Summer School August 2019

Tuesday 27th August 2019 - Rother Valley

We kicked off the day with a minibus ride to sunny Rother Valley. We met the Park Ranger who took us on a walk around the beautiful park. First we met some mini-beasts in water trays so we could investigate them in detail! We used magnifying pots to look at the water based creatures and learn about the wildlife that lives in the water. The children learnt about attracting moths with light and some of the moths flew in the children’s faces and made them jump! However by the end of the session children were bravely holding huge moths and setting them free with care. We then armed ourselves with nets to catch our own wildlife in an area of the park with lots of trees; bushes and long grass. The children loved this activity and it was wonderful to see the children having fun and learning outdoors.

Wednesday 28th August - Underbank

This is a trip all the children were excited for! Many children said they had never tried any water sports and this was a new experience for most children. Some children were apprehensive and a little nervous about the activities. However, with a little support and encouragement, every child (and staff members) got involved and took part in the activities. The children tried their hand at Canoeing/Kayaking and Paddle Boarding. Paddle boarding felt a little scary for some children as your board is very close to the water. We could not believe how confident and daring the children became throughout the day. It was wonderful to see the children participate and learn new skills out of their comfort zone. By the end of the day children were keen to jump off their Paddle boards into the reservoir! The children also enjoyed team building exercises when constructing their rafts. The rafts were eventually built using barrels; logs and ropes. The children took them out onto the water for a 2 team race. An action packed, fun-filled day enjoyed by all!

Thursday 29th August - Bowling/McDonalds

We had a brisk walk to catch the bus for our trip to Hollywood Bowl. The children enjoyed a game of bowling – girls against boys! The children showed great team working skills – cheering on each other and praising one another. The girls took the lead and won the game. We then finished off the trip with a delicious Happy Meal from McDonalds. Despite the rain coming on the walk back to the bus stop – the children didn’t complain once. A day thoroughly enjoyed by all.

Friday 30th August - Cooking

We spent the whole morning making lots of delicious delights! We gathered our ingredients and watched a demonstration before busy hands got chopping, crushing and mixing and to make mouth-watering Rocky Road crispy buns before tacking a dessert for after lunch. The children learned many different chopping techniques before carefully putting them into practice in chopping and dicing to make their own fruit salad bowl. We only needed 2 blue plasters and all fingers were thankfully intact at the end of the day. Next it was time to make and try various breads, wraps, muffins and filled rolls for lunch accompanied by the usual picnic snacks such as sausage rolls, crisps, and other savoury treats. The DIY picnic was a success. We all worked together as a team and washed up several times throughout the day! We had a break outside in the sunshine to keep active and stretch our legs before moving onto a creative afternoon with lots of arts & crafts activities.

Summer School July 2019

Monday 29th July

We boarded a minibus to take us to Glen Howe Park where we were met by Rohan from Foresteer’s who was at the ready to take us on whistle stop tour of the woodlands before setting up camp deep in the forest. Once at camp we split into teams, we used a few props and our imaginations to made dens, then we proudly sat inside whilst we ate our packed lunches. The children were shown how to make a campfire, a cheese toastie was grilled on the embers for everyone to enjoy and toasted marshmallows followed. A quick swing on the ropes before having a go at Felling (walking up streams) some of our children were lucky enough to enjoy an involuntary soak in the lovely cool water.

Tuesday 30th July

Todays the day we had the teddy bears picnic. After a short walk to the bus stop and a nice relaxing bus ride, we arrived at Graves Park. Firstly we all decided to find a dry spot on a bench in the play area to keep safe our belongings and picnic lunches. We voted for a play in the park before lunchtime and visiting the animals due to the huge thunderstorm that was brewing and rainclouds ready to explode.

Then we settled onto the picnic blanket on the grass to eat our lunch. Full bellies and full ducks too (who had eaten our leftovers) we strolled onto the farm area to see all the different rare breeds of animals. There were chickens, pigs, cows, sheep, goats and even a baby deer that was only a few weeks old to keep our enquiring minds busy. All that hard work made us really hungry and we hurried back to our picnic, fortunately the teddy bears had left us some nice goodies for us to eat after our packed lunch. Picnic all eaten, we packed up the blankets before a short stay in the play area before it was time to get on the bus back to school.

Wednesday 31st July

After a quick march to the bus stop - Ding Ding!! Grenoside stables please Mr Bus driver. A woodland pony trek and pony grooming management session was on the agenda. We donned on wellies and a riding hat and split into two teams. One team learned how to brush and look after the horses and the other mounted their horse for a woodland trek.  The children shrieked with excitement as the horse’s gentle trot sped into a cantor lead by the Grenoside Riding team. All of the children had a lot of fun trying to keep on the horse and maintain dignity.

Thursday 1st August

We spent the whole morning making lots of delicious delights! We gathered our ingredients and watched a demonstration before busy hands got chopping, crushing and mixing and to make mouth-watering Rocky Road crispy buns before tacking a dessert for after lunch. The children learned many different chopping techniques before carefully putting them into practice in chopping and dicing to make their own fruit salad bowl. We only needed 2 blue plasters and all fingers were thankfully intact at the end of the day. Next it was time to make and try various breads, wraps, muffins and filled rolls for lunch accompanied by the usual picnic snacks such as sausage rolls, crisps, and other savoury treats. The DIY picnic was a success. We all worked together as a team and washed up several times throughout the day! We had a break outside in the sunshine to keep active and stretch our legs before moving onto a creative afternoon with lots of arts & crafts activities.

May Holiday Activities 2019

Tuesday 28th May 2019

Greentop Circus Skills

Roll up Roll up for all the fun of the circus!

The children had great fun practising their circus skills at a fun day in school packed with challenges. The day was led by Trudi Patient from Green Top Circus and she certainly put us through our paces. Firstly easing us all in with scarf juggling then moving onto flower sticks, plate spinning, diablo, feather balancing and finally pushing all our efforts to unicycle and stilt walking. All the children enjoyed it when they grasped a skill quicker than Mr Clarke and Mrs Shepherd but gave both adults lots of encouragement and didn’t laugh at us (well only a little bit). The children all followed Trudi’s instruction and had a go at everything even when it took them out of their comfort zone.  

After lunch and before the second session in the afternoon began the children all showed off their funky dance skills in the Inclusion room. Great fun was had by all, we went home very tired but looking forward to the next day in Graves park   

Wednesday 29th May 2019

Graves Park Farm

The children enjoyed a fantastic trip to Graves Park during May half term activities (For once the sun was shining and it didn’t rain on us this year!).

We had a leisurely walk in the park and burnt off some energy at the playground. We even managed to have a picnic outside this year! The children were a credit to Southey Green – behaved brilliantly and enjoyed feeding the animals at the farm. One of the goats was a little too hungry and tried eating the bag the food came in!

An excellent fun-filled day had by all!

Easter Holiday Activities 2019

Let’s Get Cooking

We spent the whole day cooking lots of delicious delights! We gathered our ingredients and watched demonstrations before busy hands got chopping, grating, spreading, mixing and rolling to make mouth-watering treats. We began by making the mixture to create our Easter fairy cakes, we worked in pairs as we weighed and measured all our ingredients before baking them in the oven

Then onto the main dish of the day! PIZZA !! Yummy! Lovely cheesy dough filled with all our favourite toppings. Some of the children chopped potatoes to make wedges and some other children grated carrot and cabbage to make a deliciously creamy coleslaw.

The children worked really hard chopping all the different toppings and put them in bowls ready to add all their favourites to the base before popping them into the oven.

Finally it was dessert time; the children were licking their lips as we melted chocolate in preparation for coating the buns they made earlier before drizzling them with their favourite sparkly sprinkles cake decorations.

 We all worked together as a team and washed up several times throughout the day! We had a break outside in the sunshine to keep active and stretch our legs. Once again the older children acted as peer mentors for the younger children. We used lots of skills preparing the ingredients and sharing portions between us. Most children hadn’t baked these foods before so they had great fun learning new cooking skills and helping each other along the way.

Treasure Hunt

Today we had our Easter holiday treasure hunt! We used the whole of school, starting in the Library to lead us to clues and challenges to complete! We completed maths activities, word searches, mazes, word problems, colour by numbers, jigsaws, ICT Easter activity, dot to dot and lots lots more!

It was fantastic to see the children helping each other and using excellent team working skills. We evn completed a tricky obstacle course and all the children cheered and encouraged each other on! Passing the balloon to each other without using our hands was particularly challenging but funny.

Today got our brains ticking and put our problem solving skills to the test. The children got excited when they drew closer to the end prize! We had just about enough time for playtime outside and a well-deserved lunch. A busy, suspense building, fun day had by all!

The children won a few treats along the way, but to finish, we ended with a much awaited egg-citing prize!....! A bagful of mouth-watering sweetie treats.

Arts & Crafts Day

We had a fantastic Art and Craft day. We started by creating and personalising colourful Easter treasure hunt bags to use for the treasure hunt and then we made and coloured our Egg-cellent Easter cards! Everybody was ready for a well-earned biscuit and drink before some more fun burning off our energy outside on the yard.  Next, we all got to choose our own craft activity and worked magic on our own art creations whilst listening and singing along to our favourite pop songs.

After lunch, we focused on our Easter Bonnets to parade at the end of the day, tissue paper, coloured fake grass, beads and jewels all topped off with Easter chicks. They looked amazing. Ayatian won the crowning glory spot with her fantastic creation. The older children were super role models as they acted as peer mentors and helped the younger children with their fiddly crafts. A great, action packed day had by all!

Sport Day

The children all enjoyed accessing a variety of sports on offer throughout the day. We had a mixed age range and ability within the groups but it was fantastic to see the support offered by the older children to the younger children.

Firstly, the children took part in an obstacle course and they showed great enthusiasm throughout this. There was plenty of encouragement from their peers and the children grew in confidence throughout the morning.  We then moved onto basketball and had a competition to see which team could score the most baskets. There was a friendly competitiveness between the groups of children. Some of the older children were able to test themselves further by increasing the distance away from the basket. All the children showed great resilience throughout this session.  After a break for lunch, we returned and played football. Despite a few early reservations from the younger girls, they all participated and finished the activity with a smile on their face. The older boys were able to adapt well to the individual rules given to them in an aim to further develop the younger children.  For the remainder of the day, the children were able to use the time to access a number of activities at their leisure.  These included Lego, ICT, Films, Music and Ipads.

February Half Term Activities 2019

18th February – Art & Craft day

15 pupils were nominated by their class teacher to come in to school and take part in some fun activities during the school holidays. After a school breakfast together Mr Clarke, Miss Lomas and 15 children started the day by making their very own pom pom animals, patiently and carefully they wrapped coloured wool around the spools before cutting and tying the pom pom balls before adding eyes and coloured felt to finish their animals! The children had lots of fun ideas and designs. We then carefully coloured our fantastic superhero gliders and even had a race in the Toblerone to see who’s travelled the furthest! Miss Lomas has never given out as many bump notes all in one go as it was not only the gliders that suffered collisions!!

We then had our lunch and an outside run-around after all our hard work and even had some time in the ICT suite after lunch. We then created a colourful fancy necklace or bracelet using shiny beads, elastic and shells and finished off the day by designing and creating our own little bags to carry home all our crafty creations. The children developed their independence and imagination through their creative art skills and sharing of ideas.

19th February – Boxing

Today was non-stop active fun!  

After breakfast we were all pumped up and excited as we headed to the bus stop ready to be put through our paces at the boxing gym. We took 13 children to Sheffield Boxing Centre (Hillsborough). When we arrived we were met by Glyn Rhodes who owns the gym, professional boxers Tommy Frank, Keanen Wainwright and Sam Sheady. Glyn talked us through a safety briefing and had a chat to us to give us an outline of the session. We started with a warm up of exercises and jogging round the court changing direction on command – but oh dear!!  ‘20 press ups’ Glyn roared if you missed the call to change direction. After a quick training session on the bags, the children were readied for a sparring session in the ring with each other. All the children gained the experience of being in a boxing ring and used the skills they had learnt in the training session.  The children all left with an experience that they will never forget!

Summer Holiday Club (August) 2019

Tuesday 28th August

We boarded a minibus to take us to Glen Howe Park where we were met by Rohan and Hayley from Foresteer’s who were at the ready to take us on whistle stop tour of the woodlands before setting up camp deep in the forest.

 Once at camp we split into teams, used a few props and our imaginations to made dens, then we proudly sat inside whilst Hayley tested our shelter against rain. She threw water on the roof! Good job it was a very warm sunny day.

 The children were shown how to make their own little camp fires and after much determination were delighted to see the results. Hot cooked sausages and toasted marshmallows finished the day perfectly.

Wednesday 29th August

After a quick march to the bus stop - Ding Ding!! Grenoside stables please Mr Bus driver. A woodland pony trek and pony grooming management session was on the agenda. We donned on wellies and a riding hat and split into two teams. One team learned how to brush and look after the horses and the other mounted their horse for a woodland trek.

 The children shrieked with excitement as the horse’s gentle trot sped into a cantor lead by the Grenoside Riding team. All of the children had a lot of fun trying to keep on the horse and maintain dignity.

Thursday 30th August

Today's the day we had the teddy bears picnic

After a short walk to the bus stop and a nice relaxing ride we arrived at Graves Park. First we all decided on a shaded area under a big Oak tree to set up our picnic blankets. All the children had brought along their favourite teddy bears to join us and enjoy the fun. One by one the teddy’s sat in a circle and kept watch over our picnic whilst we visited the farm area to see all the different rare breeds of animals. There were chickens, pigs, cows, sheep, goats and even a baby deer that was only a few weeks old to keep our enquiring minds busy.

 All that hard work made us really hungry and we hurried back to our picnic, fortunately the teddy bears had left us some nice goodies for us to eat after our packed lunch. Picnic all eaten, we packed up the blankets before a short stay in the play area before it was time to get on the bus back to school.

Friday 31st August

We boarded a minibus to take us to Cannon Hall Farm where we visited the working Farm for the day. We saw the baby Piglets, dairy Cows and fluffy Lambs before visiting the mischievous Goats and sleepy Llamas. Onwards and upwards to the meet the nosey Meerkats and a creepy walk looking at the spiders, snakes and amphibians made us hungry and ready for lunch.

 After a well-earned rest we played hide and seek in the plastic maze and had just enough time for a fun slide on the play equipment before heading off back to the bus.