Today we visited the Cango caves in South Africa. We learned how caves are formed and that people used to live in caves a very, very long time ago. These people were hunters and gatherers, hunting wild animals and gathering fruit and berries to eat in order to survive. They told stories from their lives by painting pictures on the walls of their caves. We learned that they had to make their own paint, using minerals, charcoal, animal blood, dirt, berries and leaves, crushed and mixed. We had a go at making our own paint using mud, herbs, raspberries, honey and beetroot. We then had to paint with our fingers or sticks.......they wouldn’t have had paintbrushes like we do now! It was a lot of fun!
EYFS Cave Paintings
EYFS - Flight to Africa - April 2023
This morning, we arrived at school with our suitcases, ready for our flight to Africa! First of all we had to wait in the departure lounge. We made sure that we had our tickets and passports so that we would be able to board the flight. Luckily our flight was on time so without delay we were called to board at Gate 7. The air hostess kindly showed us to our seats and we placed our suitcases under our seats. We listened carefully to the inflight safety video and familiarised ourselves with these procedures by looking at the cards that were in our seat pockets. Once our seat backs were in the upright position and our trays were folded away, we were ready to take off. We looked out of the window and could see Bristol below. The houses and cars looked very small. Once in the air we were able to have a short inflight movie and were served some snacks. Before we knew it, it was time to begin our descent to land in Johannesburg. We looked out of the window and could see that Africa looked different from Bristol with the ground being all brown and fewer houses around. We can't wait to explore Africa a little more but for now we are looking forward to seeing what our hotels are like! (All 5 star I hope!)
EYFS Flight to Africa - Apr 23
EYFS Museum Visit - March 2023
As a grand finale to our dinosaur topic we visited The Museum of Somerset in Taunton. The children were not only able to engage with and explore the many exhibits, including dinosaur fossils, but they were also able to paint their very own ammonite and experience life as a palaeontologist, digging and brushing for fossils. The took part in an interactive session with the museum curator where they were able to share their knowledge of dinosaurs and Mary Anning. She was very impressed! An exciting experience was had by all, rounding off our learning to date.
EYFS Dinosaur Museum
World Maths Day - The JoJo Gnome Maths Challenge! - March 2023
This morning the children took part in the JoJo Gnome Maths Challenge to celebrate World Maths Day!
First the children were split into teams. Each team had a selection of 'treasures'. They had to find out how many treasures they had. The children began by trying to count them all but soon realised that this wasn't easy as they were in a bit of a mess! They then worked as a team to put them into a line. This made it much easier to count accurately.
Their second challenge was to make an obstacle course with their treasures. This was great fun. "We are playing the floor is lava!" they called. The children had some parts (long foam pieces) that kept blowing away. They soon realised that if they put something heavy on top it would keep them in place.
The third challenge was to sort their treasures by shape. The language was amazing as the children worked together sorting cylinders, cubes and cuboids.
JoJo Gnome Maths EYFS March 23
Oral Hygiene : 24th February 2023
Oral Hygiene
The children have been learning all about oral hygiene and how to look after our teeth. We learnt that we should brush our teeth twice a day and have been completing our own tooth brushing charts.
We set up an experiment to see what happens to our teeth when we drink different liquids. We placed eggs in water, milk, orange juice and fizzy over night to see what happened to their shell, as this is similar to tooth enamel. We found that the water and milk stayed the same but the egg in orange juice lost its enamel and so did the one in fizzy drink, which also had spots!
We concluded that it is best to drink water or milk and that we MUST only drink juice and fizzy occasionally and brush our teeth twice a day to avoid cavities.
Dinosaurs : February 2023
You’ll never guess what…..it’s happened again!
Robin and Wren Class arrived at school to find a terrible mess. We looked for the clues and wrote a list to help us solve the mystery of who….or what, had been in our classrooms!
Have a look for yourself. What do you think?
Traditional Tales : February 2023
What a surprise we all had when we arrived at school to find that we had been visited. But who had been in our classrooms? Robin and Wren class searched for the clues; a glass slipper, a wand, some magic beans, a picnic basket and a red cape, a bowl of porridge and a strand of golden hair, plus other clues. The children wrote their lists and decided that some fairy tale characters had been in our classrooms. “It must be Goldilocks because she has golden hair and the bears, that’s baby bear’s porridge!”
A few days later the children received a letter from the Little Old Lady. She wanted to make some gingerbread men but couldn’t find her recipe. We made our own gingerbread men and then wrote her a list. However, our quests did not end there! Next we made get well cards for Red Riding Hood’s granny and wanted posters to warn people about the Big Bad Wolf! Finally, the King asked us to design invitations for his Royal Ball. We practiced our own ballroom dancing and finished our topic by holding a Royal Ball and banquet.
St John
and St
Francis Church School 
