The days of spring are here. Warm, sunny days are near. Birds in trees, flowers and bees…the days of spring are here.

                                                          Anon

This week we have continued our learning around the story of the 3 little pigs. We have been using the puppets to retell the story and making houses for the pigs using plasticine, sticks and straws.

In Maths we have been looking at addition and have been working in groups to sort the dominoes according to the total of spots.

In Understanding of the World we have been finding out about different environments, exploring what plants and animals live in deserts and comparing this to where we live.

In our art lesson we have continued our lessons about textiles and have been learning how to wrap yarn around a stick. We created a ‘memory stick’ by wrapping different coloured yarns around a stick to remind us of different traditional stories, such as pink wool for the 3 pigs and green to remind us of the beanstalk in Jack and the Beanstalk story.

This week we continued to base our learning around the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. In our continuous provision we explored colour mixing to paint different shades of green on the leaves up the beanstalk, we decorated magic beans to strengthen our fingers and made beanstalks on the creation station. On the finger gym we carefully threaded small leaves and cheerios (beanstalk stem!) onto a stalk and we worked in pairs to order and retell the story of Jack and the Beanstalk.

In Maths we focused on the number 7. We uesd 7 pegs and 7 cubes to create different shapes and models and enjoyed collecting 7 objects from around the room. We also created flowers using 7 petals and wrote number sentences to show how we had made 7.

In Science, we looked closely at a range of house plants and herbs and made observational drawings of our favourite plants.

In RE we used our holding crosses to help us concentrate and focus while we listened to the group Lent prayers we had written.

In Art, we continued to explore changing fabrics by creating fringes, sewing, adding to the fabric using fabric pens and by joining smaller pieces of fabric using staples, split pins and glue.

We also visited a local garden centre to develop our knowledge and understanding of different plants and to help us to prepare for our garden centre in the role play area. We loved looking at all the different plants, inside and outside, seeds, tools and much more. Thank you to Josh for letting us scan lots of different seed packets.

This week saw Sid the Squirrel deliver the traditional story of Jack and the Beanstalk and a giant beanstalk suddenly appeared in our classroom! We had great fun climbing the beanstalk and we ‘painted a picture’ in the listener’s mind by carefully describing what we found at the top. We had ideas from friendly giants to scary dinosaurs and delicious fruit trees to fast police cars. We have also planted our own beans and will be closely observing them over the next few weeks to see what happens.

In science we went on a plant hunt around our school grounds. We worked in pairs to find a given plant picture and extending our vocabulary by learning the names of the plants, these included rhubarb, bamboo and ivy.

In Maths we have been focusing on the number 6. We have been finding different ways to make the number 6 with lots of different resources, such as 6 spots and 6 legs on a ladybird. 

In art we have started a new topic on textiles.

Firstly, we explored a bag of different pieces of fabric, looking closely at the patterns and sorting them into groups, we also selected our favourite piece. We then created individual beanstalks with one patterned leaf, one plain leaf, one colour family leaf and one exploring sticking smaller pieces of fabric on top of a larger piece.

We started the new year with a mini topic called ‘Fantastic Fruit’. The end goal was to make and eat a layered fruit pot, however before we could enjoy this we had to do some research and some designing. We explored a range of fruits, including citrus fruits and had a fruit and vegetable shop in our classroom. We then visited a local greengrocers to see what it was like. We looked at lots of different fruit and vegetables and bought some back to school to taste. Next, we had a tasting session to decide what fruits we wanted in our own layered fruit pots. We designed our healthy snack, adding natural yogurt if we wanted to and then we used our plans to finally make them. We learned to chop, peel, sprinkle, cut with a knife, slice and cut with scissors – depending on what fruit we were using. We also decided if our snacks were one or two portions of fruit and vegetables, as we know we should eat at least five a day. Finally, we sat and enjoyed our delicious layered fruit pots. They were yummy and definitely counted towards our 5 a day!

With Henrietta in hibernation, her friend Sid the Squirrel delivered a Winnie the Witch book all about Chinese New Year. We enjoyed researching the country, some of its traditions and some of Chinese New Year customs. We enjoyed making giant dragons to use in our dragon dances and we enjoyed eating some Chinese food.

Next we enjoyed reading the story of the Gingerbread Man. We were Collaborative Cats to design and make a 3D gingerbread person and to learn about collage in art. We created maps using resources around the classroom to show the gingerbread man’s journey from the house to the river and finally we went to the local bakery to buy our own gingerbread men to eat.

One Monday morning we were left a letter from a little red hen. She asked us to look after her bread which was baking in the oven and said that we could try the two different breads to see if we liked them. We followed her floury foot steps all the way to the oven where we found the delicious breads. We took them back to class, worked together to lay the tables and buttered the breads. We also enjoyed lots of different activities including making hens on the creation station, painting with feathers and being authors by adding our own writing and speech bubbles to wordless books of the Little Red Hen. We also used brushes to brush away the flour to reveal the tricky words we have been learning and made bridges for the Little Red Hen.

We visited the Almonry Museum in Evesham to find out what life was like in the past. We enjoyed finding out lots of new information from our tour guide Alex and we also looked at some artefacts and books about life in the past when we returned to class.

In Science we have been finding out about materials. We explored the world around us, collecting some objects to put in a pot. We added water and then put them in the freezer. Next we took them out and watched our ice pots thaw! We used our sense of sight and touch to explore and look closely at the changes to the materials. We then explored a range of different materials, identified them, began to describe and sort them.