Platinum Jubilee
We have had a wonderful day celebrating the Platinum Jubilee.
My body is amazing!
This week, we have learned more about how incredible our bodies are. We have: looked at a range of non-fiction books; set up an egg experiment; made a class shop and looked at the changes our bodies have made in our lives so far.
On Monday, we set up a scientific experiment. We took white duck eggs and placed each one in a different liquid. We used milk, water and coke-cola. The children made predictions and carefully observed any changes to the eggs. Professor Myers came to help us examine the results of our investigation. Our findings resulted in the following conclusions:
Water is good for your teeth-Jack
If you have a fizzy drink, you have to brush your teeth!-Reuben
Milk has calcium to help your bones-Eti
Milk is white like your teeth-Clara
We have thought about: how our bodies have grown since being a baby; the things we can do now and the things we hope to do in the future. The children have produced some fantastic time lines that include their baby photographs that were sent in. (Sadly, we forgot to photograph the timelines but will pop them on after the holiday). Here are some quotes to make you smile:
I was so tiny-Sofia
I could only drink milk-Holly
I could not drink any orange juice!-Freya
My clothes were so small-Ronnie
Now I am 4/5 I can…
Ride my bike-Jack
Do cartwheels- Clara
Come to school – Ronnie
In the future…
I will drive a Lamborghini car!-Ronnie
I can walk to the shops-Jessica
Catch rainbows and drive an aeroplane -Bea
Our animal visit on Tuesday enriched our recent focus and learning about animals. We all loved it!
In Maths we have been introduced to a rekenrek. We have had one each to help us with our perceptual and conceptual subitising skills.
The children have been incredible at sliding different quantities smoothly. We have been using them to keep score in our table football challenges too!
Our class giraffe has helped us to measure our height and find out if we are taller or shorter than it.
Our theme in provision has been the Queen’s Jubilee! Look what we have been up to.
Home Link
Have a wonderful holiday and please send photographs of your adventures to us. We will see you back in school on Monday 6 June.
Living and Learning – Body Image
We have been talking about what makes us special, individual and unique. Not everyone can be good at everything and not everyone is the same. We talked about how to give and receive compliments, celebrating each other’s successes.
Butterflies
We had a lovely surprise on Monday morning when we returned to Nursery; we had a butterfly that had emerged from its chrysalis. There was a lot of interest in the butterfly house; we talked about the life cycle of a butterfly and what we needed to do next to look after the butterflies. Children helped to feed the butterflies with some strawberries and left over fruit from snack time.
Children noticed the beautiful pattern on the wings of the butterflies and we talked about their symmetry. In the creative area, children had a go at creating their own butterflies. We folded our paper in half and pressed down to make a print. It was the same on both sides!
We’re waiting for a sunny day to release the butterflies into our garden. Watch this space!
Animal ranger visit
On Tuesday morning, we had a very special visitor to Nursery. In fact, we had lots of little visitors, too! Children were very excited to find out what was hiding underneath all of the covers that the animal ranger, Amy, had brought.
We were very proud of how well Nursery behaved; they sat still and very quietly so that they didn’t scare all of the creatures. Children listened really carefully and found out lots of fascinating facts about millipedes, bearded dragons and giant African land snails.
At the end, Amy brought a snake to show us. Some children were a little bit wary of touching it but once they’d seen some of their friends have a turn, they were brave and stroked it, too. A couple of children were chosen to hold it- well done!
Thank you for all of your contributions towards the cost of our animal visitors.
Amazing animal visit
We had some interesting visitors in school yesterday…
It was a chance to meet some animals and find out more about them. The children asked some excellent questions.
What does the bearded dragon eat?
How long will the snake live for?
Why are there two rabbits and two guinea pigs together?
How big will the giant snail get?
We also made sure we washed our hands after touching the animals.
Walk to School Week winners
Lots of families joined in with Walk to School Week last week. The Buffers and St Phillips car parks were busy with people walking some of the way, if they couldn’t walk all the way from home. Thank you for joining in and helping to make our school and community an even happier and healthier place to be. Here are some of our lucky winners!
Art – observational and abstract drawings
We have been looking closely at plants and flowers in our science lessons. We have also done some observations drawings of flowers last week. This week, we thought back to our learning about Paul Klee and did some abstract drawings using his style as an inspiration. Some of our flowers were upside down, different colours or with faces and other shapes on them.
We were very pleased with them and some people consented for their art to be shown on the big screen in class.
B for bee!
This week, we’ve been finding out about bees and sampling some yummy honey at snack time. Children really enjoyed tasting both set and runny honey on their toast. There were a few surprised children that really liked the honey, even though they didn’t think they would.
In maths, we noticed a pattern in the honeycomb that we saw in the book about bees. We investigated using hexagons and other shapes to see if we could recreate the honeycomb pattern. There were also lots of opportunities to practise our counting skills, using the tiny wooden bees and flowers. At the dough table, we made bees and counted out 6 legs and 2 wings and in the creative area, we used yellow and black paint to make a repeating pattern of stripes on our bee pictures.
During group time, we continued to develop our phonological awareness by listening for initial sounds in words. We tried to find objects that started with the same initial sound. See if you can make a collection of items at home that start with the same sound. We also played a game where we had to spot the ‘odd one out’ from a group of pictures. The ‘odd one’ was the object that started with a different sound. You could have a go at this game at home. Collect 3 objects, for example, a spoon, a sock and a cup. Which one is the odd one out? Why?
Outside, we’ve been looking for minibeasts and learning about their habitats, watering our new plants and trying to identify different birds that we spot in the garden. We also have a new painting area which has been very popular, too.
Next week, we’re looking forward to a few exciting events including a visit from an animal ranger and some celebrations for the Queen’s Jubilee. If your child doesn’t attend Nursery on Friday afternoon for the School’s Jubilee celebrations, don’t worry, they won’t miss out. We’re going to have a mini Jubilee celebration in Nursery for those children that can’t attend.
Walking Through The Jungle
This week, we’ve been Walking Through The Jungle with our story, written by Julie Lacome.
We looked closely at repeated parts of the text and used it to frame our own innovated piece of writing. First, we planned our writing; new animals, movements and endings to our story. After this, we created our very own story books. The children came up with some fantastic new vocabulary for movements through the jungle:
“Gliding”-Sofia
“Hopping”- Tristan
“Jumping”- Leo B
“Swimming”- Adriana
At this point in the school year, we’re encouraging children to extend their writing and independently start to plan and edit their work. The children are becoming enthusiastic authors!
Does your child enjoy writing stories at home?
More animal explorations…
In our classroom Curiosity Corner, we’ve continued to compare animal habitats, look at maps showing which parts of the world animals come from, read animal stories and explore animal fur or skin prints.
Our provision areas have been animal-tastic too! Making repeating patterns with animal stamps, using small world animals, building habitats, naming baby animals and more!
Jungle Dancing and Music…
This week’s story book is also a catchy song! We used the song in PE to imitate animal movements. We love expressing ourselves through dance.
Click here to have a jungle dance at home!
We’ve also been using the instruments outside, to create a jungle sound game.
Maths…
In maths, we’ve been creating number tracks. We explained how we’re able to identify which number is next in a sequence. We used our knowledge of number and our subitising skills to identify missing numbers on the number track.
New life…
Over the past few weeks we’ve been closely observing our caterpillars grow, then form their chrysalis. Our butterflies are finally starting to emerge! Next week we’ll release them to start their new life in the wild.
Take a peek at more learning from this week…
Home-link challenge…
Next week, we’ll be thinking about human life on Earth. We’ll be learning about our bodies and how we keep them clean, healthy and safe. The children will also be looking at the ways humans change over time; What were they like as babies? What can they do now that they are 4/5? What might they do in the future?
To help with our learning, please start to have these conversations at home. We’d also like you to send in a baby photo of your child, that can be used in their learning this week. You can send these in person or email them to the Reception email address. Thank you.
Jubilee Celebrations…
We’ll also be celebrating The Queen’s Jubilee next week! We’ll learn about The Royal Family, be making crowns, having our Jubilee Picnic (keeping all fingers and toes crossed for sunshine) and we’ll be having our very own royal dance. We can’t wait to celebrate!