Week 13- Winter begins!

We could hardy believe it, the Elves had been!! Everywhere we looked there were twinkly lights, baubles, sparkling tinsel and our rainforest had been transformed in the Elves workshop! As we settled in for the morning we knew this was the start of a magical time in Robins and we were full of questions, who had transformed our classroom? What was the picture with numbered doors? and why was there a post box on the junk modelling table?

With so many questions to answer it was time to start exploring, firstly we opened the first two doors of our advent calendar after missing the 1st as it had fallen at the weekend! Many of us shared stories of our own advent calendars from chocolate ones to Lego, wooden toys to construction, they all sounded so different and we all enjoyed listening to each others festive traditions.

It was then time to explore the Elves workshop! Robins loved writing cards to each other, using the name cards to spell each others names but also sounding out names of those who weren't in Robins, before placing their cards into an envelope and popping them into the post box! For others it was all about making and wrapping presents. Our Robins excitedly wore their reindeer antlers and set to work wrapping up the presents ready to be delivered in time for Christmas!

Robins loved helping to decorate the tree in the Elves workshop!

When Robins weren't busy in the workshops, they had just enough time to enjoy some winter activities! They used our winter fine motor pattern cards to help them decorate their very own baubles, we can't wait to put these baubles on our tree!

On Tuesday morning Robins took part in a very special activity with Mrs Butcher who taught us all about Christingle! 

First  we were taught what the different parts of the Christingle represented.....

Robins then got to make their very own Christingle! Even though we found it a bit tricky to push the candles in, we didn't let that stop us, even when the orange squirted out it's juice at us! Soon, we had all created our very own Christingle and when we got back to our classroom we coloured in a picture to help recall all the information that Mrs Butcher had taught us. 

On Tuesday we had a surprise visitor in Robins.....Mrs Brown's pet African snail Thor had come to visit us and no-one was more surprised than Mrs Langford! As he slowly made his way around his container the children watched in awe and wonder, with a little bit of squeamishness mixed in, they learnt some fun facts about Thor like being shown exactly how big he can grow (pretty big!), that he can lay between 100-500 eggs at one time and if he damages his shell, he can regrow it, as long as it isn't too much of it! We even had some children want to put one on their Christmas lists so watch out Santa (...and parents!)

In fact Thor actually came to visit as he had been won by a Red Kite as part of the Christmas Fayre prizes but as a special treat we got to meet him as well!

And to round our day off perfectly some of us got to make our snoks, they look great! Huge thank you to Mrs Bell and the craft club volunteers.

On Thursday, our highlight of the day was....you guessed it Show and Tell! We were treated to a puppy in a cage (a toy puppy, not a real one), a fire engine (not a real one) and Beth the horse - yes she is real!!!! Thankfully it was photos of Beth - she did not actually come into school - could you imagine!!!!! We were also treated to a collection of medals - some for doing a handstand and cartwheel on a beam and some for being an amazing gymnast - there was a selection of both bronze and silver medals which we were all allowed to try on.

But I have to say, when reflecting on the week as a whole, the highlight for me was the magic that happened during the Christingle service. Rev. Mike led the service and I won't go into to much detail as I feel the pictures speak for themselves.

(Rev. Mike actually transformed into a Christingle during the service - much to the excitement of the children!)

The most magical part though was when each child gently held their Christingle, had their candle lit and the main lights went out....

I think we all said a very gentle 'wow'.

It really feels like Christmas now!

Have a fabulous weekend - have plenty of rest as next week.....it's showtime!!!!!