Page 3 - Abberley Adventures - Dec 2021

ABBERLEY ADVENTURES 3 Pre-Prep Roundup (continued...)
They made fireworks using leaves and twigs, listened to a story, drank hot chocolate and ate gingerbread biscuits. They were delighted to be invited back to visit Abberley Parochial for a crafting afternoon. Going on the minibus was extremely exciting!
In mathematics lessons they practiced repeating patterns using a variety of resources including leaves and twigs and counted out sets of baubles to decorate the Christmas tree. Nursery children learnt some facts about space and Barnaby, our gap student, who wants to be an astronaut, came to admire our display.
We learnt to sing two Christmas songs in Welsh and in cooking we made a variety of delicious treats, finishing off the term with some yummy mince pies. The children also each wrote a letter accompanied by a picture to Father Christmas and these were sent to the North Pole via the fire in Mr Besley’s Study.
The children in Reception also had a very creative and industrious second half of term. Whilst continuing with their literacy and mathematics lessons each morning, key events were marked and celebrated such as Bonfire Night and Remembrance Day as well as Christmas preparations. The children made rockets, fireworks, colourful poppies using paint and collage materials as well as creating fields of poppies digitally on the interactive whiteboard. The cold sunny days have allowed the children to be creative outside in Forest School and some beautiful leaf collages were made using different Autumn leaves. Each child designed their own Christmas cards, and these were duplicated to send as personalised cards to friends and family.
In Years 1 and 2, children had plenty of fun in their new Forest School area this term, learning about rhythm and beat and composing forest music with hazel batons, making animals from clay and twigs, building dens and making bug hotels.
Year 1 concluded their ‘Wonderful World’ topic with an exciting mini project on dinosaurs. They became paleontologists for the day, excavating fossils (chocolate chips) from rocks (cookies) and hunting for the bones of a T-Rex. Later in the week, they were excited to find a letter from a lost dinosaur who needed to get to the Valley of the Rocks for the dinosaurs’ Christmas party. They set off, finding some other lost dinosaurs on the way, and eventually made it safely to the party! They finished the topic by designing and making their own model dinosaurs.
Year 2 particularly enjoyed showing off our Treehouse to children from Great Witley Primary where they all made Christmas Tree decorations followed by making popcorn around the fire and sipping hot chocolate. They rounded off their topic on the sea with wonderful fish prints and collages using Matisse’s method of ‘painting with scissors’.
Our final week of term was packed with Christmas fun. Years 1 and 2 made Christingles and filled the chapel with candlelight as they sang Away in a Manger. There was a lot of busy Christmas crafting with Year 2 making reindeers using our new saw horses and Year 1 making robins to hang on the tree.
The term culminated for the whole Pre-Prep with our Nativity Play, ‘The Big Little Nativity,’ where all children proudly sang and said their lines, enjoyed by an incredibly happy and enthusiastic audience. During our final day of term, we had great fun having a Christmas jumper parade showing off our jumpers whilst having a ‘dance off’. We were then all ready for our delicious Christmas lunch. With full tummies, a much- needed walk was had and the term was rounded off perfectly with a visit from Father Christmas.