St.Mary's Episcopal Primary School

The St. Mary’s Gruffalo Show

Writing the script …

Jack, Frieda, Molly, Elodie and Julika volunteered to be part of a Literacy Group to  develop and write the script for the Gruffalo show.

Thinking about characters … demonstrating how Mouse might feel on meeting Fox for the first time in the forest.

                                     Molly demonstrating sly Fox.

 

Rehearsing our roles …

The children learned their lines, where to position themselves on stage, when they should talk and  how a stage performance is created and performed using music, microphones and lighting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Practising dance routines …

We did lots of practising!

 

 

 

Creating scenery ….

The children designed and created most of the scenery for the show.  The children made ‘skirts’ for their chairs which they then decorated, as well as making flowers to decorate the front of the stage.

 

 

 

 

 

Making costumes ….

The children helped to create and decorate some of their own costumes, discussing colours and drawing designs for costumes, cutting out fabrics, painting petals …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making props ….

The children helped to decorate a large tree for the forest, brilliantly created for us by Mr. Kelly, a Nursery parent.  The children worked as a team to create ‘the nut’ using a balloon and papier- mache, before painting it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Advertising our show …

Our show poster – designed by the children and very kindly produced for us by Arthur’s Dad.  The children decided we needed to have a programme for the audience and discussed what should be included in it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting ready for the big day …

Costumes and make-up – assisted by our wonderful parents and helpers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The BIG performance!

We learned to say ‘break a leg’ to wish each other luck before a performance!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following on from our dinosaurs context, when we learned about how dinosaurs evolved and then became extinct, the children are interested in finding out about how things grow and change. Following consultation, the children identified some things they would like to find out:

“A caterpillar going into a butterfly.” Murray

“Looking after babies.”  Molly

“Flowers.”  Eva

“Skeletons, they are our bones.”  Frieda

“Buds in trees.”  Jack

“The new bridge over the Laighills.” Ishbel

The children have been learning how to bathe, change and feed a baby doll.

 

 

 

 

 

They are also interested in how babies change and grow into adults.  The children have been bringing in photographs of themselves as babies with their birth weight and height, and we have been measuring how these have changed since birth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have also been learning about the life cycles of plants and we created a collage of the life cycle of a sunflower together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Monday the 25th January the nursery children celebrated with a Burns Supper “because it’s Robert Burns’ Birthday”. -Ishbel

Charlotte said “We’re eating haggis”, Frieda added “neeps” and Molly said “mashed potato”. “The haggis tasted good.” said Harris.

Outside we looked for the Loch Ness Monster during a number pebble treasure hunt. Frieda said “Hunting, we had to hunt Nessie”.

We have been learning some Scottish songs – “Coulters Candy”, “Three Craws”, “Ye Cannae Shuv Yer Granny Aff A Bus” and “Heid, Shooders, Shanks and Taes”. We’ve also been enjoying Scottish Stories such as, “The Gruffalo’s Wean”, “No Such Thing as Nessie”, “Rabbie’s Rhymes” and “Katie’s Coo”.

We also celebrated Jerome’s Birthday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

6 October 2015

Continued interest in finding bugs and mini-beasts in the nursery garden led to planning a visit to the forest.  Children used a data sheet to recognise and record the bugs that live there.  We used our previous knowledge to investigate where to find slugs, spiders, millipedes, worms and caterpillars.

We are gentle with living things, so we looked at them carefully and then returned them to their original habitat.

“Millipedes, they live under bark” – Murray

“I’m digging deep to find worms” – Jack

“I found a caterpillar, it was green” – Joseph

We enjoyed eating our snack on a large log, then we used a tarpaulin to make a shelter to sit underneath, where we sang our favourite bug songs.  “I’m picking up my baby bumble bee”, “There’s a worm at the bottom of the garden”, “The ants went marching two by two” and “There’s a tiny caterpillar on a leaf”.