LONG BUCKBY INFANT SCHOOL
Red Class and Orange Class
Welcome to our website page! Keep visiting to see our photos and find out what we have been learning. The Orange Class is taught by Mrs Musgrove and the Red Class is taught by Mrs Wall on Monday to Thursday and Mrs Jeffery on Friday but most of the time we work together. If you would like to contact us you can do so via email using our email addresses below:
Mrs Musgrove - smusgrove@lbis.school
Mrs Wall - lwall@lbis.school
Mrs Jeffery – jjeffery@lbis.school
Term 5 and 6
Our new topic is 'Splish, Splash, Splosh!' Please click on the links below to find out more:
What an exciting first day back at school! When we walked into the classroom after lunch we couldn’t understand what had happened. There was water, jelly, frogs, ducks, drainpipes and green stones and lily pads everywhere. When we looked outside we could see a paddling pool with ducks swimming in it! Then Ivy discovered a strange blue creature hiding inside a green tube, under the bench. When we prised him out to look at him, the children said “Be quiet. Don’t make a noise and don’t shout so that it will be happier for him.”
We decided to take him indoors as Ivy said “Let’s take it inside to keep an eye on him!” We followed a trail of twigs and found a half-built nest. The children decided to build him a comfy bed and found more twigs and soft material. The children noticed that he had wings “he might live near water but I think if he goes in the water, he might not be able to fly because his wings won’t work.” This led into a vote about whether to build him a cage or not. “We can’t let him fly out of our classroom and into other classrooms, as he might scare people” and “we might lose him in Forest School” but others didn’t want him in a cage and said “he won’t be able to fly around and be free!” We decided that if he was poorly he might go into a cage at the vets so they could look after him and the someone noticed that he has got ‘wobbly eyes’ and needed caring for! The cage building began in earnest (Jude requested smaller pieces of canes to make into a cage and so out came the saw!) and children began writing notes and exploring to find more clues. We still don't know what he is!
We have now found out that he is called 'BOG BABY' as he left us a special book all about himself. We have been doing all sorts of super work about him such as making jelly Bog Babies, writing descriptions about him and making him homes to live in. We loved making pictures of him by painting and printing our ideas. In the story, the children made the bluebells squeak and so we tried to make the grass squeak by adding water and doing the twist! We also found out from the nature expert that came to talk to us, that HE was a GIRL!
We had a lovely time at Mill Park exploring the environment to see if it would be suitable for Bog Baby to live in. We looked for some of his friends and did some pond dipping.
We were sad on the last day of term when we discovered that Bog Baby had gone from our classroom but were excited to see the photo that he had sent us of him relaxing at Mill Park in his new home.
On Monday 6th June we had a lovely afternoon at the duck pond, listening to the sounds around us and looking at all of the ducks and plants that we could see.
We looked at Antony Gormley's field sculptures and discussed what we could see, what material we thought he had used, how long we thought it took him, whether his sculptures were 2D or 3D and what we thought they were. We decided to make our own sculptures using clay and arrange them all together like the field sculpture. We made minibeasts that we might find in or near a pond such as pond skaters, butterflies, bloodworms, spiders, pond snails, freshwater shrimps, dragonflies and water boatmen.
We read the story 'Just Ducks!' and admired the beautiful illustrations. We looked carefully at the duck and the drake pictures. We used a handwriting pen to sketch with. Then we added water to make the ink run so we could 'paint' our picture. They were wonderful and we have put them up on display in the classroom.
Tuesday 19th July - It was so hot today but luckily the PTA bought us all an ice lolly!!!
Term 4
Our topic this term is 'Out of this world!' Please click on the links below to find out more:
'Out of this world!' medium term planning
What a start to our day. We had just finished group reading when Mrs Boston burst into the classroom "There has been a catastrophe in the outdoor area" she shouted. We all rushed out to see what had happened and look what we found!
After lots of chatter and discussion we decide to cordon off the area to make it safe. The children came up with lots of good ideas about what might have happened, ranging from a truck had come into school and broken up to a robber might have dropped things he was stealing all over the ground. Once we talked about the school being locked at night time and that no-one or thing could get through the gates, discussion centred around a space ship crash landing! Bertie said "maybe the air forced down onto the spaceship and made it go down and crash. There might be a trail of petrol or diesel that we can follow." We called Mrs Turley outside to see what we had discovered and she immediately phoned the police to report what had happened. The children were brilliant at explaining events to the police and the officers leapt into action to help us investigate. They asked the children questions, took evidence and put it into bags so it could be investigated in the laboratory, looked over the wall (and discovered 2 golden eggs) and then gave us a 'police aware' sign to put on the scene. What a busy day!
Yesterday we arrived at school to find a pair of golden wellies and a message written on our blackboard in the outdoor area. The children read the message and discovered that Zorg (the alien) had been to visit us! We discovered 8 ice eggs and the children were wondering how they had got there and actually came up with a lot of good ideas. We could see that some of the ice eggs had something inside of them. The children suggested adding salt to melt the ice around the objects, putting them in the sun, putting them on the radiator and putting them in some hot water - we tried them all out to see which worked best!
The children have been very busy using the junk materials to make rockets. Some children decided to work with a partner and others decided to work alone. Ollie had a good think about what he wanted to make and drew his design before building!
We found out about Tim Peake and Helen Sharman on Monday. We compared them to Edward Jenner and Guy Fawkes whom we had learnt about previoulsy. We asked the children 'Did all these people help us in the past?' Ask your child to discuss this again with you and let us know what they say! We wrote a letter to Tim Peake and Mrs Wall 'emailed' it to him. What a surprise we had today (Wednesday) when we got a reply from him!
We used Google Earth to find out where London was compared to Long Buckby and we discussed how big the sea was on the map, compared to the River Thames. Ivy told us that there is a Peppa Pig episode about time capsules and Liliana suggested that we made the time capsule out of a box so that it looked like an alien with a head that opened and shut! We have added both of these ideas onto our planning so we can incorporate them into our work for next week.
We have had fun marbling paper and then cutting out planets from it, so that we could make a postcard to send back to Tim Peake, showing him where Earth and Zorg's planet are in relation to each other!
We have been thinking of how to make a sculpture like the one we looked at called Maman by the sculptor Louise Bourgeois. Her work looked very alien like and we had to make our work 3D and stick up from our flat paper, so that we could also make an alien sculpture. We think we did a good job!
We have been thinking about healthy eating in our Jigsaw work this half term. So we decided to pass on our knowledge to Zorg and his friends, by designing a healthy kebab for an alien (with a treat marshmallow on it!). We used our knowledge of making repeating patterns that we have been doing in maths and thought hard about what we would use on our kebab before we made it. Ivy said she didn't like fruit but enjoyed eating hers! Can you remember what type of pattern you made? Was it an ABB or an AAB or an ABC pattern?
Then alien day arrived! Zorg sent us a note saying that he had gone back to his planet with Tim Peake's help and that he had enjoyed being in our school environment, watching us working hard! We had a fun day playing 'Alien, alien can we cross the galaxy' in the playground, washing the aliens' smelly socks with a washboard like people did long ago, making dry marker aliens move by adding water and playing an alien addition game on the computer. We danced like aliens to 'The Eve of the War' by Jeff Wayne and in the outdoor area, we used ribbons to cheer up an alien by creating a dance with a friend. What a busy day we had, that was topped off by a fabulous alien picnic. A 'BIG THANK YOU'to all the families that donated food to help with this event.
Term 3
Our topic this term is 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt'. Please click on the links below to find out more:
'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' leaflet
'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' medium term planning
On a chilly, windy day back at school, we were shocked to find a polar bear in our outdoor area! We didn't know where he had come from or how he got there. So, we decided to find out some information about polar bears. The children discovered that he was from a cold place near the North Pole called the Arctic. They thought it would be a good idea to make a den for him outside so that he would feel more at home. They created an icy cave with a little cold pool of water next to it so that he can go for a swim and do some fishing if he wants to. He looked very pleased! The children also gave him a blanket and lots of cuddles to cheer him up.
The children thought of questions to ask so they could find out information about polar bears. They cut out a polar bear shape and wrote their question inside it, using a question mark. Then they worked really hard using non-fiction books and the internet to find out the answers to questions that they had and some extra information about polar bears. They sounded out and wrote the letters they needed to do this - well done. The children had a walk around the setting looking at each other's artwork and chose a piece they liked best, explaining why.
We have been working hard to cut out animals that live in hotter places than the Arctic. We had to cut around monkey tails and the long necks of giraffes, so that all the parts of our animals were intact! We painted our backgrounds using sponges and then we added details such as trees, rocks and grass, using paper. Do you like our artwork? Next week we are looking in more detail at animals who live in the Arctic and animals that don't, to see if we can find differences and similarities between them.
Today (Friday) we have had great fun painting upside down, just as Michelangelo did when painting the Sistine chapel in 1508. We worked with a partner to draw and then paint a picture whilst lying on our backs under the table! It was wonderful to see the children working collaboratively with their partner, to create their masterpieces. After we had finished our paintings, they were put up on our ceiling and we laid on the floor and talked about our work. Alfie said that he didn't like painting upside down because he was scared that the paint was going to drip on him and Clem told us that it was easier to paint the right way up! Albert and Grace liked painting under the table because they said they helped their partner and it was fun! We decided that our paintings would brighten up the polar bear's cave in the outdoor area. Have a peek inside to see what we have been up to!
This week we received a letter from 'Mummy Polar Bear' thanking us for looking after her baby bear whilst she was hibernating! As a treat she sent us a penguin choclate each, which we had at our teddy bear's picnic along with a biscuit that we decorated to look like a polar bear. We had fun when we brought our own bears into school. We made clothes for them, read to them, measured them and sorted them into groups.
We have had such a busy half term but are ready to see what we will be doing when we come back from our holiday!
Term 2
Our new topic is Knock Knock! Please click on the links below to find out more:
Knock Knock medium term planning
We had a lovely surprise on Monday afternoon when we returned from lunch. There were two boxes left in the home corner addressed to our classes. We opened them and inside were pumpkins and a book called ‘Pumpkin Soup’. We passed the pumpkin around the class circle and the children used all sorts of super vocabulary to describe what they could see and feel such as “the stalk looks like a star shape at the top.” Next, we read a few pages of the story and discovered that there were 3 characters in the story. Cat plays the bagpipes and cuts up the pumpkin for the soup, Squirrel plays the banjo and is responsible for stirring the soup and Duck sings and adds a pipkin of salt to make the soup tasty. We have been taken on a tour of the cabin in the woods where they live and have looked at the gloomy, murky woods that surround their house.
We have learnt how to use real hammers and we carefully hammered golf tees and nails into the pumpkins by ourselves.
We have been trying to use sketching strokes to draw the pumpkins carefully. What do you think?
On Thursday, we found out about how Indian children would celebrate Diwali. The children then took part in painting their hands with a Mehndi pattern they had designed and chalking and sprinkling powder paint onto Rangoli patterns, to welcome children into our school. We have been learning some Indian stick dancing moves and have made clay diva pots and have enjoyed dressing up in saris.
We learnt a song about Diwali that we sang to the tune of ‘Twinkle Twinkle’. Have a go!
“It’s Diwali Festival of Lights,
All the divas twinkle in the night.
Saal Mubarak, Happy New Year,
We’re so happy Diwali’s here.
It’s Diwali Festival of Lights,
All the divas twinkle in the night.”
A couple of weeks after the pumpkin boxes arrived, we found a sack in our home corner with a letter from the postman on top! He asked for our help to post some letters as he was feeling poorly. We went on a walk in the village to post the letters. The only one we couldn't find was for the Three Little Pigs so we left it in the home corner. The next day the sack was back but this time had a letter and a story from the Three Little Pigs. They explained that we couldn't find their house because the Big Bad Wolf had blown it down! We have had lots of fun re-enacting their story using props to help us. We also had a go at making our own straw houses and blowing them down. After we had made them we experimented with different ways to blow them down! We tried blowing them with our mouths, then using a hairdryer and then a leaf blower!
The word had spread about how helpful the reception children were and we received a letter from 'The Three Bears' asking for our help. "We are fed up of cooking porridge and want to have pizzas instead! We don't know how to make a pizza, so please can you help us?" The children were delighted to help out. Firstly, they designed their pizza by choosing 4 toppings to go on it, which they labelled and then they made their pizza. The trouble was they smelt so good that we ate them all up! We decided to send the bears our designs to help them. We had lots of fun!
The children practiced and performed the Christmas concert sheep/star dance. They were very brave in front of the audience and we are very proud of them.
Term 1
Our topic this term is Magical me and we will be finding out about ourselves, our families and each other!
To find out more about what we hope to do this half term please click on the links below.
Magical me medium term planning
We had a lovely first day at school and all had our photographs taken. What do you think?
We have been thinking really hard about what we look like. So, we looked carefully in the mirror to look at the facial features we need to paint on a picture of our face. Then we used our painting to make a picture of ourselves using any materials or construction kits that we found in our setting. Did we remember to give ourselves a body?
Some children have been using natural materials in the outdoor area to represent the main parts of their bodies. We had lots of fun!
We have been thinking about our friends and learning to write ‘I am’. We have been watching videos and having circle times about being a good friend to others. Are you a good friend and why?
Last week we were exploring words that mean happy and have been using JOYFUL and ELATED whenever we have had the chance!
This week we have been using the word UNIQUE and thinking about what makes us special. We have been listening to stories about Elmer as he is definitely a unique elephant. We have enjoyed making up stories with our Elmer small world play that we helped to make.
LONG BUCKBY INFANT SCHOOL
Red Class and Orange Class
Welcome to our website page! Keep visiting to see our photos and find out what we have been learning. The Orange Class is taught by Mrs Musgrove and the Red Class is taught by Mrs Wall on Monday to Thursday and Mrs Jeffery on Friday but most of the time we work together. If you would like to contact us you can do so via email using our email addresses below:
Mrs Musgrove - smusgrove@lbis.school
Mrs Wall - lwall@lbis.school
Mrs Jeffery – jjeffery@lbis.school
Term 5 and 6
Our new topic is 'Splish, Splash, Splosh!' Please click on the links below to find out more:
What an exciting first day back at school! When we walked into the classroom after lunch we couldn’t understand what had happened. There was water, jelly, frogs, ducks, drainpipes and green stones and lily pads everywhere. When we looked outside we could see a paddling pool with ducks swimming in it! Then Ivy discovered a strange blue creature hiding inside a green tube, under the bench. When we prised him out to look at him, the children said “Be quiet. Don’t make a noise and don’t shout so that it will be happier for him.”
We decided to take him indoors as Ivy said “Let’s take it inside to keep an eye on him!” We followed a trail of twigs and found a half-built nest. The children decided to build him a comfy bed and found more twigs and soft material. The children noticed that he had wings “he might live near water but I think if he goes in the water, he might not be able to fly because his wings won’t work.” This led into a vote about whether to build him a cage or not. “We can’t let him fly out of our classroom and into other classrooms, as he might scare people” and “we might lose him in Forest School” but others didn’t want him in a cage and said “he won’t be able to fly around and be free!” We decided that if he was poorly he might go into a cage at the vets so they could look after him and the someone noticed that he has got ‘wobbly eyes’ and needed caring for! The cage building began in earnest (Jude requested smaller pieces of canes to make into a cage and so out came the saw!) and children began writing notes and exploring to find more clues. We still don't know what he is!
We have now found out that he is called 'BOG BABY' as he left us a special book all about himself. We have been doing all sorts of super work about him such as making jelly Bog Babies, writing descriptions about him and making him homes to live in. We loved making pictures of him by painting and printing our ideas. In the story, the children made the bluebells squeak and so we tried to make the grass squeak by adding water and doing the twist! We also found out from the nature expert that came to talk to us, that HE was a GIRL!
We had a lovely time at Mill Park exploring the environment to see if it would be suitable for Bog Baby to live in. We looked for some of his friends and did some pond dipping.
We were sad on the last day of term when we discovered that Bog Baby had gone from our classroom but were excited to see the photo that he had sent us of him relaxing at Mill Park in his new home.
On Monday 6th June we had a lovely afternoon at the duck pond, listening to the sounds around us and looking at all of the ducks and plants that we could see.
We looked at Antony Gormley's field sculptures and discussed what we could see, what material we thought he had used, how long we thought it took him, whether his sculptures were 2D or 3D and what we thought they were. We decided to make our own sculptures using clay and arrange them all together like the field sculpture. We made minibeasts that we might find in or near a pond such as pond skaters, butterflies, bloodworms, spiders, pond snails, freshwater shrimps, dragonflies and water boatmen.
We read the story 'Just Ducks!' and admired the beautiful illustrations. We looked carefully at the duck and the drake pictures. We used a handwriting pen to sketch with. Then we added water to make the ink run so we could 'paint' our picture. They were wonderful and we have put them up on display in the classroom.
Tuesday 19th July - It was so hot today but luckily the PTA bought us all an ice lolly!!!
Term 4
Our topic this term is 'Out of this world!' Please click on the links below to find out more:
'Out of this world!' medium term planning
What a start to our day. We had just finished group reading when Mrs Boston burst into the classroom "There has been a catastrophe in the outdoor area" she shouted. We all rushed out to see what had happened and look what we found!
After lots of chatter and discussion we decide to cordon off the area to make it safe. The children came up with lots of good ideas about what might have happened, ranging from a truck had come into school and broken up to a robber might have dropped things he was stealing all over the ground. Once we talked about the school being locked at night time and that no-one or thing could get through the gates, discussion centred around a space ship crash landing! Bertie said "maybe the air forced down onto the spaceship and made it go down and crash. There might be a trail of petrol or diesel that we can follow." We called Mrs Turley outside to see what we had discovered and she immediately phoned the police to report what had happened. The children were brilliant at explaining events to the police and the officers leapt into action to help us investigate. They asked the children questions, took evidence and put it into bags so it could be investigated in the laboratory, looked over the wall (and discovered 2 golden eggs) and then gave us a 'police aware' sign to put on the scene. What a busy day!
Yesterday we arrived at school to find a pair of golden wellies and a message written on our blackboard in the outdoor area. The children read the message and discovered that Zorg (the alien) had been to visit us! We discovered 8 ice eggs and the children were wondering how they had got there and actually came up with a lot of good ideas. We could see that some of the ice eggs had something inside of them. The children suggested adding salt to melt the ice around the objects, putting them in the sun, putting them on the radiator and putting them in some hot water - we tried them all out to see which worked best!
The children have been very busy using the junk materials to make rockets. Some children decided to work with a partner and others decided to work alone. Ollie had a good think about what he wanted to make and drew his design before building!
We found out about Tim Peake and Helen Sharman on Monday. We compared them to Edward Jenner and Guy Fawkes whom we had learnt about previoulsy. We asked the children 'Did all these people help us in the past?' Ask your child to discuss this again with you and let us know what they say! We wrote a letter to Tim Peake and Mrs Wall 'emailed' it to him. What a surprise we had today (Wednesday) when we got a reply from him!
We used Google Earth to find out where London was compared to Long Buckby and we discussed how big the sea was on the map, compared to the River Thames. Ivy told us that there is a Peppa Pig episode about time capsules and Liliana suggested that we made the time capsule out of a box so that it looked like an alien with a head that opened and shut! We have added both of these ideas onto our planning so we can incorporate them into our work for next week.
We have had fun marbling paper and then cutting out planets from it, so that we could make a postcard to send back to Tim Peake, showing him where Earth and Zorg's planet are in relation to each other!
We have been thinking of how to make a sculpture like the one we looked at called Maman by the sculptor Louise Bourgeois. Her work looked very alien like and we had to make our work 3D and stick up from our flat paper, so that we could also make an alien sculpture. We think we did a good job!
We have been thinking about healthy eating in our Jigsaw work this half term. So we decided to pass on our knowledge to Zorg and his friends, by designing a healthy kebab for an alien (with a treat marshmallow on it!). We used our knowledge of making repeating patterns that we have been doing in maths and thought hard about what we would use on our kebab before we made it. Ivy said she didn't like fruit but enjoyed eating hers! Can you remember what type of pattern you made? Was it an ABB or an AAB or an ABC pattern?
Then alien day arrived! Zorg sent us a note saying that he had gone back to his planet with Tim Peake's help and that he had enjoyed being in our school environment, watching us working hard! We had a fun day playing 'Alien, alien can we cross the galaxy' in the playground, washing the aliens' smelly socks with a washboard like people did long ago, making dry marker aliens move by adding water and playing an alien addition game on the computer. We danced like aliens to 'The Eve of the War' by Jeff Wayne and in the outdoor area, we used ribbons to cheer up an alien by creating a dance with a friend. What a busy day we had, that was topped off by a fabulous alien picnic. A 'BIG THANK YOU'to all the families that donated food to help with this event.
Term 3
Our topic this term is 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt'. Please click on the links below to find out more:
'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' leaflet
'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' medium term planning
On a chilly, windy day back at school, we were shocked to find a polar bear in our outdoor area! We didn't know where he had come from or how he got there. So, we decided to find out some information about polar bears. The children discovered that he was from a cold place near the North Pole called the Arctic. They thought it would be a good idea to make a den for him outside so that he would feel more at home. They created an icy cave with a little cold pool of water next to it so that he can go for a swim and do some fishing if he wants to. He looked very pleased! The children also gave him a blanket and lots of cuddles to cheer him up.
The children thought of questions to ask so they could find out information about polar bears. They cut out a polar bear shape and wrote their question inside it, using a question mark. Then they worked really hard using non-fiction books and the internet to find out the answers to questions that they had and some extra information about polar bears. They sounded out and wrote the letters they needed to do this - well done. The children had a walk around the setting looking at each other's artwork and chose a piece they liked best, explaining why.
We have been working hard to cut out animals that live in hotter places than the Arctic. We had to cut around monkey tails and the long necks of giraffes, so that all the parts of our animals were intact! We painted our backgrounds using sponges and then we added details such as trees, rocks and grass, using paper. Do you like our artwork? Next week we are looking in more detail at animals who live in the Arctic and animals that don't, to see if we can find differences and similarities between them.
Today (Friday) we have had great fun painting upside down, just as Michelangelo did when painting the Sistine chapel in 1508. We worked with a partner to draw and then paint a picture whilst lying on our backs under the table! It was wonderful to see the children working collaboratively with their partner, to create their masterpieces. After we had finished our paintings, they were put up on our ceiling and we laid on the floor and talked about our work. Alfie said that he didn't like painting upside down because he was scared that the paint was going to drip on him and Clem told us that it was easier to paint the right way up! Albert and Grace liked painting under the table because they said they helped their partner and it was fun! We decided that our paintings would brighten up the polar bear's cave in the outdoor area. Have a peek inside to see what we have been up to!
This week we received a letter from 'Mummy Polar Bear' thanking us for looking after her baby bear whilst she was hibernating! As a treat she sent us a penguin choclate each, which we had at our teddy bear's picnic along with a biscuit that we decorated to look like a polar bear. We had fun when we brought our own bears into school. We made clothes for them, read to them, measured them and sorted them into groups.
We have had such a busy half term but are ready to see what we will be doing when we come back from our holiday!
Term 2
Our new topic is Knock Knock! Please click on the links below to find out more:
Knock Knock medium term planning
We had a lovely surprise on Monday afternoon when we returned from lunch. There were two boxes left in the home corner addressed to our classes. We opened them and inside were pumpkins and a book called ‘Pumpkin Soup’. We passed the pumpkin around the class circle and the children used all sorts of super vocabulary to describe what they could see and feel such as “the stalk looks like a star shape at the top.” Next, we read a few pages of the story and discovered that there were 3 characters in the story. Cat plays the bagpipes and cuts up the pumpkin for the soup, Squirrel plays the banjo and is responsible for stirring the soup and Duck sings and adds a pipkin of salt to make the soup tasty. We have been taken on a tour of the cabin in the woods where they live and have looked at the gloomy, murky woods that surround their house.
We have learnt how to use real hammers and we carefully hammered golf tees and nails into the pumpkins by ourselves.
We have been trying to use sketching strokes to draw the pumpkins carefully. What do you think?
On Thursday, we found out about how Indian children would celebrate Diwali. The children then took part in painting their hands with a Mehndi pattern they had designed and chalking and sprinkling powder paint onto Rangoli patterns, to welcome children into our school. We have been learning some Indian stick dancing moves and have made clay diva pots and have enjoyed dressing up in saris.
We learnt a song about Diwali that we sang to the tune of ‘Twinkle Twinkle’. Have a go!
“It’s Diwali Festival of Lights,
All the divas twinkle in the night.
Saal Mubarak, Happy New Year,
We’re so happy Diwali’s here.
It’s Diwali Festival of Lights,
All the divas twinkle in the night.”
A couple of weeks after the pumpkin boxes arrived, we found a sack in our home corner with a letter from the postman on top! He asked for our help to post some letters as he was feeling poorly. We went on a walk in the village to post the letters. The only one we couldn't find was for the Three Little Pigs so we left it in the home corner. The next day the sack was back but this time had a letter and a story from the Three Little Pigs. They explained that we couldn't find their house because the Big Bad Wolf had blown it down! We have had lots of fun re-enacting their story using props to help us. We also had a go at making our own straw houses and blowing them down. After we had made them we experimented with different ways to blow them down! We tried blowing them with our mouths, then using a hairdryer and then a leaf blower!
The word had spread about how helpful the reception children were and we received a letter from 'The Three Bears' asking for our help. "We are fed up of cooking porridge and want to have pizzas instead! We don't know how to make a pizza, so please can you help us?" The children were delighted to help out. Firstly, they designed their pizza by choosing 4 toppings to go on it, which they labelled and then they made their pizza. The trouble was they smelt so good that we ate them all up! We decided to send the bears our designs to help them. We had lots of fun!
The children practiced and performed the Christmas concert sheep/star dance. They were very brave in front of the audience and we are very proud of them.
Term 1
Our topic this term is Magical me and we will be finding out about ourselves, our families and each other!
To find out more about what we hope to do this half term please click on the links below.
Magical me medium term planning
We had a lovely first day at school and all had our photographs taken. What do you think?
We have been thinking really hard about what we look like. So, we looked carefully in the mirror to look at the facial features we need to paint on a picture of our face. Then we used our painting to make a picture of ourselves using any materials or construction kits that we found in our setting. Did we remember to give ourselves a body?
Some children have been using natural materials in the outdoor area to represent the main parts of their bodies. We had lots of fun!
We have been thinking about our friends and learning to write ‘I am’. We have been watching videos and having circle times about being a good friend to others. Are you a good friend and why?
Last week we were exploring words that mean happy and have been using JOYFUL and ELATED whenever we have had the chance!
This week we have been using the word UNIQUE and thinking about what makes us special. We have been listening to stories about Elmer as he is definitely a unique elephant. We have enjoyed making up stories with our Elmer small world play that we helped to make.
LONG BUCKBY INFANT SCHOOL
Red Class and Orange Class
Welcome to our website page! Keep visiting to see our photos and find out what we have been learning. The Orange Class is taught by Mrs Musgrove and the Red Class is taught by Mrs Wall on Monday to Thursday and Mrs Jeffery on Friday but most of the time we work together. If you would like to contact us you can do so via email using our email addresses below:
Mrs Musgrove - smusgrove@lbis.school
Mrs Wall - lwall@lbis.school
Mrs Jeffery – jjeffery@lbis.school
Term 5 and 6
Our new topic is 'Splish, Splash, Splosh!' Please click on the links below to find out more:
What an exciting first day back at school! When we walked into the classroom after lunch we couldn’t understand what had happened. There was water, jelly, frogs, ducks, drainpipes and green stones and lily pads everywhere. When we looked outside we could see a paddling pool with ducks swimming in it! Then Ivy discovered a strange blue creature hiding inside a green tube, under the bench. When we prised him out to look at him, the children said “Be quiet. Don’t make a noise and don’t shout so that it will be happier for him.”
We decided to take him indoors as Ivy said “Let’s take it inside to keep an eye on him!” We followed a trail of twigs and found a half-built nest. The children decided to build him a comfy bed and found more twigs and soft material. The children noticed that he had wings “he might live near water but I think if he goes in the water, he might not be able to fly because his wings won’t work.” This led into a vote about whether to build him a cage or not. “We can’t let him fly out of our classroom and into other classrooms, as he might scare people” and “we might lose him in Forest School” but others didn’t want him in a cage and said “he won’t be able to fly around and be free!” We decided that if he was poorly he might go into a cage at the vets so they could look after him and the someone noticed that he has got ‘wobbly eyes’ and needed caring for! The cage building began in earnest (Jude requested smaller pieces of canes to make into a cage and so out came the saw!) and children began writing notes and exploring to find more clues. We still don't know what he is!
We have now found out that he is called 'BOG BABY' as he left us a special book all about himself. We have been doing all sorts of super work about him such as making jelly Bog Babies, writing descriptions about him and making him homes to live in. We loved making pictures of him by painting and printing our ideas. In the story, the children made the bluebells squeak and so we tried to make the grass squeak by adding water and doing the twist! We also found out from the nature expert that came to talk to us, that HE was a GIRL!
We had a lovely time at Mill Park exploring the environment to see if it would be suitable for Bog Baby to live in. We looked for some of his friends and did some pond dipping.
We were sad on the last day of term when we discovered that Bog Baby had gone from our classroom but were excited to see the photo that he had sent us of him relaxing at Mill Park in his new home.
On Monday 6th June we had a lovely afternoon at the duck pond, listening to the sounds around us and looking at all of the ducks and plants that we could see.
We looked at Antony Gormley's field sculptures and discussed what we could see, what material we thought he had used, how long we thought it took him, whether his sculptures were 2D or 3D and what we thought they were. We decided to make our own sculptures using clay and arrange them all together like the field sculpture. We made minibeasts that we might find in or near a pond such as pond skaters, butterflies, bloodworms, spiders, pond snails, freshwater shrimps, dragonflies and water boatmen.
We read the story 'Just Ducks!' and admired the beautiful illustrations. We looked carefully at the duck and the drake pictures. We used a handwriting pen to sketch with. Then we added water to make the ink run so we could 'paint' our picture. They were wonderful and we have put them up on display in the classroom.
Tuesday 19th July - It was so hot today but luckily the PTA bought us all an ice lolly!!!
Term 4
Our topic this term is 'Out of this world!' Please click on the links below to find out more:
'Out of this world!' medium term planning
What a start to our day. We had just finished group reading when Mrs Boston burst into the classroom "There has been a catastrophe in the outdoor area" she shouted. We all rushed out to see what had happened and look what we found!
After lots of chatter and discussion we decide to cordon off the area to make it safe. The children came up with lots of good ideas about what might have happened, ranging from a truck had come into school and broken up to a robber might have dropped things he was stealing all over the ground. Once we talked about the school being locked at night time and that no-one or thing could get through the gates, discussion centred around a space ship crash landing! Bertie said "maybe the air forced down onto the spaceship and made it go down and crash. There might be a trail of petrol or diesel that we can follow." We called Mrs Turley outside to see what we had discovered and she immediately phoned the police to report what had happened. The children were brilliant at explaining events to the police and the officers leapt into action to help us investigate. They asked the children questions, took evidence and put it into bags so it could be investigated in the laboratory, looked over the wall (and discovered 2 golden eggs) and then gave us a 'police aware' sign to put on the scene. What a busy day!
Yesterday we arrived at school to find a pair of golden wellies and a message written on our blackboard in the outdoor area. The children read the message and discovered that Zorg (the alien) had been to visit us! We discovered 8 ice eggs and the children were wondering how they had got there and actually came up with a lot of good ideas. We could see that some of the ice eggs had something inside of them. The children suggested adding salt to melt the ice around the objects, putting them in the sun, putting them on the radiator and putting them in some hot water - we tried them all out to see which worked best!
The children have been very busy using the junk materials to make rockets. Some children decided to work with a partner and others decided to work alone. Ollie had a good think about what he wanted to make and drew his design before building!
We found out about Tim Peake and Helen Sharman on Monday. We compared them to Edward Jenner and Guy Fawkes whom we had learnt about previoulsy. We asked the children 'Did all these people help us in the past?' Ask your child to discuss this again with you and let us know what they say! We wrote a letter to Tim Peake and Mrs Wall 'emailed' it to him. What a surprise we had today (Wednesday) when we got a reply from him!
We used Google Earth to find out where London was compared to Long Buckby and we discussed how big the sea was on the map, compared to the River Thames. Ivy told us that there is a Peppa Pig episode about time capsules and Liliana suggested that we made the time capsule out of a box so that it looked like an alien with a head that opened and shut! We have added both of these ideas onto our planning so we can incorporate them into our work for next week.
We have had fun marbling paper and then cutting out planets from it, so that we could make a postcard to send back to Tim Peake, showing him where Earth and Zorg's planet are in relation to each other!
We have been thinking of how to make a sculpture like the one we looked at called Maman by the sculptor Louise Bourgeois. Her work looked very alien like and we had to make our work 3D and stick up from our flat paper, so that we could also make an alien sculpture. We think we did a good job!
We have been thinking about healthy eating in our Jigsaw work this half term. So we decided to pass on our knowledge to Zorg and his friends, by designing a healthy kebab for an alien (with a treat marshmallow on it!). We used our knowledge of making repeating patterns that we have been doing in maths and thought hard about what we would use on our kebab before we made it. Ivy said she didn't like fruit but enjoyed eating hers! Can you remember what type of pattern you made? Was it an ABB or an AAB or an ABC pattern?
Then alien day arrived! Zorg sent us a note saying that he had gone back to his planet with Tim Peake's help and that he had enjoyed being in our school environment, watching us working hard! We had a fun day playing 'Alien, alien can we cross the galaxy' in the playground, washing the aliens' smelly socks with a washboard like people did long ago, making dry marker aliens move by adding water and playing an alien addition game on the computer. We danced like aliens to 'The Eve of the War' by Jeff Wayne and in the outdoor area, we used ribbons to cheer up an alien by creating a dance with a friend. What a busy day we had, that was topped off by a fabulous alien picnic. A 'BIG THANK YOU'to all the families that donated food to help with this event.
Term 3
Our topic this term is 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt'. Please click on the links below to find out more:
'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' leaflet
'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' medium term planning
On a chilly, windy day back at school, we were shocked to find a polar bear in our outdoor area! We didn't know where he had come from or how he got there. So, we decided to find out some information about polar bears. The children discovered that he was from a cold place near the North Pole called the Arctic. They thought it would be a good idea to make a den for him outside so that he would feel more at home. They created an icy cave with a little cold pool of water next to it so that he can go for a swim and do some fishing if he wants to. He looked very pleased! The children also gave him a blanket and lots of cuddles to cheer him up.
The children thought of questions to ask so they could find out information about polar bears. They cut out a polar bear shape and wrote their question inside it, using a question mark. Then they worked really hard using non-fiction books and the internet to find out the answers to questions that they had and some extra information about polar bears. They sounded out and wrote the letters they needed to do this - well done. The children had a walk around the setting looking at each other's artwork and chose a piece they liked best, explaining why.
We have been working hard to cut out animals that live in hotter places than the Arctic. We had to cut around monkey tails and the long necks of giraffes, so that all the parts of our animals were intact! We painted our backgrounds using sponges and then we added details such as trees, rocks and grass, using paper. Do you like our artwork? Next week we are looking in more detail at animals who live in the Arctic and animals that don't, to see if we can find differences and similarities between them.
Today (Friday) we have had great fun painting upside down, just as Michelangelo did when painting the Sistine chapel in 1508. We worked with a partner to draw and then paint a picture whilst lying on our backs under the table! It was wonderful to see the children working collaboratively with their partner, to create their masterpieces. After we had finished our paintings, they were put up on our ceiling and we laid on the floor and talked about our work. Alfie said that he didn't like painting upside down because he was scared that the paint was going to drip on him and Clem told us that it was easier to paint the right way up! Albert and Grace liked painting under the table because they said they helped their partner and it was fun! We decided that our paintings would brighten up the polar bear's cave in the outdoor area. Have a peek inside to see what we have been up to!
This week we received a letter from 'Mummy Polar Bear' thanking us for looking after her baby bear whilst she was hibernating! As a treat she sent us a penguin choclate each, which we had at our teddy bear's picnic along with a biscuit that we decorated to look like a polar bear. We had fun when we brought our own bears into school. We made clothes for them, read to them, measured them and sorted them into groups.
We have had such a busy half term but are ready to see what we will be doing when we come back from our holiday!
Term 2
Our new topic is Knock Knock! Please click on the links below to find out more:
Knock Knock medium term planning
We had a lovely surprise on Monday afternoon when we returned from lunch. There were two boxes left in the home corner addressed to our classes. We opened them and inside were pumpkins and a book called ‘Pumpkin Soup’. We passed the pumpkin around the class circle and the children used all sorts of super vocabulary to describe what they could see and feel such as “the stalk looks like a star shape at the top.” Next, we read a few pages of the story and discovered that there were 3 characters in the story. Cat plays the bagpipes and cuts up the pumpkin for the soup, Squirrel plays the banjo and is responsible for stirring the soup and Duck sings and adds a pipkin of salt to make the soup tasty. We have been taken on a tour of the cabin in the woods where they live and have looked at the gloomy, murky woods that surround their house.
We have learnt how to use real hammers and we carefully hammered golf tees and nails into the pumpkins by ourselves.
We have been trying to use sketching strokes to draw the pumpkins carefully. What do you think?
On Thursday, we found out about how Indian children would celebrate Diwali. The children then took part in painting their hands with a Mehndi pattern they had designed and chalking and sprinkling powder paint onto Rangoli patterns, to welcome children into our school. We have been learning some Indian stick dancing moves and have made clay diva pots and have enjoyed dressing up in saris.
We learnt a song about Diwali that we sang to the tune of ‘Twinkle Twinkle’. Have a go!
“It’s Diwali Festival of Lights,
All the divas twinkle in the night.
Saal Mubarak, Happy New Year,
We’re so happy Diwali’s here.
It’s Diwali Festival of Lights,
All the divas twinkle in the night.”
A couple of weeks after the pumpkin boxes arrived, we found a sack in our home corner with a letter from the postman on top! He asked for our help to post some letters as he was feeling poorly. We went on a walk in the village to post the letters. The only one we couldn't find was for the Three Little Pigs so we left it in the home corner. The next day the sack was back but this time had a letter and a story from the Three Little Pigs. They explained that we couldn't find their house because the Big Bad Wolf had blown it down! We have had lots of fun re-enacting their story using props to help us. We also had a go at making our own straw houses and blowing them down. After we had made them we experimented with different ways to blow them down! We tried blowing them with our mouths, then using a hairdryer and then a leaf blower!
The word had spread about how helpful the reception children were and we received a letter from 'The Three Bears' asking for our help. "We are fed up of cooking porridge and want to have pizzas instead! We don't know how to make a pizza, so please can you help us?" The children were delighted to help out. Firstly, they designed their pizza by choosing 4 toppings to go on it, which they labelled and then they made their pizza. The trouble was they smelt so good that we ate them all up! We decided to send the bears our designs to help them. We had lots of fun!
The children practiced and performed the Christmas concert sheep/star dance. They were very brave in front of the audience and we are very proud of them.
Term 1
Our topic this term is Magical me and we will be finding out about ourselves, our families and each other!
To find out more about what we hope to do this half term please click on the links below.
Magical me medium term planning
We had a lovely first day at school and all had our photographs taken. What do you think?
We have been thinking really hard about what we look like. So, we looked carefully in the mirror to look at the facial features we need to paint on a picture of our face. Then we used our painting to make a picture of ourselves using any materials or construction kits that we found in our setting. Did we remember to give ourselves a body?
Some children have been using natural materials in the outdoor area to represent the main parts of their bodies. We had lots of fun!
We have been thinking about our friends and learning to write ‘I am’. We have been watching videos and having circle times about being a good friend to others. Are you a good friend and why?
Last week we were exploring words that mean happy and have been using JOYFUL and ELATED whenever we have had the chance!
This week we have been using the word UNIQUE and thinking about what makes us special. We have been listening to stories about Elmer as he is definitely a unique elephant. We have enjoyed making up stories with our Elmer small world play that we helped to make.