In the lead up to half term, we came together to celebrate the historic milestone that was the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, enjoying a whole series of Jubilee and traditionally British themed activities, including dressing up in red, white and blue, and our very own street party. A wonderful time was had by all.

 

Across the Early Years Nursery curriculum, Life Cycles has proven a particularly engaging topic, with living examples to demonstrate the wonder of nature and bring the children’s learning to life. Our Nursery children wondered at the transformation of their classroom caterpillars, finally releasing them as butterflies into the school garden; whilst other Nursery classes have been looking at the life cycle of a duck, complete with fluffy chicks hatching. West Hampstead’s school dog, Wilson, took his role as duckling security guard very seriously, and was also effective in his demonstration of healthy eating, indulging in his 5-a-day!

 

Our Nursery children have also been learning about life cycles in the plant kingdom too, growing their very own beans. Our future botanists have been investigating the conditions needed for optimum plant growth in a bid to grow the tallest beanstalk!

 

Also taking an opportunity to grow their own food, our Pre-Reception children were inspired by The Enormous Turnip, the tale of an elderly farmer couple who struggle to pull an enormous turnip from their field. A reminder that selfless acts are acts of kindness and that in collaborating and working together, we can achieve our goals, The Enormous Turnip also worked up quite an appetite in green-fingered Pre-Receptionists, who made delicious sandwiches with their own freshly grown cress.

 

Our Pre-Prep Reception children have exercised academic rigour and artistic license this half term, creating beautiful observational paintings of sunflowers inspired by their previous trip to the National Gallery and study of impressionist Paul Cezanne, renowned for works such as ‘Flowers in a Vase.’ From landscape artistry to applying mathematics, a particular highlight of Reception’s Summer Term 1 was recreating a bus in the classroom, sitting in pairs to embed their learning of counting in twos.

 

And all Nursery & Pre-Prep children joined in Earth Day with topics around recycling, reusing and saving energy – a topic for us all.