Our topic this term is...

Minibeasts!

Please see below for our topic web,

how you can help at home

and our weekly blog!

Weekly Blog

Weeks 6-9

Please accept our apologies for the lack of blogs these last few weeks we have been focusing on the children's reports to make sure you have the best information for your child moving into squirrel! Exciting times ahead!

Please enjoy below some photos from the last few weeks...

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Week 5

What a week it's been! The children had a really great time at Tring Museum and were thoroughly engaged throughout. We started with a workshop learning about all the different types of coverings animals have. They really enjoyed getting to touch the real snake skin! We then went around the different galleries looking at all the different animals. We tried to find the smallest and largest of each species which was a lot of fun. We saw some fabulous photos of a giant spider and the close up of a web being spun! We loved looking at all the different varieties of beetles, moths and butterflies. We each had a favourite! The children were brilliantly behaved and made us very proud! We have also had lots of fun back at school learning about the queen and the union flag as part of our jubilee week. With Mrs Olsen we learnt about the history of the queen and how she has changed through the ages. We have learnt about the national anthem and can now sing the first verse! We learnt about what the union flag represents and looked at some different artwork. We then had a go at creating our own. We particularly had fun creating splatter art like Jackson Pollock! We are really ready for a relaxing half term break and look forward to seeing you back for the final term!

Week 4

This week has been Art week and we have been enjoying lots of arts and crafts accross the curriculum.  We have been finishing off our Hungry Caterpillar books with Eric Carle style illustrations and a moving caterpillar which looks great! The children have been working on a whole school collaberation project for the Jubillee (to be revealed later!). We also looked at the work of Andy Goldsworthy and how he uses natural materials to make pictures. We decided to make mini-beast pictures from things we could find in the garden. The children thought carefully about the shape and textures of their objects. See our pictures below!

In English we have recieved a video message from Estelle Hotshot (a new york producer) who has asked us to send her some ideas to make the Superworm story into a movie. She wants to change up the characters to make it more exciting so we've been looking at the different problems in Superworm and coming up with our own characters and ideas by making masks and capes! We are very excited about becoming famous! (see her message below).

In Maths we have been doing lots of problem solving using the number concepts we have been learning over the term. Wizard Lizard (from the "Superworm" story) had stolen our fruit and hid it in his lair under padlock! We had to use the clues to work out the numbers and then think how to work out the order of the combination. After much perseverance as well as trial and error we rescued our fruit!

The children have also been using the song '8 green bottles' to read, work out and make their own subtraction stories. We used our wall as an extra challenge to use our walking feet in the classroom. Mrs Hall kept hiding the wall in awkward spaces for the children to navigate. We managed a whole day without knocking the bottles over!

Week 3

This week we have been enjoying the lovely sunshine and spent most of our time outdoors. We have been reading "Bug Hotel" By Libby Walden. We learnt that different minibeasts like different habitats. Spiders and beetles like dry, rotting wood and sticks, Snails like moss and damp cardboard. So we decided what mini-beasts we would like to attract and went out to collect our materials. We 'jam-packed' our tubes with cosy treats.

The children have also been working with different partners to help us to learn negotiation and team work skills. We pulled our names out of a hat and the best team work won a prize. Congratulations to Matilda and Frank for working together brilliantly! We are going to do this challenge again next week, watch this space for the winners!

We have been making and writing our own books for the hungry caterpillar and next week we are going to do the illustrations and make a puppet for the book. We will video some of the stories to show you here.

In Maths we really enjoyed practicing our addition skills using the bus stop game. Next week we will be practciing taking away. Larry has also been setting us some tricky maths star challenges. This week we had to fill the numicon boards leaving no spaces at all. This led to some brilliant maths work thinking about which numbers work best (lots of discussions about odd and even numbers). How we could exchange numbers when we didn't have enough eg: change two fours for an eight. How we could fill a small gap by adding 1 more, Counting in tens and fives to work out how big the board was. The possibilities are endless! 

For an extra challenge at home, hide some numbers 11-20 around the house and tell your children the maths monster has been mixing them up (or has taken one!) and get them to work out the order to find which one is missing. He can also take some toys and the children have to work out how many he has taken. Don't forget to share your child's learning on their tapestry page!

Week 2

This week in Hedgehog we have been getting stuck in to the story of the Very Hungry Caterpillar. We have been sequencing the pictures and learning the language patterns to help us retell the story for Sammy snail. Next week we will be making our very own versions of the story using our story maps that we adapted with our own foods.

We have been having lots of fun with shapes, making pictures, experimenting with funny shapes and playing spot the difference games. We now know all the names of our 2D shapes and can match and recognise them in lots of different orientations.

Our caterpillars have got really big and we are expectecting them to start their cocoons any minute now. We watched a fantastic video all about their life cycle so that we know what to expect. (You can watch it at home if you like...)

Week 1

Our first week of the term has seen us exploring the 'bottom of the garden' for all things creepy crawly. We have turned our classroom into an upside down garden as well as creating a mini-beast museum in our outdoor space. We've been writing some information posters and labels for the minibeasts so that visitors can learn some facts about them. The children have enjoyed learning how to be curators, going on minibeast hunts in the garden as well as making some superb bug tangrams. We also have some baby caterpillars that we are going to hatch into butterflies over the coming weeks.

As a special surpise we were visited by some ducks on friday who wanted to see what was lurking under the logs too!

In Maths we've been looking at the composition of numbers 11-20. Thinking about what each digit in the number represents. The children have been enjoying counting up their star challenges and are inspired to meet their next targets! Ask them how many they have to get!

In PSED the children have been doing a great job of using our calming strategies and are considering different ways of resolving conflicts. We have started our comic strip book by thinking about what makes a good friend. The children came up with some really good qualities. "Being a good listener", "Speaking quietly", "being kind", "using kind hands" and "helping me".