Foxes class made some beautiful memory boxes as part of their history homework this half term. They were so special, full of sentimental and precious items from the past. The children shared things such as old toys, photographs, letters, drawings and other trinkets that their families had kept to remember important milestones. Thank you for putting in so much effort to make these memory boxes and present them to the class.

Today we had a party to celebrate Diwali, we wore our party clothes and ate our party food. We danced to music and enjoyed some Diwali themed colouring!

During Arts Week we have taken part in Diwali themed arts and crafts. On Monday we made clay pinch pots, we decorated our Diwali lamps with colourful gems and jewels. Later in the week we made Diwali cards as part of our DT lesson. Our cards had a slot slider on the cover to make the image move! At the end of the week we drew chalk fireworks, created beautiful mehndi patterns and made rangoli art out of 2D shapes.

Today is world mental health day, we wore bright colours to spread positivity and happiness. We discussed that mental health is about how we think, feel and act. Just like physical health, we all have mental health and need to take care of it. We spoke about strategies to have a positive mental health e.g. mindful colouring, playing with friends, meditation, dance, and talking about our feelings. We took part in some of these activities this afternoon. This linked to our school aspiration; healthy mind!

Today was care for your bear day, we discussed our school values: kind me, respectful me, honest me and confident me. This afternoon we shared how we care for our bears and we took part in some lovely activities. It was so nice for our bears to meet each other and spend the day in school together. They particularly enjoyed their fish and chips lunch!

Today Year One visited the botanical gardens in Edgbaston. We started the day by meeting lots of fascinating animals. These included a giant snail named Kevin, a bearded dragon, a skink, a stick insect, a cockroach, and a snake! After that, we went to the glass houses, we ticked off the different things we could see on our clipboards. We saw tropical and desert plants. There were also some beautiful flowers. In the afternoon we had a plant workshop. We learnt about the different parts of a plant and what plants need to grow. We even dressed up as a bee and two flowers to demonstrate the movement of pollen.

Foxes have had a great start to year one! We have been settling in well learning our new routines.

The children explored their rights as outlined by UNICEF. As a class, we identified five rights that are especially important to us. The children learnt that young people are ‘rights holders’ while adults are ‘duty bearers’ responsible for upholding those rights. To reflect on their learning, each child drew a representation of themself at add to our charter, this shows their awareness of, as well as agreement with, having these rights.