Willowbank School, KilmarnockWe having been exploring different toy fruit and vegetables and being doing some role play. We have been pretending to be the shop keeper and a customer and weighing different fruit and vegetables. We have been comparing them seeing which is heavier. We were all confident individuals and able to choose different things to put on each side of the scales to see which is heavier.
MNU 0.11a
The Transition class were Confident Individuals when they started learning the skills needed for Poly Bat. This week they were concentrating on making a push motion with the bat.
In the Oak class we celebrated Diwali, the festival of lights. We were confident individuals creating our very own rangoli patterns. We enjoyed listening to the story about Dipal and how his family celebrates Diwali. We were all keen sample some of the food that Dipal spoke about in the story.
We were presented with a certificate for taking part in the Willowbank Rangoli competition.
*Successful Learners* *Confident Individuals*
As part of the Snowdrops outdoor learning, we have been exploring and having fun with kites. Everyone has had the opportunity to observe a kite flying and feel the tension on the strings. Some pupils have also been able to fly the kite independently as well.
In class we also enjoyed designing our own kites to make a lovely class display.
*Confident Individuals* *Successful Learners* *Responsible Citizens* *Effective Contributors*
This term, the Snowdrops have been discussing what make a good friend. They enjoy identifying their class friends through photographs and written names labels. During choosing times, pupils are given the opportunity to choose a friend to play with and enjoy an activity together. This has encouraged good friendship skills such as sharing and turn taking.
We have also made lovely posters with pictures of what makes a good friend.
The Asteroids did a super job of using potatoes to make and mash and create a potato autumnal hedgehog.
We all tried peeling our potatoes and chopping them into small pieces ready to cook. We also helped peel a carrot and then the teachers chopped them into small pieces to make eyes and noses. Next job was to chop our sausages into small pieces to make hedgehog prickles. We all enjoyed this job the best and some of us couldn’t resist a wee taste! 
We used our mashers to mash the potato and enjoyed seeing the potato squeeze through the different shapes in the mashers!
When the mash was ready, we helped make a hedgehog shape then began to arrange our sausage slices to make prickles. Last job was to pop on the chopped carrot eyes and noses. Job done!
Don’t they look great?
Some of us were confident individuals and tried them. Yum! The sausages were by far the favourite part.
*Responsible Citizens* *Effective Contributors* *Successful Learners*
As part of our Eco targets and Globals Goals this year, we took on the challenge of making Eco friendly pumpkins. We had great fun carving our pumpkins and creating autumnal artwork with them. We then decided to turn our pumkins into bird feeders.
It is good fun carving pumpkins but we are really wasting food if they are just left to rot. By filling them with bird seed we are helping to reduce our food waste footprint whilst also feeding the birds that visit our sensory garden.
*Successful Learners* *Confident Individuals*
The Sungazers have enjoyed listening to a variety of stories outdoors over the last couple of months. The have experienced story time in the summer sun whilst sitting together on the grass as well as story time sitting on our picnic benches during the nicer autumnal weather.
They have also explored stories using props such as sensory materials and puppets and enjoyed sharing books with their friends. 
Successful Learners/Confident Individuals/Responsible Citizens
The Asteroids celebrated Diwali this morning – the Festival of Lights.
We practised the Diwali Makaton sign and learned about the different things people do to celebrate Diwali. One of these being creating a Rangoli to place at their front doors. These are very colourful and we made our very own using different shapes, pom poms and glitter. We even threaded some beads to make tassels for it! We enjoyed celebrating light over darkness by having our own sensory light experience inthe classroom.
Well done, Asteroids!
*Confident Individuals *Effective Contributors
Together we followed instructions to build origami paper boats. We filled a tray with water to test if they could float. Thankfully they did.
