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Exploring the Arctic and Antarctic

This week the children have been looking at the Arctic and Antarctic. They have been painting animals they know live there as well as looking at the colours the Northern Lights produce. They also made their own lolly pops to learn about melting, freezing and floating.

They also recreated the exciting events from Bonfire Night at the school and made rockets, catherine wheels and a bonfire. We looked at the different noises and sounds we all heard that night and how to keep safe.

The children had great fun making bubble pictures, blowing through straws then catching the over flow of coloured bubbles.

They also drew and cut around some shapes and finished a sequencing pattern as well as looking at houses and buildings. Using junk items the children all made a small scale of their own home. They were all very excited to talk about their houses and home lives:

” I live in Easton, I have got a big massive house, I put potatoes and chickens in the garden”

” I live in America in a house, it has got bricks, I live with Mummy, Daddy and Molly our famous dog”

“I live in Attleborough I have to come down the fast road and drive on the A11″

Taverham Hall School – Independent Schools Norfolk

Posted in 36-December 2011, Nursery on December 10th, 2011

Official Opening New Nursery Extension by Illustrator Peter Kavanagh

Taverham Hall School celebrated the official opening of its impressive new Nursery extension. The school are very grateful to the renowned Norfolk based children’s illustrator, Peter Kavanagh, who performed the opening ceremony on Friday 25th November.

Headmaster Mike Crossley said:

“ We are delighted Mr Kavanagh could find the time to join us to mark this special occasion. The children very much enjoyed his company at lunch and throughout the afternoon.”

The new build is a result of the school responding to a significantly higher demand for places which initially increased when the school extended its hours to provide full-time Nursery care throughout the year. Numbers and interest continued to surge even further when its Nursery department received an Outstanding Ofsted inspection report. The school has since received two further excellent inspection reports, one from the ISI in November 2010 who also rated its Early Years Foundation Stage as outstanding, and more recently from Ofsted in May 2011, who rated the Social Care and Boarding environment offered at Taverham Hall School as outstanding.

Sharon Turner, Chair of Governors, said

“We would like to say a special thank you to Clydesdale Bank for helping with the finance for this new venture and for their superb customer service. The project was a major undertaking as we needed to be ready in time for the start of term in September. Their full support enabled us to expedite matters allowing work on the building to commence in July thus causing minimal disruption to the school and its pupils. We are delighted with the results.”

In addition to this venture, Taverham Hall School is celebrating its 90th anniversary which makes it a particularly special year for the school.

Taverham Hall School – Independent Schools Norfolk

Link to EDP24 article:

http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/education/children_s_illustrator_helps_open_taverham_nursery_extension_1_1137984

Links to Peter Kavanagh’s websites:

http://www.peterkavanagh.co.uk/Peter_Kavanagh_Illustrator/childrens_book_illustration.html

Posted in 35-November 2011, Nursery, OT School News, Pre-Prep, Prep on November 26th, 2011

Road Safety

Children in Nursery 2 have been learning all about Road Safety. They were visited by Peter and Bethany, the Road Safety Officers from the council, and Benjamin Bear who taught them the important rules when near a road:

You must always walk on the inside of the pavement away from the road. Wear bright clothing in the dark. Hold your mum or dad by the hand. Look and listen carefully before crossing.

Peter handed out some posters to display in our classrooms to remind us of these important rules.

The children have been creating traffic lights and their own road signs and spotting ones in the school grounds. They played the ‘traffic light game’ in the sports hall and had races on the tennis courts in their chosen cars.

Nursery 1 children have been looking at ‘sensory’ activities. They have explored different items and textures in the ‘treasure basket’, and drizzled ‘gloop’ through their fingers too. We tried and tasted different fruits and experimented by adding them all together to make a delicious, fruity smoothie. The children also made ‘binoculars’ and took them into the woods, looking and listening for birds and small animals.

Taverham Hall School – Independent Schools Norfolk

Posted in 35-November 2011, Nursery on November 25th, 2011

Fantastic fireworks at Taverham Hall School

Another hugely popular bonfire night took place on the 3rd of November which was extremely well attended. Our thanks go to staff, parents and The Friends’ Society who worked extremely hard to ensure its success.

The grounds team of Mike Skipper, Terry Havis and David Brown deserve a special mention for all their efforts and of course to Mr Mike Chapman who organised the wonderful firework display for the fourth year in succession!

Please click on the following link to view the recording of his fantastic fireworks display :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk1fpu4ChlI

and here are some amazing photos taken on the evening itself:

Posted in 35-November 2011, Friends, Nursery, OT School News, Pre-Prep, Prep on November 11th, 2011

OFFICIAL OPENING NEW NURSERY EXTENSION

The official opening of our wonderful new Nursery extension will take place on Friday 25 November at 15:00. We are very fortunate that well known Norfolk based children’s illustrator, Peter Kavanagh, has agreed to perform the opening ceremony.

The first story Peter illustrated was “Weedy Me” by Sally Christie published in 1989. Today he has illustrated over 80 books for many great authors such as Dick King-Smith, Jacqueline Wilson, Helen Cresswell, Pat Moon, Pippa Goodhart, Tony Bradman, Rose Impey, Adele Geras and many others. In addition, he has written 10 books of his own, the first being “There’s a Monster Next Door!” in 1993 and others such as “The Magic Forest” in 1999 and “Arthur the Outlaw” and “Arthur the Wizard” in 2001.

Peter visits many schools to share his love of drawing and stories and we were very fortunate when he visited our Pre-Prep Department about five years ago during one of our Book weeks. Peter enchanted the children with his stories and illustrations and is looking forward to returning to Taverham Hall School on the 25th. He will be spending time with our children in both the Nursery and Pre-Prep departments and will also join them for lunch before officially opening our new Nursery at 15:00 hours.

We would be delighted to see as many parents as possible at the official opening to meet with Peter and invite you to tour the Nursery afterwards.

Refreshments will be available in the Outer Hall of the Prep School from 15:30 onwards.

Posted in 35-November 2011, Nursery, Pre-Prep, Prep on November 1st, 2011

Exploring the change in seasons……

The children all love to be a part of Forest School, as a group we went exploring in the woods in search of animals and insects.

They all enjoyed laying back, watching the clouds go by and using their imagination to discover shapes, objects and patterns.

They examined the change in seasons, with the different colours of leaves, conkers and acorns. They have also been looking at the trees and measuring them; then having collected lots of natural items they compared sizes back inside. The girls and boys enjoyed looking for hedgehogs whilst they were outside and have made their own from clay.

Our younger Nursery 1 children have continued their theme of “Colours” by exploring the woods, taking some bark rubbings and making Autumn pictures. They even made the most of the windy weather by taking streamers out into the playground to explore!

We also went down to the river to spot dragonflies and other insects and observed how fast the river was flowing.

The girls and boys have been talking about different emotions and decided to make pizza faces, all of which where extremely happy ones!

In the sports hall the children learned about group games and activities such as tennis and football.

Their first dancing lesson this term with Mrs Chamberlain went very well and everyone had a fantastic time!

Taverham Hall School – Independent Schools Norfolk

Posted in 34-October 2011, Forest School, Nursery on October 9th, 2011

Late Summer Fun!

The children collected natural materials from the woodlands and looked closely at the patterns the leaves made by covering them in paint and printing them onto paper:

Having fun making bubble paintings:

The class love cooking activities. They all waited patiently for their turn, and then followed the instructions well to create cherry buns:

We all made our own sandwiches for our picnic, choosing from lots of different ingredients. Cheese was the favourite filling!

Taverham Hall School – Independent Schools Norfolk

Posted in 33-September-2011, Nursery on October 4th, 2011

Nursery Sports Day

The Nursery Sports Day is our favourite event of the year and the children rose to the occasion as usual. A variety of races took place from running, to egg and spoon and obstacle.

The older children were involved in a team race, carrying water from one place to another and then back through a tunnel. Once again the teachers started the whole school relay and much competitive cheering could be heard for each team to win.

Many pupils were excited to show their first, second or third stickers at the end of the proceedings and everyone joined together for lunch on the Colt’s Field afterwards.

Posted in 30-June-2011, More Sport, Nursery on July 1st, 2011

Banham Zoo

The Nursery children took a trip to Banham Zoo this week. There were an amazing number of attractions to keep children amused and they explored every one – whizzing past the tigers, staring at the camels, wondering about the zebras and searching in the trees for the wolves. The tiny marmosets peered curiously through the window of their cage, close to our faces.

The adventure play area is a big favourite and the bus journey back saw a fair number of children having a sleep!

Posted in 30-June-2011, Nursery on June 24th, 2011

School Fete

The annual school fete, organised by the Friends, took place after the Pre-Prep Sports Day and was another huge success.

Hot dogs were served courtesy of Mr Davies being popular along with Soak the Scholar. The gap students (and Matron Ives!) made excellent targets and were extremely good sports considering the weather. The atmosphere was great. The tombola sold out as did the “Just the ticket” stall with all prizes being won. The ladies on the tea stall battled with a reluctant urn but did a grand job.The cakes in particular were a dream with several finding their way into mums’ bags rather than the stall!

More fun was had at the Egg Throwing and Coconut stalls as can be seen from the photos below.

The school’s Year 8 pupils’ help was volunteered and much needed. All were enthusiastic and willing to listen, so well done to the Year 8′s.

A big thank you must go to Mike Skipper and the grounds staff team who arranged for everything to be where it needed to be and to those parents who loaned marquees for the day and our dedicated gang of Friends and volunteers, who under supervision of Craig Martin constructed tents and set up tables and chairs.

Our thanks go to the Friends and all parents, staff and pupils who helped to make this such an enjoyable afternoon.