Butterflies and frogs

Outside Learning

Lighthouse - may the adventure begin

We walked down to the beach after stopping at the post office.

We saw lots of things.

sand

water

waves

sky

ships

rocks

drift wood

lighthouse

the effect of the wind in our hair...

Back at school we read

The lighthouse Keeper's lunch by Ronda Armitage

A trip to the Post Office

Reception Bears made a card for Mother's day.

We walked down to the post office.

Stuck stamps on our envelopes and posted our messages.

 We even had a chat to a local Post Woman.

Vertical articulation

Reception Bears have been learning about castles.

Some Form 4 pupils came to retell the story of

King Arthur linked to their topic on Myths and Legends.

Thank you for coming.

Castles and Forts

Reception Bears families have taken on the challenge

to learn more about our topic on Castles and Dragons,

even when on holidays.

The first family got stuck in the traffic to Neuschwanstein,

so decided to go to Guimarães instead.

They might not have found a dragon,

but did they find a Unicorn instead?

In the bottom left you can see the statue of the

first King of Portugal.

These two little Bears went to Castelo do Queijo in Porto,

but it was closed.

They still managed to see a cannon and a drawbridge and took a photo to share with you.

They went to Museu do Papel Moeda instead,
and guess what?

They saw toy cars and vehicles

as well as miniture replicas of buildings, including a castle.

This family went to great lengths to visit a castle. They had to travel by plane and then go on a treck up the mountains.

Which country did they need to visit to see this castle?

This little Bear went to Póvoa do Lanhoso and found a Castle,
but there were no Dragons there.

You can see that the castle was built up high.
The enemies could not come near without being seen.
The mother of the first king of Portugal, D. Teresa,
lived in this castle.


This is the castle in Óbidos.

This family is on a Castle hunt. 




How many more castles will we see here?

Nian, colour red, noise and fireworks

There are many stories and legends in China,

but the story of Nian, the lion monster, is a popular one.

We made some rattles and wore red.

We had some mini fireworks

and made a lot of noise to scare Nian away.

Can you answer these questions about the story?

Who is Nian?

Where does Nian live?

When does Nian come to the villages?

Why are people frightened of Nian?

What do people do to frighten Nian?

Chinese New Year

Reception Bears prepared themselves for the Chinese New Year.

First we learnt how to say Happy New Year.

新年快乐

(sshin-nyen kwhy-ler)

We learnt about various Chinese traditions.

People visit one another and present their hosts with

 tangerines and oranges, which mean "luck" and "wealth."

Our first guest taught us how to make dumplings

and also steam a rice cake/pudding - nian gao.

We all had a go at making dumplings.

 The dumplings were delicious with the soya bean sauce.

Jing used a special pot to steam the nian gao.

We all had a taste of the rice pudding, but we did not all like it.

Our next guest taught us how to make pretty patterns with paper.

Paper was invented in China, they are very good at
making things from paper.

 We cut a monkey and a Chinese character

that means "double happiness."

See the story bellow to find out why this is the

year of the Fire Monkey.

Do you think the Jade Emperor was clever?

The New Year is also called the Spring Festival.

This is the character for Spring.

We folded and cut this intricate pattern.

Our third guest taught us how to draw some

Chinese characters.

We used brushes and special ink on red paper.

We followed instructions carefully.

We wrote numbers from 1 to 10.

Our last guest lived in Singapore and has celebrated

the Chinese New Year ever since.

Sarah makes cupcakes and decorates them with tangerines.

She helped us make the frosting and decorate our cupcakes.
Rodrigo's family provided some delicious tangerines.

We all had a taste and there were still plenty to take home.

The Chinese New Year was also a good excuse for a rickshaw ride.

It takes skill as well as strength to pull a rickshaw.

新年快乐

A tale from China by Hans Christian Andersen

The Nightingale

(nightingale song - click here)

Hans Christian Andersen

Reception Bears have really enjoyed stories by Mick Inkpen, Nick Butterworth and more recently stories by Hans Christian Andersen.

Hans Christian Andersen wrote scary, sad and funny stories.

He wrote stories about love and friendship, good and evil, kindness and hardship, mystery and magic.

The Snow Queen was a scary story about
the fight of good against evil.

True friendship and bravery conquered evil.

With The Ugly Duckling we talked about accepting differences and how words can be cruel.

The Emperor's new clothes was a funny story that lead us to talk about vanity and blind greed.

The Little Match Girl was very sad.
We spoke about the difficulties that some children face
and that perhaps Hans Christian Andersen
might have faced difficulties himself.

The Princess and the pea - the first of the love stories.

This is going to be a pleasant surprise: 

The Little Mermaid

Jack Frost - story

Jack Frost does not really visit children in Oporto,

but he can visit your homes in the form of this book

and the experiences the children are having at school.

Can you guess who read and recorded this story?

It snowed!

The sky was not blue. A cold wind was blowing

and believe it or not... it snowed.

We witnessed some Jack Frost Magic.

Magic snowflakes that did not melt fell from the sky.

We looked at the pretty patterns and tried to match them up in pairs.
We could not do so because they were all different.

We cut our own paper snowflakes and had a lot of fun throwing them down for our friends to catch.

The Snowman

As Reception Bears learn about snow and 

explore some winter  stories, we continued

to watch the film we started to view last Friday.

For everyone to enjoy and recall:

David Bowie - the young man recalling his childhood memories.

The Snowman - Raymond Briggs

Our Creative Nativity - performance and crafts

Our stars

At the end of the show

Do you like our crafts? Can you identify the recycled materials?

Some shepherds looking after some curly sheep.

The Angels that appeared in the sky with beautiful voices

The stable where Jesus was born