Visit from Little City 28.01.26

What an exciting week it’s been in Duckling Class! Little City South Oxfordshire swooped in to help us explore our topic of superheroes and people who help us, and the children wasted no time jumping straight into character.
The sports hall was transformed into a bustling mini‑town. We had busy mechanics fixing “broken” cars, talented hairdressers giving fabulous makeovers (Mrs Bayliss even popped in for a quick appointment), caring vets and doctors tending to patients, and a whole team of emergency workers and builders keeping everything running smoothly. Each role offered rich opportunities for imaginative play, problem‑solving, and collaboration.
The children threw themselves into each role with huge enthusiasm, picking up lots of new vocabulary as they played. They were so proud of their adventures that they spent the rest of the morning excitedly telling adults around the school all about their important jobs.

A brilliant morning of imagination, teamwork, and big smiles. Thank you Little City

Superhero’s 24.01.26

This week, we have continued exploring superheroes and real-life superheroes. We read the story Zog and the Flying Doctors and set up a doctor’s role-play area where the children helped to make people feel better. We also learned about dentists and discussed when and how we should brush our teeth.

The children practised brushing teeth using toothbrushes and shaving foam as toothpaste. They cleaned pictures of teeth with “stains” using cotton buds, helping to develop their fine motor skills and understanding of oral hygiene.

We also made our own superhero smoothies, practising our cutting skills safely using knives to prepare a variety of fruits. Everyone enjoyed tasting the smoothies they had made!

Welcome back 05.01.26

We have had a fantastic start to the term!

Some of the children have been especially interested in pirates, so we set off on our very own pirate adventure. We made treasure maps by staining paper with tea bags and coffee, then followed our routes to hunt for treasure. The children also made pirate hats and created their own pirates, using lots of imagination and creativity.

We have also been having lots of fun playing outside in the ice, exploring how it feels and changes, and enjoying the winter weather together.

It has been wonderful to see the children so engaged, curious, and enthusiastic as they learn through play.

A visit from Father Christmas 19.12.25

The Ducklings were very excited to welcome Father Christmas for a special visit! They wished him a happy Christmas and said thank you for their lovely gift.

Ducklings stay and play 16.12.25

Ducklings hosted a stay and play for their parents. They enjoyed sharing some Christmas activities with them, and showing them round their class

A trip to the post office. 12.12.25

Our book this week is the Jolly Christmas postman after reading the story we decided to send Father Christmas some pictures that we had drawn of him to decorate his workshop.
We talked about putting all the pictures into an envelope, but how would the post man know where to send it? We looked back at our story and saw that there was writing on the front of the envelopes and this was called the address, and we also saw that there was a stamp on them too which pays for the post to be sent.
We discussed where we would get the stamp from? the post office and decided to take a walk to the one in the village.
When we got to the post office we showed the cashier our letter, he weighed it and gave us a stamp he explained where it had to go on the letter and that it then needed to go in to the post box out side.
We hope our letter arrives safely and that farther Christmas might have time to reply.

The children were absolutely brilliant walking through the village to the post office, they held their partners hand all the way and followed all the instructions. We talked about how to cross the roads safely, stopping looking and listening and not running.

Well done ducklings.

 Exploring Autumn 21.11.25

This week we have been very arty as we continued exploring autumn. We went on an autumn hunt to collect leaves to make our own Leaf Man for our display. They all look amazing and are unique in every way!

Some of us used the leaves for leaf rubbings. We felt the leaf first to find the raised, bumpy side so we knew which way to place it under the paper. Then we used crayons to rub over the top, we loved watching the leaf appear like magic!

Over in the playdough area, we pressed leaves into the dough and used rolling pins to create leaf patterns. We then used conkers and twigs to make our own Leaf Men.

Bonfire 07.11.25

This week, we have been learning all about Bonfire Night and why we celebrate it. The children have enjoyed exploring a non-fiction book all about the story behind Bonfire Night. We discovered who Guy Fawkes was and how he and his friends planned a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament with the king inside! Thankfully, the plot was stopped, and the king was saved.
We learned lots of exciting new words this week, including gunpowder, parliament, plot, and explosives!
The children have been very creative with their Bonfire Night crafts. They made rockets using cardboard rolls,decorating them with bright pieces of paper. We also created fireworks by folding colourful paper back and forth so they popped out, painted beautiful firework pictures, and even made stick sparklers.
To finish off our week, we watched a firework display on the whiteboard and talked about all the different colours, lights, and sounds we could see and hear. The children loved describing the “bangs,” “whizzes,” and “crackles” as the fireworks lit up the night sky!

Diwali 24.10.25

This week we have been Looking at the book Binny’s Diwali, a story about a school girl called Binny who shares with her class what Diwali is and how they celebrate. We learnt how it is the festival of light and they light lamps called Diyas to guide good luck into their homes and chase away the darkness. We made our own Diya's out of clay, it felt cold and hard at first but until we rolled it between our hands into a ball using our fingers to pinch and squish it into a bowl shape, we used sequins to decorate it. 
Miss Denney decorated our hands with Mehndi patterns, these signify good luck and prosperity.
Some of us made rangoli patterns these consist of bright colours and intricate patterns and motifs.
we decorated some of the paving slabs out side the class room using brightly coloured chalks we also used pegs and boards and coloured rice on the large tuff tray inside to make even more lovely designs. 
We have really enjoyed learning about a different celebration and discovering the wonderful traditions of Diwali. 

Funnybones 10.10.25

This week we have been looking at the book Funnybones, we’ve looked at how we can’t see our bones under our skin and we need a special camera to take a picture called an X-ray. It uses a special light to help see our bones. We have learnt the word skeleton and how it holds us up otherwise we would be like jelly! We met Dave the skeleton and enjoyed looking at all the bones in his body and learning some of the names We all tried to remember the name for the bones in our fingers as it sounded sooo funny, phalanges! We watched a funny skeleton dance and joined in  https://youtu.be/e54m6XOpRgU?feature=shared  Mrs Neath hid some skeletons in jelly, it was great fun exploring the texture and talking about how it felt.

Marvellous Me 28.09.25

We have settled well into Ducklings and have enjoyed looking at our topic Marvellous me.

We  have been looking at our faces and the different features which we have that make each of us UNIQUE. We then tried to paint our faces, we used mirrors to look at the shape of our faces, colour of our skin, eye and hair colour.
I have to say I think we all did a pretty good job.

Our first week 08.09.25