To parents of children in the Lower Prep

Dear Parents,

We are delighted to be welcoming Miller's Ark animals into school on Tuesday 15 May. They will be bringing with them an assortment of friendly farm animals for the children to cuddle, stroke, feed and groom. This is always an enjoyable occasion, and one from which the children gain a real insight into the handling and care of the different farm animals. All children in the Lower Prep will benefit from the visit, spending time with the animals during the course of the day.

I'd be grateful if you could complete the slip below giving permission for your child to take part in the visit and giving details of any special instructions regarding allergies. The cost of the visit will be £3.50 and should be returned along with the permission slip to your child's class teacher as soon as possible.

Pupils in Reception, Years 1 and 2 enjoyed a visit from two Alton librarians on Thursday 24th April. They brought an exciting collection of books suitable for different ages and interests and also talked about many other items that children may borrow, including DVDs and Play station games.

The special events organised by the Library were also of great interest, and our visitors were very impressed with the show of hands demonstrating children who took part in the Summer Reading Challenge; apparently this year’s challenge will have an Olympic theme.

Early years and KS1 enjoyed some exciting Easter activities on Tuesday.

The day started with an egg rolling competition in Reception, where the children rolled their hard boiled eggs across the playground, trying to get their egg to land nearest to the Easter egg target. Hannah and Maddie were victorious, but all the children enjoyed the challenge and lots of interesting techniques arose!

The Easter Bunny had been hard at work in the woods, and all year groups enjoyed searching for the Easter eggs, which he had thoughtfully left behind. This was certainly the highlight of the day for many, and we had some very vigilant Easter egg hunters! The eggs came in all sorts of colours, shapes and sizes, and were found in some unusual places! Fortunately we were very thorough and every class ended up with a sizeable collection to share out.

Bird World came to visit us and we saw a parrot called Fred and Fred started to speak. Then we saw a barn owl called Whisper and she was as white as snow. She was very nice. We saw a family of mice and a guinea pig. The mouse was called Smokey and the guinea pig was called Joy. The mice were very small and I got to touch one. we saw a snake called Eddie. He was very friendly. Next we saw a stick insect and an Australian cockroach, which hissed when it was frightened. Its bones were on its outside and it was very firm. We saw a tarantula spider called Chili. She had eight legs and eyes and when she was scared she shoots out hairs.

Linking the weekly ‘show and tell' to the curriculum has proved to be a great success in Years One and Two. Subjects have included places the children have visited, something to give thanks for and favourite story characters when items brought in varied from Peter Rabbit to a football shirt!
This term we asked parents to support our work in science by designing and making a musical instrument. Parents and children have been very imaginative using bottles, tissue boxes, sticks and paper plates to create a variety of sounds by plucking, shaking and banging. The children eagerly played their instruments to create background sound effects to a story and have really enjoyed experimenting with loud and soft sounds, and thinking about how different sounds are created. We would like to take this opportunity to say a special thank you to parents for the support given each week, which has enabled this venture to become so successful and enhances work done across the curriculum.

Yvonne Arnold, Guildford

We, Key Stage 2, went to see Key Stage 1's production. It was called The Most Disgruntled Snowman and it was simply fab! First, we heard a song which was about the snowman being so miserable. The snowman, played by Oliver, was excellent and really funny. There were quite a lot of narrators, and they were dressed up as snowflakes (Jessica, Bryony, Emily, Thea, Lucy and Paloma). They said the snowman was the most disgruntled snowman in the whole wide world, and at the time he was!

Inspired by Gustav Klimt's 'Tree of Life' painting, Key stage 1 created one of their own works of art on the beach of West Wittering.

Windswept but enthusiastic, children gathered a variety of natural resources such as different coloured stones, seaweed and even used themselves as blossom and leaves to create a huge tree celebrating both seasonal changes and growth.

Although a changeable day, both teachers and pupils throughly immersed themselves in the activities. All had a brilliant and creative time.