YR Visit to Lepe Country Park

The children in Year R have had a fabulous day, travelling on a coach to Lepe County Park. While they were there they had a minibeast hunt in the woodland, looked at what they found under microscopes, swept nets through the long grass to find other creatures. They also had a seashore scavenger hunt and safari which included creating some beach art. After lunch the children had the opportunity to explore the sensory garden and had a play on the park. Lots of fun was had!

Year R Making Mr Greenhead

This week the children have enjoyed making their own "Mr Greenhead" having been inspired by reading the book. They worked carefully, following instructions to make their seed filled heads.

Our first week in Year R

The children in Reception have had a fantastic first week at school and have settled in really well, adapting to routines and making new friends. Have a look at what fun they have had.

Year R at Hillier- Oak class

We had a lovey time at Hillier today! The sun shone, the butterflies fluttered and the bees buzzed. We got to participate in all sorts of wonderful activities that allowed us to really experience all that nature has to offer on a fine summer day. We skimmed the long grass using nets to try and catch crickets, grasshoppers, butterflies and beetles. We went pond dipping and caught a whole array of little critters, such as newts, pond skaters and freshwater prawns. We used colour palettes, just like artists, to colour match using the beautiful flowers at Hiller, snap! We also went on a scavenger hunt through a meadow looking out for items that don’t belong in nature, we had to look closely as some were camouflaged! Thank-you to Hiller and to all of the parents who helped make this wonderful day possible!

Year R at Hillier- Beech Class

We had a lovey time at Hillier today! The sun shone, the butterflies fluttered and the bees buzzed. We got to participate in all sorts of wonderful activities that allowed us to really experience all that nature has to offer on a fine summer day. We skimmed the long grass using nets to try and catch crickets, grasshoppers, butterflies and beetles. We went pond dipping and caught a whole array of little critters, such as newts, pond skaters and freshwater prawns. We used colour palettes, just like artists, to colour match using the beautiful flowers at Hiller, snap! We also went on a scavenger hunt through a meadow looking out for items that don’t belong in nature, we had to look closely as some were camouflaged! Thank-you to Hiller and to all of the parents who helped make this wonderful day possible!

Year R Jungle week 3

This was our last week learning about the jungle. We’ve really enjoyed reading the book, “Day Monkey, Night Monkey” and have followed up by sorting nocturnal and diurnal animals, exploring shadows and writing sentences about what we do in the day/night time. We have also used natural materials that we found outside to create some ‘jungle pictures’ of our favourite creatures! Next week we will be learning about sea creatures and how to keep our environment clean.

Year R Jungle topic week 2

This week we have been making some African savanna artwork using pastels and stencils. We have also been busy learning and writing facts about giraffes after being inspired by the book, ‘Giraffes Can’t Dance’. We have really enjoyed playing parachute games together to build teamwork and communication. As always, we’ve loved getting a bit messy outside and have been using bubbles and slime today!

Year R- Jungle topic Week 1

This was the first week of our new ‘Jungle’ topic. We’ve enjoyed making parrots using paint, glue and tissue paper. We also made our very own binoculars to use for jungle exploring! There has been lots of den-making again this week using various materials and methods. It was so much fun to pretend that we were camping out in the jungle! It has been lovely to see so many children enthusiastic to write about our new topic! In other news, we had to say ‘good-bye’ to our butterflies, who emerged from their cocoons over the weekend. They’ll be fluttering around the school area so no doubt you may see one of the one day soon!

A week in Year R....

This week was SO much fun! We have been learning about bees! We had lots of fun tasting honey and exploring our bee sensory tray. We all dressed up on Wednesday for the 'Ugly Bug Ball' and had great fun in the sun buzzing and flying around showing off our costumes. We've added a pizza oven to our Minibeast Cafe and have been dishing up some very gross pizzas for the customers. Today was a very rainy day and so we built a den in the woods to shelter us from the pouring rain. We also used foam to play 'Minibeast Ice-cream Shop'. We hope you enjoy watching!

Year R-The Very Hungry Caterpillar

We've been very busy this week learning about the story, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". We've really enjoyed painting symetrical butterfly wings, using our new minibeast cafe and exploring how we can use dance and intruments to retell the story.

Year R Supertato!

This week we have been reading the book, 'Supertato'! We have designed our very own veggie super heroes and have written sentences to describe their super powers. We've also been making our own super hero masks, cooking up some healthy potions for Supertato (to keep his strenth up) and making our own Supertatos to bring home. On Thursday morning we discovered something very suspicious in our classrooms, veggies had been taped to the walls and were trapped! We think the Evil Pea must have snuck in overnight and done this, how rude!

Year R Vegetable Printing

This week we have been reading the book, "The Enormous Turnip", and so have been discussing vegetables that grow over/underground. Today we enjoyed doing some vegetable printing, thinking carefully about where to 'stamp' them, over or under?

YR Playing Rounders

Year R enjoyed being introduced to the game of rounders. They were keen to have a go and had fun too.

Year R Mr Greenheads

Year R have been very busy creating their very own 'Mr Greenheads'. They were asked to bring in some old socks from home and worked in pairs to follow the instructions (from a non-fiction book). First, they put in some grass seeds, then compost and after carefully tiying a rubber band on the end they stood them up in the old yogurt pot. The next job was to create a face using felt shapes and PVA glue. Once the face was attahced they then added some water and put the Greenhead somewhere sunny! It will be very exciting when they start to sprout some grassy hair! They'll be taking them home to look after once the hair has sprouted!

Year R Bean Experiment!

Dress to Express

Last Week was Children's Mental Health Week and to support this Oakwood had a 'Dress to Express' Day in each year group. We can all express ourselves in the way we dress, showing everyone who we are and what we like. We accompanied that by expressing ourselves in other ways and being creative. Can you spot any of these in the photos?

A baking challenge from Mrs Mahoney

This is for a message for all our Oakwood Primary children and families.

I love baking with my children, Sophie (9) and Edward (6)!
Edward and I would love you to try baking a carrot cake like we did. We have baked this recipe quite a few times as it always comes out well and we think it is delicious. My mum, who is an amazing cook, uses this recipe now and she has tried many carrot cake recipes over the years!






Baking is a great activity for all the family. As well as enjoyment, there are extra learning opportunities for children in the form of reading, writing, maths and science!

In addition to using the measuring scales to measure the ingredients, here are some of the maths questions I asked Edward as he was baking:
• How many grams are there in 1kg?
• 100g add 150g
• Double 250g
• What fraction of the 500g bag did we use?
• What is 4 tablespoons of butter in grams? 14.3g x 4?


Don’t worry of you do not have the exact ingredients. We used:
• All white self-raising flour as we didn’t have wholemeal.
• 1 tsp nutmeg and 1 tsp cinnamon instead of 2 tsp mixed spice (or you could leave out the spice)
• Golden caster sugar instead of icing sugar
We used an electric mixer to make the icing topping but you could also whisk it by hand.
The carrot cake also works well in a round cake tin!

We hope you enjoy the egg yolk in oil video – we thought it was very interesting!
Also, Edward usually says no to cracking the eggs but agreed to do it if I filmed him! He did really well!

Good luck with your baking! Have fun!

Oakwood Teacher Swap

Whole School Intra House Cross Country Event 2020

What a brilliant competition this was today! So many children took part and had great fun running for their house. Thanks to TMC and to all our lovely staff for helping make this event so successful today.

Oakwood's Advent Books 2019: 15th December - Paddington and the Christmas Surprise

Here is today's Advent Book - Paddington and the Christmas Surprise.