Monthly Archives: December 2021

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Christmas Eve Message from Sharon, Head Teacher

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Dear Parents/Carers

I would like to wish all of our families and friends a Merry Christmas and I hope that Santa is good to our children.  We have had a challenging year but we have made it through with your continued support.  I must thank you for the huge amount of Foodbank donations, donations to our charities and for the lovely gifts you have very kindly given us.

I hope that you have a happy and healthy Christmas and New Year with your family and loved ones until we open again to welcome you back on Wednesday 5th January 2022.

Kindest wishes

Sharon McKenna

Outdoor Learning

Lots of fun in the garden!

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Today the children had great fun in the garden. They set up the guttering on our new stands and loved rolling balls of different sizes down the slopes. The aim was to catch the balls in the basket at the bottom!

The children showed great problem solving skills whilst developing their gross motor skills stretching, reaching and chasing the balls. They were very excited when the balls landed in the basket.

Before home time the children enjoyed having  fun out on the bikes. They loved zooming around the garden and were very excited that it was getting dark! This further develops their gross motor skills, balance and coordination.

Lots of fun and fresh air today and the children showed great teamwork and amazing turn taking in the garden!

Special Event

Christmas Concerts

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The children were amazing today performing for the parents and family members who had come along to watch in our garden.

We loved having the ponies, Annabelle and Eddie to join us.

The children got the chance to feed them and their favourite snack is carrots.

The children give us year-round joy and it was so lovely to have our parents and families here with us today to share in that joy.

Expressive Arts, Special Event

Making Christmas memories

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Today in the home room the children have been busy making their very own Christmas tree ornaments  using salt dough and their own creative skills!

We demonstrated good social skills by working together to carefully measuring the ingredients and adding them to a bowl to mix.

We exercised our manipulative and fine motor skills  and we strengthened our muscles through lots of mixing, kneading, rolling and cutting our dough.

We listened carefully and demonstrated we are very careful when using an oven as it can get very hot! We baked our dough  shapes in the oven to make them hard.

We decorated our decorations with our own choice of coloured paint, glitter and snow dust. We then tied some beautiful ribbon to them so we can hang them on our tree,


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Sensory Christmas Playdough

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This morning the children were making chocolate cookies with the play dough. They have been showing an interest in role play, so this lead us to a discussion about different senses we could explore .

The children used their sense of smell to test and compare the various flavours. We tested cocoa powder, peppermint, salted caramel, ginger, orange and lemon.

 Ginger –  “gingerbread man  , Nannas house”

Peppermint – “mint choc chip”

Cocoa powder – “Christmas pudding  and cookies

The children then independently made their own playdough using their favourite scent.

The children then explored with their playdough and decided to make lots of different  shaped cookies and candy canes for Santa. They used the home corner to put them in the oven to bake.

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Science Citrus explosions

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Today some of the children in the discovery room wanted to make an explosion. We decided to try and make one using lemons and tangerines. We placed the orange and tangerine onto a plate and then took the tops off and squished the insides of the fruit to bring out some of the juice. We then squeezed some washing up liquid into the juice and added some food colouring and a teaspoonful of baking soda. After we did this, we watched as the fruits exploded with colourful bubbles! It was so exciting!!
We talked about the science and how the experiment worked. Citrus fruit contains citric acid which has a chemical reaction when it mixes with the baking soda due to form carbon dioxide, which is a gas. Once the citric acid and the baking soda have neutralised each other the reaction stops and no more gas is made. The children had so many things to say about the experiment including:
“ I think the lemon has more citrus acid in it than the tangerine because the lemon has bigger bubbles”

“I want my explosion to be rainbow colours”” Look the blue and red has turned black”
“I need more baking powder I want a big explosion “ “ It feels slimy if you touch it” “The lemon smells nice”


We really enjoyed participating in this fun science activity.