Can you use this definition of peace in a sentence? For example, ‘After the Second World War ended, there was a time of peace.’
In 1981, 37 years ago, an organization called the United Nations set up a very special day called the International Day of Peace. The event is observed by people all over the world on 21 September every year. The aim of the day is to encourage everyone to commit to peace, despite there being many differences among us. People observe the day in various ways. Some people have special parties; others bring everyone together to eat in peace. Some people put up peace poles; others organize peace workshops. One thing that is common to all of the different groups of people is that they aim to have one minute of silence at midday.
The world is spinning on its axis in space. As the world turns, midday occurs at different times in different parts of the world. For example, when it is midday in Paris in France, it will be 11 a.m. in the UK because Paris is one hour ahead of us. When it is midday in the UK, it will be 11 a.m. in Dakar in Senegal, West Africa. This is because Dakar is one hour behind us. Show the maps above to illustrate. This time difference means that different countries will be observing the one-minute silence at different moments across time zones. The idea is to create a ‘peace wave’ that moves around the globe.
Each International Day of Peace has a special theme. In 2018, the theme celebrates the seventieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. When the declaration (agreement) was written 70 years ago, it stated that everybody in the world should have equal rights to life, freedom and security. It didn’t actually say that everyone had the right to peace. This year, it is hoped that the International Day of Peace will again send out a clear message about the importance of peace.
Time for reflection
The International Day of Peace encourages people all over the world to think about the importance of peace. In many parts of the world, people are living in situations where war and unrest make peace seem unlikely or even impossible.
It may seem that we can do little to help change the world. However, each of us can do things that encourage peace in our own small parts of the world. All of us can help to create peace in school or in our homes. Each of us can try to live peacefully with one another. Each of us can listen to other people’s opinions and learn about our differences.
Think about what peace means in the context of the school.
– Is our school a peaceful place?
– Are there things that we can do to make school more peaceful?
– How could we make our classrooms more peaceful? What about our playgrounds? What about dinner times?
We may feel like we can’t make a massive difference to the whole world, but each of us can do little things that together make a big difference.
Prayer
Dear God,
We pray for people in parts of the world where there is no peace,
Where there are wars and unrest.
We pray for peace.
We pray for the people we come into contact with each day.
Please help us to live in peace with them.
Help us to recognize that we are all different and that everyone’s opinions matter.
Amen.
Spiders, spiders everywhere!
We’ve all had a fantastic week learning about minibeasts and, in particular, spiders. The children have been learning about the life-cycle of a spider, they’ve been drawing spiders from pictures and modelling them from junk materials. We’ve also been thinking about spiders’ webs and how these clever creatures spin them to catch their dinner. In our ‘rainforest cafe’, we’ve had lots of fun creating and ordering food inspired by our focus book: Spider Sandwiches by Claire Freedman. Today, we all went on a minibeast hunt around our garden area and found: worms, spiders, a bee and a woodlouse.
Our beans are growing well and the children have been helping to take care of them by watering them daily and weeding them. We’ve noticed lots of little holes appearing in their leaves so we’ve also been checking for caterpillars!
In maths, we’ve been thinking about the number five and, in phonics, we’ve been identifying words which have the same initial sounds.
Next week, after looking at minibeasts with many legs, we’ll be looking at those with no legs. I wonder what we’ll discover?
We all wish you a happy long weekend and see you on Tuesday.
