Pre-Prep Newsletter Article - Friday 14 October 2022

The Pre-Prep was “apple-ace” of fun and laughter this week as we enjoyed Year 1 and 2 parents’ morning and more importantly, Apple Day! There was much excitement as the children went from classroom to classroom, taking part in a variety of “app-ealing” activities from chocolate dipping and tasting to rolling, weighing and crafting. Hot chocolate and campfire songs were enjoyed by all during Forest School sessions this week too. In true Hazlegrove style, Apple Day bought to a close, a wonderful first half of term with the children enjoying a wide range of fabulous, educational, memory-making experiences to start off their year.

This week in Nursery, the Harvest celebrations continue with the Dragonflies reading a delightful story, 'The Very Helpful Hedgehog'. The Butterflies read the story, 'Peek-a-Boo Farm' and the Ladybirds, 'Hello, Harvest Moon'. All the children have engaged in lots of wonderful Autumn activities. 

It has been a fun-filled week in Reception! The children have continued to experience the Autumnal changes through a range of Autumn treasures in our tuff trays. They have explored pumpkins, pinecones, conkers and crunchy leaves. We also had a special visitor come to see us on Monday… Mrs Benbow visited Reception to ask if she could have the recipe for the delicious soup they made last week. The children wrote a fantastic list of instructions to cook the soup and in the afternoon had the chance to deliver them to Mr Benbow in his study. To finish our week, the children had a great day on Friday enjoying all the Apple Day activities.

We cannot believe that we have reached halfway through the Autumn term in our new Year 1 classes and what a week we have ended on! We enjoyed our first school trip of the year to Sturminster Newton mill on Tuesday, finding the old working water mill fascinating as we watched the production of flour. This made our focus story, ‘The Little Red Hen’ come alive! Getting crafty on Wednesday as our Mummies and Daddies came in to see our classrooms was also a highlight. We LOVED showing them our classroom and doing some ‘Red Hen’ themed activities together, from windmills to “Hen-prints”. We even enjoyed our first campfire of the year in Forest School, drinking a delicious hot chocolate. Finally, we topped the week off with a well-loved Apple Day!

The Autumn breeze has swept through Year 2 this week, so we have warmed our hearts with some Harvest poetry inspired by our fantastic performances last week. We couldn’t wait to use our five senses to inspire our descriptive poetry about this wonderful time of year. It was amazing to welcome so many parents into our learning space to experience our Autumnal activities which filled our minds with many ideas to use in our Autumn poetry. All this poetic language left our tummy’s rumbling and we were satisfied with some delicious, fruity smoothies, using a variety of fruits, which linked to our healthy eating topic in science. Yum!

We wish all our families a safe and happy half term.

Mrs Jenkins