We have been busy with other learning too....

In our Write stuff sessions we have continued to write sentences linked to the Giant Jam Sandwich story using exciting words to describe what things look like and what characters say and Grandma Fantastic has helped us with new vocabulary. Some of the children have also contributed there own ideas and have been using their phonics knowledge to include their ideas in their sentences. 

In Phonics the children are working hard with their word blending, reading and sentence writing and we can really see huge progress in those children who regularly complete their reading homework.  

In Drawing Club the children watched a beautiful, wordless animation called Bee and Me and the children have been drawing and independently writing captions and sentences to go with their drawings. 

The children have enjoyed learning how to program the Beebot robots as well as learning positional language such as forwards, backwards, right and left. 

As artists the children looked at the work of artist Levon Biss and his Microsculpture photographs of Insects. The children used oil pastels to recreate some of the bugs using their observational, drawing skills; noticing the shapes, colours and patterns of the insects. We will continue with this focus next week. 

This week the children have been closely observing  the caterpillars as they have developed into their cacoons and we hope that they will be ready to hatch into butterflies next week! 

We launched our Sunflower challenge this week and during our Maths sessions the children have been using their noticing skills to look at seed packets and we talked together about the numbers and words they could see. They described the shape, size, colours and patterns of the seeds too. The children used 10 frames to help us work out if we would have enough seeds for everyone to plant one and talked about whether the amount was odd or even. Next week we will be using 10 frames to check that we have enough plant pots for everyone.

Next week we will be planting our sunflower seeds and thinking about what plants need to grow. We will be writing about how we planted our seeds too. 

As scientists we will be learning about life cycles, thinking about the changes we have already observed with our caterpillars.  

We will participate in some transient art by creating insects using natural loose parts such as pebbles, leaves and twigs. 

We will be investigating insects in resin and collecting insects in magnifying pots so that we can observe them closely. 

As artists we will be creating colourful butterflies with ink, coffee filter paper and pipe cleaners. 

As writers we will be completing non-fiction writing based on 'The Big Book of Bugs' and completing drawings and writing linked to the story 'The Woolly Bear Caterpillar'

IMPORTANT DATES: 

We will be having a special Forest School afternoon 

Legoland 5th July- We would love for as many parents as possible to join us on this fun trip! There is the option to pay for it in instalments both for yourself and your child. If you are not able to come yourself, perhaps an Auntie, Uncle or Grandparent would like to come instead?  There is a possibility that we may not be able to run this trip if we do not have enough adults joining us. 

Father’s Day- We are inviting dads, grandads, or significant males to join us for a very special forest school session with your child on Friday 14th June. We will have a sign-up sheet on the gate from next week. There will be a session from 11am-12pm and another 1.15pm- 2.15pm.