Welcome to Barn Owls 

Our team of Barn Owl staff are: 

Class teachers

Mrs Potter -Monday to Wednesday 

Mrs Holderness - Wednesday  to Friday

Email: Libby.Holderness@sutton-courtenay.oxon.sch.uk

Jane,  Our Nursery Nurse

Miss Brown,  Our Teaching Assistant

Miss Whittington: Our Teaching Assistant

Drop off at the beginning of the day is from 8.40 to 8.50 am at the green nursery gate.

The morning session finishes at 11.45 am.

(Please come to the side gate, next to the bike shed to access the nursery garden)

Home time is from 3 pm to 3.10 pm please collect from the green nursery gate.

Term 6 Week 5 4th July 2022

This week we are reading the story of What the Ladybird Heard on Holiday by Julia Donaldson. We have been creating our own zoo, Big Ben and Buckingham Palace models from the story, using Duplo, crates and junk modelling.

It has been lovely to have our guinea pigs back in the garden. The Barn Owls have enjoyed cuddles and making sure they have clean water and food daily.

In Barn Owls we know that team work is the best way to get jobs done. We had to move the trees from our garden over to the science garden, so they can be planted and looked after over the holidays. We worked to help put them on the trolley and pull them over to the science garden. We have also worked together during our parachute games, which we all enjoyed!

Term 6 Week 3 20th June 2022

This week we have been reading the book Tad by Benji Davies about a brave minibeast.

We have been using our minibeasts to print by painting their feet and also painting our own feet too!

 Jane has worked very hard to produce a new display of how we have changed since we were babies and this has been very popular with our Barn Owls.

On Wednesday we helped to plant in the science garden.

There was great excitement when the first tiny frog was spotted in our tank in the garden. There have been five counted so far...

We have finished performing our Helicopter Stories with Miss Shirfield, as it was her last week with us. We have really enjoyed having her here on placement and wish her the very best of luck with her first class in September.

Term 6 Week 2  If you go down to the woods today...

The Barn Owls had an amazing time at the Outdoor Education Centre in Sutton Courtenay on Wednesday. We all took our teddy bears and found out what wild bears in the woods need to survive. In small groups we created water and food sources, we also built dens and tried them out with our own bears. There was also time to explore the wonderful woods, climb trees, play the natural musical instruments and finish the afternoon with a refreshing ice lolly! 

Please look at the photographs on the term 6 icon below to see what we got up to.

Term 6 Week 1

We have been learning all about bugs and going on bug hunts in the nursery garden. We have a class list of bugs we might see and we can let the adults know if we find one to tick off our class list. We have also loved our new stage where we can act out our own stories. In the photos you can see lots of us have had a turn at acting out stories and telling our own stories for the actors on the stage. We also had a beautiful cake brought in for one of friends birthday - it was delicious. 

Next week we are going to be learning more about minibeasts and going on our teddy bears picnic at Sutton Courtenay Environmental Centre. There will be no nursery at school on Wednesday whilst we are all at SCEEC. Please do check parentmail for all the details of the trip. Make sure you wear sunhats as it looks like it will be a warm day. 

Term 5 Week 4

This week our book has been It Starts with a Seed by Laura Knowles. Miss Shirfield has been creating a story map with the children through week and adding to it each day.

We have also been using watercolours to paint pictures of trees, which include  hidden animals and flowers.

Our snack shop is still very popular and we have been counting out the buttons to pay for our fruit selection. We have also been practicing our counting using the Sycamore seeds we could find outside Kestrel classroom during our group time activities.

Cessy the school dog came to visit on Wednesday morning which caused a lot of excitement with the Barn Owls!

Please click on the term 5 icon below to see the photographs of our busy week.

Term 5 Week 5

The Barn Owls have been busy preparing for the school Jubilee celebrations on Thursday.

Our Wendy house became the castle with a throne. We used a very large cardboard box and our crates to make a carriage, complete with parachute canopy and hobby horses to pull it!

The Barn Owls had fun printing flags, bunting and decorations.

On Thursday we enjoyed an outside PE lesson with Mrs Knight. Then it was time to wear our crowns for the class banquet. A great time was had by all. Do look at the photographs of all our adventures from this week. We hope you and your family have a relaxing half term and enjoy your Jubilee celebrations. 

Term 5 week 3

This week we have been enjoying the story of The Enormous Turnip. We have been retelling the story using actions and wearing masks of characters from the story. The Barn Owls have been using root vegetables to print with and painting characters from the story. There were even vegetables and slime in the water tray too! We have been practising our fine motor skills during Write Dance activities. There has been lots of activity in the garden repotting and looking after our plants in the raised beds. 

Term 5 Week 2 

This week we have been reading the book A Seed in Need and finding out how a seed develops and changes. We have been putting some of our plants from pots into our new raised bed in the nursery garden. There were different fruits and vegetables to open and investigate how seeds are different. On Wednesday afternoon we enjoyed a walk to Forest School to collect some pond water to top up our tadpole tank. Our Wendy House has become a garden centre and cafe this week, where we have enjoyed shopping and a cup of tea! 

Our First week 

We have really enjoyed welcoming our new Barn Owl friends. This week we have been reading the story of Jasper’s Beanstalk. 
You will see the large beanstalk which we have made in our garden by the brick pit.
We have also been on a leaf hunt and sorted them into different sizes and shapes. 
Click on our term 5 photos icon below to see what else we have been up to! 

 

Welcome to term 5,

We hope you all had a lovely Easter break and managed to enjoy some of the Spring sun. We are all looking forward to coming back on the 25^th April. Please do check the website for term dates.

We have a few new Barn Owl friends joining us this term.

Please find attached the new topic web of what we will be covering this term. We will also be welcoming a PGCE student who finishing her teacher training. Her name is Alanah Shirfield, she will be with us full time until the end of June.

For children who have joined us since January 2022, could you bring in or email a photo of your child as a baby - we are looking at how we have grown and changed. Please email to: libby.holderness@sutton-courtenay.oxon.sch.uk

Reminders:

- water bottle (squash is allowed for lunch - this will need to be in a separate water bottle)

- sun hat (named)

- spare change of clothes with your child’s name on them all including pants and socks.

Donations:

- gardening tools suitable for children to use

- small craft items such as buttons, ribbons etc.

- one packet of biscuits if your child stays all day - no chocolate biscuits please.

Term 4 Overview

Term 4 2022

Please find assignments on Busythings to complete at home:

user and password: 1234abc

Week beginning 28th March 2022

At the beginning of this week there was great excitement in the nursery garden as Mr Greenough had put up a barrier so he could work to take away our old rotten raised flower bed, which he replaced with a new one. In true Mr Greenough style, it was a bespoke raised bed, complete with a bench seat at the end! As soon as the barrier was taken away, the bench seat became a bus and the children were off on a journey. They have also been filling the new bed with compost from our compost bin.

We have also been learning the Easter story and how Christians celebrate Easter.

Today we enjoyed tasting hot cross buns, creating a class stained glass window of a cross and egg decorations.

The Barn Owls have been busy carrying out a science investigation too. We have planted cress seeds in different materials and are going to see which ones will grow.

Week beginning 21st March 

This week we have been reading Jack and the Beanstalk. We have explored 'magic beans', made seed packets for our new garden shop and been problem solving with the bee bots. The Wendy house has become the Magic Bean Shop!

We have also welcomed new life in our miniature pond which we are extremely excited by. We have been up to forest school to place frogspawn and to explore around the space up there. The Barn Owls have been busy planting lots of seeds this week and are looking forward to watching them grow. Our guinea pigs have enjoyed freshly picked grass. If you have any vegetables you would like to bring from home to feed the guinea pigs they are always grateful for the odd carrot, kale, celery or broccoli and dandelion leaves are their favourite. 

Week beginning 14th March 2022

This week we have been looking for signs of Spring in the school grounds. 

We had fun on Red Nose Day, taking part in the red nose and spoon race.

Week beginning 28th February 

This term our topic is about eggs. In week 2 we received a phone call from Mr Greenough. He had discovered a nest of eggs at Forest School but was too nervous to go and investigate. He asked if Barn Owls were brave and if we could explore what they were. All we knew was the nest was near the tree that was a bit like a Christmas tree. On our journey up there, we did have to travel carefully and quietly. We brought binoculars to keep an eye out for the mother. If the eggs are big, we thought mother must be huge! On the way up to the nest we saw a Red Kite gliding in the sky, we did think she could be the mother.

When we arrived at Forest School, we took extra precautions and each of us held hands with someone else to keep them safe. We took it in turns to use the binoculars. We discovered where the eggs were and with further investigation, we realised the eggs were all different sizes. 

We decided not to disturb the nest on our first visit, and we have left a camera up there to check on who might be looking after the eggs. We are hoping the mother might come back, if not we will build nests in the classroom outside area and carefully move the eggs down to school to look after them ourselves. 

The adventure has given the children lots to talk about, some carried on with the imaginative play in the afternoon. Some could hear the eggs cracking from the classroom! 

Week 7

On Monday we learnt about Saint Valentine and why we think about the people we care about on Valentine's Day. We made cards to give someone we love and to say thank you for all that they do for us.

This week we have been reading the Magical Snow Garden by Tracey Corderoy. Wellington the Penguin can't grow a garden in the snow, but he does not give up and decides to make one instead! We have been creating flowers and plants from junk modelling and Stickle bricks. We made kites on Wednesday and Thursday to make the most of the windy weather and  you can see how much fun we had flying them in our garden!

Week 6

We have been reading the story of Jack Frost. We have painted frosty pictures of the characters from the story. In groups we have been playing matching games and finding pairs of mittens hidden in our garden.  During the week we investigated what happened to the water from our water tray if we left some in the freezer and some in the fridge over night.  You can see the weaving we did to make patterns on a mitten too.

Week 5 

We have been reading the story Night monkey Day monkey. So far we have had fun, painting our own monkeys, looking at what we do when it's dark and what we do when it is light. This week we will be looking at nocturnal animals too. 

Week 4:

This week we are reading the story Elmer in the Snow. We are exploring colours in our small group work this week. We are also learning some new words like 'curiously'. Every day we look out the window and decide what the weather is like, in the story the elephants thought it was really cold until they climbed to the top of a mountain and experienced the snow. This week we are trying to compare temperatures inside and outside to see if we notice the difference. 

Week 3 

We have loved our story this week called 'Lost and Found'. We have played out the story, drawn our own characters from it and had fun retelling it to our peers. We have been very busy making our own penguins for our display as well as designing our own sea creatures. Did you know Polar Bears are from the north pole and penguins are from the south pole? In the story we worked out the penguin wasn't lost he was . . . (See if your child can finish off this sentence).  

Week one, our first day back: 

Our first day back and we have loved the story Charlie the Crow in the Snow. 

We were delighted when we saw a flurry of REAL snow outside the classroom window. 

Ask you child what Charlie the Crow thought the snow was. What did he think the water had turned into? 

Some of our Artic animals were stuck in ice in our water tray. We had some great ideas to free them. 

Check out our photos.

Our first week back we have been reading the story 'Charlie the Crow in the Snow'. We have laughed a lot about silly Charlie thinking the lake had turned to glass. We have made huge dens outside which we expect you have seen up. We have also built little caves just like Bear in the story. 

We welcomed 3 new friends this week, who have all settled in well this week. We love our new singing and action songs in the morning. We have been learning to walk like a penguin, stomp like an elephant and run like a tiger. 

Next week we are going to be doing activities around the story Polar Bear, Polar Bear. . . 

This week we have been very busy making Polar Bear ears based on our new story 'Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do you hear?'. We have loved listening to the story each day. We have also made some beautiful snowflakes - they will soon be appearing in our window . . . 

Term 2

Well what a busy last week of term! The Elves have been hard at work in the workshop and wrapping station, We had fun with the glittery slime in the water tray.
We dressed as characters from the Nativity, as we acted out the story.

There was great excitement when a reporter and cameraman from the local news came to film us dressed as Nativity characters and we appeared on the television!

On Wednesday we  had our Christmas lunch and party. In the afternoon we had a surprise visit from Father Christmas who gave out presents! 

We wish you all a very happy and peaceful Christmas. See you in 2022!

Jungle Book and Christmas Boogie Beat

We had an amazing time watching the Jungle Book at the Watermill theatre. The Barn Owls behaved beautifully. Going on the coach was just as exciting as watching the panto! 

We have also had our last Boogie Beat session for this year, singing some of our favourite songs, and of course  the traditional Christmas songs too.

The Elves have been busy at the wrapping station. The brick pit has become the home for the camels, whilst the Kings are busy preparing for their journey to follow the star.

It's starting to feel like Christmas...

It was very exciting to arrive and find the snow in the nursery garden on Monday morning. We had lots of fun making snow angels and footprints.

The home corner has become our Barn Owl Post Office. There has been a very efficient service of sorting and posting letters. We have even made some front doors to post the letters through! We have learnt what happens to a letter once it has been posted and how it arrives at the right destination, including a fast ride along some big machines.

The Barn Owls used the sticks they found on their welly walk to make into star and Christmas tree shapes, which were painted and decorated to make our garden look sparkly for the school Christmas light switch on. The Wendy house has become the Elves Workshop, where we have been building robots and toys with the Big Builder Kit.

Some Barn Owls were busy building Santa's sleigh from our milk crates and other children has made reindeer crowns, so they could pull it along.

On Wednesday the first of December we put up our Christmas tree and decorations. We have been busy learning our Christmas songs for our concert too. 

Hibernating Hedgehogs      26th November 2021

This week we have been learning about hibernation. We have made a hedgehog house to provide somewhere warm, dry and safe for the hedgehogs to hibernate. Our home corner has been the vets and we have all enjoyed taking our pets there to be looked after.

We have also been learning about other nocturnal animals. Our Wendy house has become the 'Look Out' where we have patiently watched through our binoculars to spot the animals. Did you see the badgers, foxes, and owls hidden in our garden this week?

Friday 19th November 2021

This week we have been reading the story Have you Filled your Bucket Today by Carol McCloud. We have been thinking how we can be kind and show kindness. The Barn Owls had lots of great ideas, as they always remember our class rule that we use kind hands, kind feet and kind words. We made kindness cards to give and painted some amazing pictures of people who help us such as dentists, refuse collectors, doctors and of course Jane! Our Home corner became the hospital and we have been busy being patients and the doctors and nurses who care for them. 

They has been lots of fun raking and jumping in the leaves this week. There are enough leaves in our garden to keep the Barn Owls busy raking everyday. Our Wendy House has turned into the Emergency call  centre with the Firefighters and Police officers ready to respond!

We are also really excited to have the guinea pigs back so we can have lots of cuddles with them.

Well done for all those amazing spotty outfits and dressed up bears for Children in Need. 

Friday 12th November 2021

This week our theme has been Fireworks and Poppies! Most of us have enjoyed going to firework displays over the weekend or watching them for our windows, so we made our firework rockets to add to our class display. To create the sky with exploding fireworks we had fun flicking paint at a large piece of paper. We also painted sticks that we collected from the garden and tied them together to make Catherine Wheels. They have all been added to our wonderful display, which you can see through the nursery window, as well as here on our class page.

We have been learning about Remembrance Day. We have made a class poppy wreath and medals. We made our medals for people we think are brave and helpful, just like the soldiers in the war.

During our Boogie Beat session this week we helped the hedgehog find a place to hibernate and created a rainbow after the storm!