Holly Class is taught by Mrs Stonehouse and supported by Mrs Padfield and Mrs Morris. Other adults who work in the class are Mrs Chilcott (Thursday) and Mr Hayman for P.E.

Our themes for this year in Holly Class are:

Autumn One - Magical Me

Autumn Two - Celebrations

Spring One - Food Glorious Food

Spring Two - Our Wonderful World

Summer One - Once Upon a Time

Summer Two - Sealife and Fossils

Autumn One - Magical Me

Our new reception children have had a fantastic start to school life. The children have impressed us so much by how quickly they have settled in. Well done everyone on having such an excellent start to your time at primary school. 

In Autumn one our learning theme is 'Magical Me', as the children settled into school life in Holly Class we have started to explore our learning theme. We have talked about what makes us special, painted self portraits and talked about our families. 

We had 'Little City' to visit us this week, the children had lots of fun dressing up and exploring all of the different areas!

As part of our Harvest Display, Holly Class made Sid the Scarecrow, with the help of Mrs Morris.

During our Outdoor Learning session this week we went on a Welly Walk to pick Blackberries, earlier in the week we had read the story of The Gruffalo, with our freshly picked blackberries we made our own Gruffalo crumble!

We went to explore our local church, St Peter's this week. The children completed a scavenger hunt of all of the features of Christian churches, they were very confident in naming the features and talking about why they are special to Christians. 

As part of our learning about Harvest Festival, we read the story of The Little Red Hen, we talked about what The Little Red Hen had to do in order for the wheat to grow and then how she turned it into flour to make bread. We had a go at making our own bread, carefully kneading the dough. We performed at St Peter's church singing 'I'm a Little Hedgehog' and 'Autumn Colours'. 

Holly Class and Cherry Class came together this week to have an Apple Day, we went on a long Welly Walk to two local orchards to collect apples. When we returned to school we used a scratter and press to juice the apples to make yummy juice! We even made our own apple pies. 

Autumn Two - Celebrations

Our theme this half term is 'Celebrations', we started this by focusing on the festival of Diwali. The children enjoyed making their own lanterns, Diwa lamps and Rangoli patterns. We had a special visitor come in to talk to us about Diwali and we even got to do some Indian dancing.

This week we have learnt about Remembrance Day and why it is an important celebration. We have worked hard to make a display for the front of school, as part of this Holly Class made two wreaths, one to display at school and the other at church. 

This week Holly Class received their Bibles from the Vicar and Church Wardens, we had a special Collective Worship where they were presented. 

We had a very exciting trip to The Egg Theatre this week to watch The Snow Mouse, this was our first school trip!

Darrel Wakelam came to visit Holly Class this week, he worked with us to create a fantastic piece of artwork all about The Mirraculous Catch, which will be displayed in teh school entrance. 

Christmas has arrived in Holly Class!

Spring One - Food Glorious Food

To kick start our new topic we went on a School trip to Pizza Express in Street, we had a tour of the restaurant, looked at the pizza oven and even got to make our own Pizza's.

We transformed our role play area into a Pizza Restaurant, which we have enjoyed playing in. We have created our own pizzas, served them to customers and we even had our own Pizza delivery bike. 

Mr Burn from Burns the Bread came to visit us this week and show us how to make bread. We each made our own loaf of bread which was very yummy!

We also learnt about Shrove Tuesday and made our own pancakes. Carefully chopping up the toppings and creating our own pancakes. 

Spring Two - Our Wonderful World

We transformed our role play area into an airport/aeroplane, the children loved creating this, with an aeroplane on the front, a control panel and even a security area. The children have flown all over the world, taking turns to be the captain and cabin crew.

We have learnt all about the signs of spring this half term and what happens in nature when spring arrives. We have explored our school environment looking for what flowers are growing and what animals/insects we can see. We have been on Welly Walks around our local area.

The whole school held a science week this half term, Holly Class focused on learning about life cycles, especially the life cycle of a frog and a sunflower. We planted our own seeds, learning all of the things which our seeds will need in order for them to grow into sunflowers. We created a display made up of everything which had learnt about lifecycles to show the rest of school and parents. 

We worked hard this half term to host a Mothering Sunday afternoon tea for all of the Holly Class Mother's. We learnt two songs to sing to them as well as learning how to say 'I love you' in several different languages. We made homemade scones and cakes to serve to the Mother's. 

We have read the Easter Story over the past few weeks, learning why Easter is an important time of year for Christians. In the classroom we have made our own Easter Garden which the children have thoroughly enjoyed decorating. We made our own Easter Cards, delivering one to the Vicar during our whole school Easter Service. We went on a Welly Walk to Stoney Stratton, we went searching for Easter Eggs which were hidden along the way. We have talked lots about why the cross is an important symbol for Christians, we made our own hot cross buns, talking about what the cross represents and why they are eaten at Easter time.