March 2024

14 Buckden Roundabout March 2024 School & Pre - School The chilly weather inspired a winter playdough table with a variety of materials in cool colours. We also chose ‘ Stick Man ’ by Julia Don- aldson as one of our Books of the Week—the children always love his wintertime adventures. They also loved playing in our hairdressing ‘ salon ’, using a variety of accessories to create new styles for their ‘ customers ’! Here are a few of the other activities the children have enjoyed: Mark - Making and Literacy In our ‘ vanishing words ’ activity, the children used paintbrushes to trace over chalk words with water, to make then disappear, pro- moting fine motor skills and letter recognition. Literacy puzzles and phonics object tubs provided more focused activities for the older children, encouraging their first steps towards sounding out letters and reading. Maths Unifix cubes were supplied for length - matching and scooping activi- ties, and we also set up traditional scales and objects to weigh. These activities helped the children develop language and skills around transferring, filling, quantity, number and weight. Our pirate ship- wreck activity with its sand, treasure, shells, and number counters promoted number recognition and counting. The Natural World Responding to the children ’ s interests, our outdoor insect discovery tray featured sand, measuring tapes, magnifying glasses and scoops. To prepare for the Big Garden Bird Watch, the bird interest tray, with its seed, bird house, birds, fact books and diagrams, encouraged the children to learn about and identify birds. They also made birdfeeders to attract flying visitors! Emotional Development We shared short stories on emotions with the children and discussed feelings in circle time, leading up to several activities based on popu- lar ‘ The Colour Monster ’ emotions book: monster - making with loose parts, painted monster portraits, feelings phonics, colourful playdough, colour mixing with pipettes, and colour scavenger hunts! Forest School and BookTrust Activities Using resources collected from the woods, the children had the chance to build dens. They also started participating in the library BookTrust scheme, attending weekly story sessions and doing the accompanying activities throughout February. Vacancies We are still recruiting for another Early Years Practitioner. Please con- tact our Chairperson at the email address below for further details. Find our updates on https://www.facebook.com/ www.buckdenpreschool.co.uk/. For our admissions waiting list and more information, visit www.buckdenpreschool.co.uk. To arrange a visit or apply for a place, call 01480 810600 or email buckdenpre- school@yahoo.co.uk. For committee information, please contact buckdenpreschoolcommittee@gmail.com. Our Chairperson, Hel- en, or our Treasurer, Debs, will get back to you . BUCKDEN CHURCH OF ENGLAND PRIMARY ACADEMY Febuary 2024 We are currently well into the February month with one more week to go before its half term, which will signify that we are already half way through the academic year, time is just flying by!! The beginning of February so far has been a bit wet but we are hoping for dry and sun- ny spring days in the very near future. Over the last couple of weeks, we have had a number of exciting activ- ities for the children to participate in and they have all thoroughly enjoyed the experiences. Our Reception children had an amazing visit to Buckden Towers to explore winter. The children learnt about evergreen and deciduous trees, looked at signs of spring and searched for evidence of animals. It was a lovely time and the experience put big smiles on all the chil- dren ’ s faces. A big thank you to all the parent helpers who made this possible. Year 1 had some very exciting visitors! The children had the oppor- tunity to learn about and hold a range of animals. We were visited by a hissing cockroach, a lesser tenrec, a python, a tarantula, a chamele- on and a common tenrec. All of the children showed great respect to the animals and asked their keeper the very knowledgeable ‘ Safari Stu ’ some fabulous questions. In addition, a huge thank you to the PTA for helping to contribute and make the morning a fabulous expe- rience for all. Year 4 participated in a full on Roman day, the children used their imagination to come to school dressed as Romans. Throughout the day they considered how Roman times has influenced modern day life through a variety of activities, including building an aquaduct, partici- pating as a Roman army and drama work around day to day activities as Romans. Also at the end of the day, the children got to taste a vari- ety of Roman foods. We had an enthusiastic team from across the school participate in a Bowling Panathlon at St Ives Leisure Centre. We came 3rd and 4th overall and one of our team members the highest number of Strikes and Spares and won an additional medal! Well done Team Buckden! They had great fun and played so well as a team. On Friday 2 nd February, our Young Voices school choir joined nearly 5000 other school children to sing at the OVO Wembley Arena to sing songs that they have been learning and practicing since the Autumn term. We are extremely proud of our children and over 70 parents from the school made the trip to London to watch the amazing show and were blown away by the children ’ s success. On Friday 9 th February, we welcomed the local charity - 3 Pillars Homeless charity into school to give an assembly to the children. As a thank you, we collected a range of tinned and non - perishable items so that we could present them with a sizable donation to take away with them. Back one dark January evening we held a Stargazing Evening for some of our Year 5 children. We were very fortunate to have a guest speak- er deliver a presentation on: the history behind constellations, images collected by the James Webb telescope and the Earth's atmosphere. The children learnt how to stargaze, the benefits of using red torch light if going out at night and how to avoid light pollution. This was followed up by going out to the school field (with a hot chocolate) to see how many stars we could see. Finally, our fabulous PTA have had a long well needed rest for the first part of the spring term but they are now busily organising a school disco for both KS1 and KS2 on the last day of the half term. Children have also had the opportunity to put their requests in for their favour- ite songs, let ’ s hope the DJ doesn ’ t let them down !