2526 Acorn and Holly week beginning 9th February

What a wet few weeks we’ve had! We have tried to make the most of the wet weather and embrace it as part of our learning, we have enjoyed singing in the rain, taking cover under umbrellas and making art with wet chalk. In our outdoor learning sessions we have been bird spotting and making bird feeders from apples. We had a brilliant forest school session a couple of weeks ago with Miss Young where we used big branches from around the orchard site to build a boat, made willow fish and had fun making the Lighthouse Keeper’s lunch in a picnic basket to send along a rope to each other.

We have continued to enjoy reading our ocean themed stories that lead our learning and The Storm Whale in Winter give lots of opportunity for some imaginative role play and large scale lighthouse building. In drawing club the children designed and wrote about lighthouses that they were then challenged to create using different construction materials from around the classroom.

When reading The Snail and the whale, we challenged the children to make snail slime by mixing cornflour, water and food colouring. This was a great collaborative activity that the children really enjoyed. The Acorn children worked on their mark making skills, making swirly snail trails using different resources and the Reception children were further challenged to write a message using the snail trail materials

In Maths, the children have been exploring mass, weight and capacity. They have been observing what happens when different weighted objects are placed on the scales. Working in groups, the children were challenged to ‘balance’ the scales, inside and outside, using our large wooden scales. This activity was great for developing problem solving skills and perseverance. The reception children have also been really engaged in some capacity problem solving and comparing and ordering different containers using coloured rice to measure how much each can hold.

In RE, we have been learning about the Christian creation story and singing songs of praise, such as ‘All things bright and beautiful.’ We have also been thinking about all the wonderful animals in our world that we love and want to care for.

This week we have been super story tellers and working with a beautiful wordless picture book called Sea of Dreams. The children have been challenged to use lots of the new vocabulary we have collected over the half term to tell the story as well as drawing, building and writing about castles just like the ones we saw made from sand in the book.