The Holly class teacher this year is Stewart Hoehnke. Watch this space for updates from Holly class throughout the year!

February 2026

We have had a busy time in Holly class working hard and having laughs. It was so much fun performing ‘Santa’s a Scotsman’ during the Christmas show that we were delighted to be presenting Burns night during assembly. This time we were dancing around the hall to ‘Show us Your Haggis’, a classic that I am sure Burns himself would have been proud of! We also baked shortbread and made some very cute haggis. Later in the term we will be learning about Chinese New Year and Ramadan.

Holly class have fully embraced this term’s topic – Rainbows and Sound. As we all enjoy a bit of science, we have been making string and cup telephones. The class thought it was hilarious to hear each other so clearly from across the room. We have also made a bottle xylophone and played a big Tibetan singing bowl. We thought it was magic when blue tea changed colour and when we made rainbow lava lamps and rainbow bubbles. My favourite was creating rainbow bouncy eggs, but I know others preferred the yummy rainbow smoothie! We are all excited to see how our rainbow tie dye turns out, fingers crossed it works. It’s certainly been very colourful in Holly class this year and looking forward to much more colourful fun and learning in the spring!

December 2025

Holly class have had such fun this term, oh, and working hard! We love a bit of sensory/messy play so enjoyed creating art out of coloured spaghetti, cloud dough and pumpkin slime. We were all scientists in November, experimenting with milk fireworks and exploding bottles of Irn Bru. We discovered that bicarbonate of soda beats mentos hands down when it comes to getting the most impressive results! We were working hard on getting ready for our Christmas show – tasting the Irn Bru (before we blew it up) and making and tasting an enormous tea cake. We had a bit of a production line going on with our Christmas candles; we had to weigh the wax, choose the colours and pour into the cups and moulds. After a few weeks we had become candlemakers extraordinaire.

Our Move achievers have been doing great work in their standers, the Innowalk and sitting on benches. We have loved having a giant swing in class!

We love getting out of the classroom, usually to the playground or woods but we also had a fabulous trip to see the murals on the Colinton tunnel. We were learning about Samhain during Holyrood Challenge, and some of us were out wheelchair ice skating. We are all looking forward to going to Klondike Garden centre as we have heard they have some fluffy reindeer there! Looking forward to lots more fun and learning in 2026.

September 2025

In Holly we are having loads of fun getting to know all our new friends. We love circle time and choosing who to say hello to. It’s a difficult choice when we are all such good friends! Songs are an important part of our day in Holly, and we are always super excited on a Monday when Julia comes into class to give us a music session. She can play so many different instruments, and we all love listening to them and giving them a go ourselves. As well as music we have been doing lots of art. To go along with our topic this term ‘All About Me’ we have made a large classroom display showing our birthdays and then we chose AI generated Peppa Pig characters to decorate it (we have a few massive Peppa Pig fans in class)! Our art display for outside the class is a take on Andy Warhol’s screen prints but featuring the amazing Holly class. Of course, we have still been finding time for a bit of messy art – whether that be making our own paints, or some very satisfying oobleck.

We enjoy getting outside every day, to play in the playground or go exploring in the woods. We are looking forward to autumn and seeing all the leaves falling from the trees – lots of resources for future artwork!