This week we joined the rest of the school in a celebration of Book Week.  The theme of the week was ‘Dreams’ and, in Reception, we linked the theme to our topic by reading a particularly heartwarming story called ‘Mermaid’ written by the CBeebies presenter Cerrie Burnell.  The story introduces the idea of a dream as something you wish for (i.e. the little boy wishes he could swim) as well as the idea of a dream as being something you experience when you are asleep (i.e. the little boy dreams he is swimming underwater with his new friend).

Later in the week, we talked about there being two types of nighttime dreams; some good and some bad.  Many of the children had lots to say on the matter and were very familiar with the feelings of being scared in the night, as described by the little girl in the second story we read this week; ‘Grandmother’s Dreamcatcher’.  We didn’t dwell on the subject of bad dreams or on feelings of being scared for long, but we all agreed everybody has bad dreams sometimes, even grown ups, and the most important thing to remember is that they are not real.

‘Grandmother’s Dreamcatcher’ is a North American book and tells the story of a little girl staying with her Grandmother while her parents are away.  Her Grandmother shows her how to make a dreamcatcher which catches bad dreams and only allows sweet dreams through.

We decided to make our own beautiful dreamcatchers which we will be bringing home shortly.

We finished off Book Week with a whole school ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ workshop. Each class worked with the director for half an hour and, at the end of the day, all the segments were put together to create the play!  The children in Reception and Year 1 worked together to recite ‘Puck’s Favourite Poem’.  It was all very exciting and a fantastic way to finish the week.

We finally said goodbye to our 6 chicks this week as Farmer Alice returned to collect them. Before they left, each child had a chance to hold one on their lap and we managed to get some lovely photos:

Our Star of the Week did another super job filling up his number bag with 20 objects.

We hope everyone has a wonderful half term! It is so hard to believe that when we come back it will be the final half of the summer term.  We will continue with our topic work, spend lots of time outside and celebrate the school’s 150th birthday!

If you are looking for a half term challenge how about trying some of these from the National Trust’s list of 50 things to do before you’re 11 and 3/4:

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/features/50-things-to-do-before-youre-11–activity-list

Have fun!