St Pius X Catholic Primary School

'Restore all things in Christ'

01229 828406

admin@st-piusx.cumbria.sch.uk

Schneider Road, Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria LA14 4AA

Welcome to Little Lambs

Spring 1 2023-2024

What a busy half term we’ve had! We began the term by looking at the story, ‘Harry and the Robots’ by Ian Whybrow. To our surprise this lead to us getting a robot delivery! We had so much fun exploring the different robots that we decided to make some of our own!

Our non fiction book this term was called, ‘Let’s Look at Winter.’ We explored our surroundings looking for signs of winter and made some beautiful ice decorations to hang in our outdoor area.

During our PE lessons Brontë from Movin Monkeez came to do some work with us. Brontë taught us about Chinese New Year through movement and we took part in lots of fun games during Number Day!

Autumn 2 2023-24

 We began the half term with a non-fiction book, 'My Body, Your Body, Senses.' We had a wonderful time exploring this book. We learnt all about our senses and even got our science lead to join in! Mrs Crellin took on the challenge of I'm a science lead! Get Me Out Of Here!! We set up 5 activities involving each sense. Mrs Crellin had to complete each challenge to win a Mr Potato Head figure for each group of children. The figures came with ears, nose, eyes, hands and mouths to help us remember all of the senses. It was lots of fun. 

Our next topic was space using the book, 'Super Space!' We looked at the book and learnt new vocabulary before designing our own space helmets and jet packs! During the day, we were astonished to find that one of our year 6 pupils had been kidnapped by an alien and went to search for her. We found her in out of space! The alien read us a story before we came back down to earth. Parents commented on how excited the children were about this topic. 

Our favourite week of the year was once again a huge success! National Nursery Rhyme Week brought us 5 new rhymes to learn and activities to go with them. After learning all the rhymes we went on to teach our baby and toddler group the words and actions. 

We had the best time getting ready for Christmas. We preformed in the KS1 nativity and retold the birth of Jesus through songs for our baby and toddler group. During the last few weeks we were amazed to find that an elf had left us a dummy tree! We had 5 children give up their dummies to elf! We then ended the year at the panto along with the rest of the school. 

 

Autumn 1 2023-24

We have had a fantastic start to the new school year and all settled in quickly. We have spent a lot of time with our new key workers and taken part in fun activities that helped us get to know each other and our families. 

Along with the rest of the school we took part in Roald Dahl day. We watched a short clip about the BFG then shared our hopes and dreams with our friends. Our Key workers helped us draw a picture of our dreams and then we added them to a magic jar. We then looked at some other stories by the author Roald Dahl and read, 'The Enormous Crocodile' finger puppet book. We all really enjoyed this story. 

During the half term we explored natural resources. We made self portraits with objects found in our nature area and went on an Autumn walk with our families. During the walk we found different Autumn treasures that we brought to school. These were used in our maths lessons. We sorted objects into different categories, practiced our subitising skills and learnt new vocabulary linked to our non fiction book - Let's Look at Autumn. 

Our reading spine allowed us to explore the book, 'Owl Babies' by Martin Waddell. We had great fun retelling this story with new exciting props and our two year old children's 'Dear Zoo' book took us to the zoo!

We ended the half term with an art lesson with Sophie Martin. She helped everyone decorate crosses linked to the Gospel Values. We used sharpie pens and fine liners then added a dark paint wash on top to create a stain glass window effect. 

'

Summer 2 2022-23

We have had such fun over the last half term. Many of us will be moving up to our reception classes in September, so we have been doing lots of work on transitions. After taking many opportunities to explore our new environment and meet our new teacher we set out making a transition basket. We used our voting station to pick our favourite books, songs and poems. These will come to reception with us along with our 'Colour Monster' emotion spoons. These items are all very familiar to us and are sure to help us feel at home in September.

After learning all about the life cycle of a butterfly last term, we visited a butterfly house! Our school trip was to Lakeland Safari Oasis. We had a great tour guide who showed us lots of different animals and gave us lots more information about caterpillars, cocoons and butterflies, reinforcing our prior knowledge. The correct use of vocabulary that was used during these discussions was commented on by safari staff!

During the last few weeks we had a special treat. Sophie Martin (Sophie Martin Illustration) came to do some expressive self portraits in the style of Yayoi Kusama. This was great fun and the children made amazing portraits that were later shown in our whole school art exhibition.

We ended the year with our Graduation, summer fayre and Pius Calling. We absolutely love being involved in whole school activities and events! It was a fantastic end to a fantastic year.

Summer 1 2022-23

This half term we celebrated Pope Pius X. The children worked hard creating a stain glass window to display in class. The children were very proud of this piece of work. We also took part in the whole school May Procession. We made beautiful flowers to present before praying to Mary. 

We have spent this half term learning all about, 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'. We loved this book and had our very own caterpillars to look after. We learnt all about metamorphosis and the change from a caterpillar to a butterfly. This prompted us to look at other insects and before long we had a colony of ants, a clew of worms, a loveliness of ladybirds and stick insects! 

 

In our RE lessons we have been looking at new life. To help us with this we had two new born babies visit us with their parents . We asked questions and found out all about how you care and look after a baby. We also had a very special visit from a 12 week old English Bull Dog. The children had fun on the field playing and learning about how to care for him. This then took us to our local reservoir where we observed goslings and ducklings in their natural habitat. 

 We ended the half term together as a school. All children from nursery to year 6 took part in sports day. It was a lovely day and we had great fun. 

Spring 2 2022-23

What a beautiful half term we’ve had! Whilst preparing for our Mater Christi Trust Feast Day (The Annunciation) we had a visit from Mrs Wright. Along with the rest of the school we took part in a workshop on the Angelus and made our own angels to take home at the end of the day. We went on to later celebrate our Mater Christi Trust feast day -The Annunciation.
Even our two year olds helped make a triptych depicting The Annunciation to display around the school.

We have made the most of the weather over the last few weeks. The snow provided a beautiful blank canvas for our Jackson Pollock art work and the sun shone on our trip to the farm. It was perfect for exploring signs of spring. 

We have recently visited two farms to enhance our knowledge of farm animals linked with our reading spine. Before leaving Greenacres farm we got the opportunity to use on their play bus. Our other trip was nearly a two mile walk passing many farm animals. Our Monday Mile helped prepare us for this. As always on our outings we invited families to join us. We all had a lovely day.

Towards the end of the term we enjoyed story time with Cathy from The Book Trust. Cathy encouraged each child to join the local library and gave information on how to do this. 

Spring 1 2022-23

What a fantastic start to the year we’ve had. Our New Year's goal is to improve our Physical Development. Along with other activities we have started The Monday Mile! We begin each week walking in our local area for at least one mile. This has become a popular event with parents, grandparents and siblings joining us and not only are we getting fit but also learning about the world around us.

Our Maths lessons have also taken us out in the local environment. We have made triangles in the woods and learnt about their properties and noticed patterns on the beach using rocks and footprints in the sand. We also had great fun making circles!

Our reading spine has been as exciting as always. We have explored winter using the nonfiction book - Let’s Look At Winter; Harry and the Dinosaurs led us to learning new vocabulary about electricity and robots; and we explored Giraffes Can't Dance through exercise and dance!

We also had the responsibility of looking after Poppy the rabbit for the day. Poppy brought us a story about the the great race. We learnt that this year is the year of the rabbit.

Autumn 2 2022-23

Our favourite time of the year! We began the half term looking at our families and ourselves as babies. We learnt that a long time ago our teachers and parents used to be babies and talked about how we have grown. 

We have also really impressed our teachers with our super subitising skills! We had great fun exploring all kinds of natural resources that we found on our trip to How Tun Woods. Whilst looking at our environment we collected lots of natural treasures to bring back to school with us. Once back at school we independently sorted the items into groups that we later used to help us subitise. 

One of our reading spine books was all about our senses. We learnt that we have 5 senses and took part in fun and exciting activities to help us learn about each of them. Our favourite was taste! We tried lots of yummy fruit and vegetables to see which ones tasted the nicest. 

Along with many other activities we have taken part in, our older children also completed Bucket Time! Bucket time is a programme we use over the Autumn term. It  builds up attention, listening skills and helps us to sit for short periods of time. This  gets us ready for our longer phonics sessions next term. It has been commented on, by people from outside settings, that we are excellent at listening and paying attention.

We ended the term with our Nativity, Christmas party and whole school trip to the panto. Everyone agreed we were the cutest little lambs and preformed our song brilliantly! 

Autumn 1 2022-23

We have had a fantastic start to the term. We are really happy to see all of our friends and to welcome new ones.

We have had great fun exploring the books in our reading spine. Before reading each story our Key Workers taught us the vocabulary we were going to hear. We read Dear Zoo at the Zoo! Based activities around scenes in the stories and even incorporated the books in our weekly YoKids sessions!

One of our Topics this half term was Autumn. We have been finding out about Autumn and exploring the weather. We went on an Autumn walk and had great fun using our windy day box. Some of us even made our own kites to fly in the wind.

We also began our, 'Wiggle Me Into Squiggle' programme. We have been getting really messy and can already see improvements in our gross and fine motor skills. 

Summer 2 2022 

 

Over our final weeks in Little Lambs we have celebrated with our families. We all came together for our first sports day and learnt that the winners are the children who have the most fun. Even our Mums, Dads and teachers took part in the races.

We also went on our school trip. After reading the book Superworm, last half term, we furthered our learning by visiting Grizedale Forest and completing the Superworm activity trail.

To our surprise, a special delivery of bikes arrived. After only a short time some of us progressed to two wheeled bikes and can now ride with no stabilisers. Everyone was very impressed with our progress.

The school year ended with our families and friends. We preformed the story, Giraffes Can’t Dance by Gilles Andreae and each acted out a scene from the book. Then we celebrated our time in nursery, on the school field, with our families.

We had some lovely feedback from parents and are very proud of each and every one of our children.

“**** is going to miss you all so much! You've all been absolutely fantastic with her, I couldn’t thank you enough! What an amazing morning it was too”

What a beautiful assembly. Thank you for everything you have all done over the years. ***** will definitely miss being a Little Lamb after being one for so long now. I'm sure all of them will be regular visitors next year.

 

Summer 1 2022

What an exciting time we have had over the last few weeks. We had a surprise delivery which included a new book - The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle and some baby caterpillars for us to look after. We watched them grow, spin cocoons and transform into beautiful butterflies.

We also really enjoyed celebrating Eid Mubarak. One of our friends went to visit his family for this celebration and we decided to find out all about it. Some older children in the school came to talk to us about the festival and why it is celebrated. One of our parents made sweet gifts for every child. When asked what Eid Mubarak was one of our children replied, "It is about celebrating love and kindness."

In addition to this, we used our name cards to vote for which story we would like each day during National Story Telling Week, created a worm world linked to Julia Donaldson's Superworm and celebrated the Jubilee.

Spring 2 2022

What a busy time we have been having in Little Lambs. We began our half term focusing on being healthy. We learnt about not only keeping our bodies healthy, but also our minds. During this week we dug out our own planter to prepare it for growing vegetables in, took part in story massage and had a special trip to our local leisure centre. Some of us had never been to the leisure centre before and are all hoping to go back very soon. 

We also celebrated World Book Day. This year this was based around the book 'Journey' by Aaron Becker. Just like in the book we drew a red door and talked about what magical land would be behind the door. To our astonishment, the next day, we had our own red door in class! Each day there was a different world behind the door and new books for us to read!

Along with spending lots of time outside we have also been learning about animals and what their young are called. This resulted in a trip to a local farm to see some real baby animals. We learnt lots from this experience and had a fantastic time.