To keep your family busy over the start of the Easter ‘break’ we’ve put together a quiz for you. Hopefully everyone will learn something new – I have!

For the chance to win an Easter egg, please email your answers to easter@damers.dorset.sch.uk before Thursday 9th April with the title ‘quiz’ and your child’s name. 

1. When was the first chocolate Easter egg made?
2. How many chickens are there at Damers?
3. What are the names of the Damers chickens?
4. How many days of lent are there (excluding Sundays)?
5. How do you say ‘Happy Easter’ in French?
6. How long does it take for a chicken egg to hatch? 
7. From which country did the Easter Bunny originate?
8. Where did the Easter Rising take place?
9. List these eggs in size from smallest to biggest: chicken, frog, emu, fish.
10. On which street in New York does an Easter parade take place?
11. What Easter event have the White House cancelled due to coronavirus?
12. Name five ingredients that are used to make hot cross buns
13. When were hot cross buns invented?
14. What is the shell colour of an emu egg?
15. The eggs of which creature are used to make caviar?
16. What % of parents have admitted to eating their children’s Easter chocolate?
17. How many Easter eggs are sold in the UK annually? 
18. Who is the voice of ‘Peter Rabbit’ in the film?
19. What is a baby rabbit called?
20. What do pretzels have to do with Easter?

The PTA invites you to join their Easter Bingo live on Thursday 9th April at 4pm. 

This is just for fun and a chance for families to join in something together from home!

There will be 3 games each with an Easter egg prize and you can request your bingo cards by emailing damerspta@gmail.com There is no charge and to keep it manageable we are limiting it to one set per family. Please request your cards by Wednesday at the latest.

On the day you will need to go to the Damers PTA Facebook Page and be ready with your dabber when we go live at 4pm.

Play along and comment ‘Bingo’ when you get a full house. We will only be playing for a full house – no lines, sorry! Then send a picture of your winning card so we can double check before proceeding with the next game.

Please bear with us; we’ve never done this before and there may well be some technical hitches!

 

The Easter bunny has been busy hiding an egg or a chocolate bunny in each classroom at Damers. 

You have one guess as to where it might be so have a think about the different areas in your classroom and leave a comment on this post before Thursday 9th April for the chance to win an Easter egg. 

Look at the pictures and create your own maths question.

For example

• If there was ‘one less’ bunny in a row, how many bunnies would there be in the row? 
• How many circles can you see? 
• Who is correct? Sam thinks if there were 272 ears, there would be 131 bunnies. Tom thinks there would be 136 bunnies altogether.  

Email your answers to easter@damers.dorset.sch.uk before Thursday 9th April for the chance to win an Easter egg. 

Please mark the email ‘KS1 maths question or ‘KS2 maths question’.

Easter bunnies

      

Easter chicks

Easter eggs

Easter nests

Time to get crafty and imaginative…

We’d love you to make an Easter bonnet and send us a photo of you wearing it. 

Easter parades began about 150 years ago in America.Originally the hats would have used lots of flowers and natural materials but these days some of them are crazy. We just want you to be as creative as you can using things you can find at home, in the garden or on your daily walk. 

Please no live animals though!

    

   

                       

Email your photo marked ‘Easter bonnet’ and your name to easter@damers.dorset.sch.uk before Thursday 9th April for the chance to win an Easter egg. 

Good afternoon everybody!

You have once again filled my heart with joy this week with your transformation tales. You may know that Mrs Smith is a keen gardener so to spend my evenings hearing about your new planting and the moments you have ‘stood and stared’ at the beauty of nature all around us has been an absolute treat. You have told me about  …

• The joy of lying on a bed of buttercups
• Children planting a patch of grass they had grown with Mrs Goss last year
• Planting new life that will attract bees, butterflies and birds
• Children designing their own allotment planting
• Old planter renovation projects
• A Christmas tree that has been planted in preparation for the festive season …
• Turf laying and stone transportation
• Beautiful sunsets
• Tales of the joy of previous lettuce planting experiences
• Planting of edamame beans (as a favourite restaurant is no longer an option!)
• The recreation of beach scenes in garden plots
• The signs of blossom and new life that you have seen all around you
• Children growing plants for their cats
• The learning that has emerged about  life’s natural cycles
• And families sharing their seeds and pots, inspiring others to start planting too … (thank you Flora for the lovely packages that appeared in our garden bank!)

So, time to enjoy the green fingered achievements of Damers First School this week. You may see a few grown ups that you recognise in here as they have been busy ‘transforming’ too …

I have included two stories for you this week. The first is one that I have shared in assembly before so you may recognise it. It fits beautifully with our theme and shows how we can turn ‘grey’ situations around using the power and colours that emerge from planting … 

I felt the second story of the week was a great one for us to start the Easter holidays with as it reminds us how through our imaginations and the beauty of nature we can travel to many exciting, far and distant lands, even during a lockdown! (See if you can spot the badly behaved chicken. My audience were nowhere near as good as you are in assembly!)

See if you can find a magical place where your imagination can run wild, either in your home or in your garden over the next few weeks and do tell me about it during the holidays if you like (your grown ups can help you to send a message).

Stay focused on those green shoots and new beginnings everyone and enjoy your Easter break . Your Headteacher is genuinely lost without you!

With warm wishes for a happy holiday.

Mrs Smith ☺️

Be sure to check back here on Monday 6th April for the final blog post before the Easter holiday. There will be lots of family fun for you to take part in including an Easter quiz and a picture Easter egg hunt. There will be 6 posts between 9-9.05am so make sure you scroll down to see them all.

In school we started to embark on our very own dinosaur research projects. Unfortunately we only got to the planning stages of our project. Why not carry on your research at home? You could use the field guide on Dinosaur Train to find out facts about your chosen dinosaur. Try and remember which dinosaur you and your group decided to focus on as part of your research. Use what you find to write your own fact sheet including how big your dinosaur was, what it ate and other interesting information. You could even create your own Top Trumps card or create a page for a non-fiction book based on your dinosaur. It could include labelled pictures and some captions of information. You could use an old shoe box and fill it with fun and interesting facts. Why not cut a piece of string the same size as your dinosaur to put in? You could make some salt dough food to represent what the dinosaur ate. Where in the world did your dinosaur live? Could you add in some sand if it lived in the desert or some leaves if it lived in the forest? Get as creative as you want with the information you find out. Work on this a much or as little as you want over the Easter holiday. 

Check out this page to read some interesting and fun dinosaur facts The Dinosaur Museum

We started to talk about doubles in school and used dominoes to explore doubles and not doubles. Listen to the Doubles Rap (1-5) to warm up your maths brains Double Rap. If you have your own set of dominoes at home, have a game with your family. Be sure to check the learning pack for more fun ideas to practise doubling. Use a mirror to double or a see the picture below for ways to get creative. You can use a muffin tin and anything small to help with the calculations. If you have any dice at home ask your child how to play DOUBLE BUBBLE! (You both roll a dice, so you’ll need two, and if you land on the same amount of dots you shout ‘DOUBLE BUBBLE’ and then call out what the double calculation is).