Pre-Prep’s We Love Books Week
What an incredible and exciting week it has been in Pre-Prep. The children didn’t just celebrate World Book Day, they spent the whole week immersed in books to help them to love reading and to inspire them to be authors and illustrators. The week has been jam packed with fun activities. Each morning and some afternoons mums came in and read their favourite stories. Thanks to Mrs Mahan, Mrs Blair, Mrs Sturdy, Mrs Wilkinson, Mrs Collier and Mrs Aston who all entertained all the children What great storytellers! Former pupil Jake Grafton Telfer also came in to read the story The Book With No Pictures and had the children from Nursery to PP2 and the teachers in stitches. (Click here to watch the video.) Just before World Book Day, PP1 had great fun recreating and acting out the story of ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’. In small groups the children took on the role of a character and one person became the narrator. It was wonderful to watch each play and see how the children told it in a slightly different way. We even filmed the plays and all the children became film stars for 5 minutes. Well done everybody.
World Book Day
On World Book Day itself the Pre-Prep pupils and staff arrived at school in some fabulous costumes from dragons to dinosaurs and princesses to pirates. Nursery described their characters to each other and Reception brought in their favourite story and read it to the class. PP1 explored the story of the Three Bears and made delicious porridge. PP2 read four books which included Tabby McTat and wrote adverts for homeless animals. PP2 also wrote their own stories this week using George’s Marvellous Medicine as inspiration. They read their versions entitled George’s Marvellous Machine to the rest of Pre-Prep in assembly. Well done to PP2 for some amazing writing. It was lovely to see so many novel and inspirational costumes throughout the whole of Main and Upper School too. The whole of Pre-Prep also had a ‘draw a book cover’ competition in which the children had to design a new cover for their favourite book and write an explanation of why they particularly liked their chosen book. Congratulations to everyone for their fabulous drawings and explanations, but particularly to our winners: Saskia Simpson-Daniel (Reception), Emilia Sample (PP1) and Gus Living (PP2):
PP1 Good Work Assembly
On Friday 13th February PP1 had their Good Work Assembly to showcase all their hard work throughout the year. During the assembly PP1 took their audience back in time to Viking Britain where they questioned the audience on Viking life using a series of true or false questions. To help transform PP1 into Vikings for their assembly, PP1 had made Viking helmets and shields. After sharing their favourite bits of their trip to JORVIK and DIG, the children then came back to the present day where PP1 had the chance to show off some paintings and research about their own houses as part of their Houses and Homes topic. Well done to PP1 for all their hard work practising and performing their assembly.
Pre-Prep’s Healthy Me week
Pre-Prep spent the week before half term learning all about staying healthy and safe. The children had a visit from Sandra, an Accident & Emergency nurse to tell them all about what happens when they visit A & E department. Then Mr Smith, a dentist, explained to the chidlren all about how they should brush their teeth and which foods can be most damaging to teeth. Everyone was surprised to see the amounts of sugar in some foods, and the damage that can do! Pre-Prep completed their healthy week with a Healthy Me day where they had lots of fun doing Zumba along to their favourite songs, making delicious juices from vegetables and fruits and learning some First Aid. PP1 sold tasty, healthy snacks at break time to raise funds for Pre-prep i-pads. The week really helped everyone in Pre-Prep think about making safe and healthy choices.
PP2 Skype the European Space Agency
On Friday PP2 had the chance to talk to Kim Nergaard via Skype. He is a rocket scientist who works for the European Space Agency and is Head of Advanced Mission Concepts. He told the class about his job which includes designing Eurobot, a robot which can be controlled from space. British astronaut Tim Peake, who will be going to the International Space Station in November, will be one of the astronauts trialling this new technology. PP2 were able to ask lots of interesting questions like ‘How far into space have we explored?’ and were surprised to find that ESA has been beyond our solar system. They also found out about Rosetta and what it has told us about Comet 67. We now know that comets are not spherical and that the water on comets is different from water on Earth. There was only one question which couldn’t be answered which is ‘Where does space end?’ No one knows the answer yet! Being able to interview a real life scientist has inspired PP2 to design space craft (This takes about ten years) and to aspire to work in space (ESA picks 10 astronauts each year out of 20,000 applicants!) PP2 love learning about space!
ZooLab Visits Pre-Prep
As part of the Early Years’ Animals topic, the whole of Pre-Prep enjoyed a visit from ZooLab. The children learned about the animals’ characteristics, their habitats and their life cycles. They also had the chance to get up close and personal with Ed the Madagascan Cockroach, Roy the Giant African Snail, Petunia the Corn Snake and Tracey the Tarantula!
Silly Hat Day
Perhaps it was something to do with the weather but there was certainly an abundance of wild and wacky head gear on display last Friday as pupils and staff from throughout the school entered into the spirit of the Woolly Hat/Silly Wig Day to raise money for St Mungo’s. Some won compliments, some raised a chuckle, some – not least Mr Sample’s offering – definitely prompted a double take!
PP2 travel into space
PP2 are learning all about space this term. Last week they were investigating the planets in our solar system. They can name all of the planets and they know some fabulous facts about them. After watching a clip from Stargazing Live the children re-created a solar system to show the order of the planets and the distances between them. They used objects to show the size of the planets beginning with a peppercorn for Mercury (the smallest planet) and a football for Jupiter (the largest planet). Grapefruits, kiwis and cherry tomatoes also featured as the other planets. The children used toilet roll to measure the distances between the planets with each square representing 16 million km! As you can see they all enjoyed the challenge.
PP2 at the Yorkshire Museum
PP2 jetted off for an exciting trip to The Yorkshire Museum in York last Thursday to support their study of “Space”. Their first challenge was to squeeze themselves through a tiny opening to enter the Cosmodome – a huge inflatable dome-shaped tent with images projected onto the roof – where they journeyed though the solar system and investigated each planet in close detail. Following this the children explored the 18th Century York Observatory and learned about the two hundred year old telescope which uses spider webs and impressive mechanical engineering to create a clear view of the sky at night through the sliding observatory roof. Having refuelled in the lunch room, the children enjoyed visiting the museum galleries, learning all about the history of the city of York before returning to school.
Pre-Prep visit Jorvik
On the 20th January 2015 PP1 had a wonderful day stepping back in time to experience life as a Viking. The children had the opportunity to be archaeologist’s at Dig in York and before becoming time travellers as they went back in time at the Jorvik Viking Centre. The children had a super time but they were not impressed with the smells coming from the Viking village!