Spring and Growth - Summer 1
This half-term our 'core text' is 'Jack and the Beanstalk by Ladybird First Favourite Tales.
Following on from reading Jack and the Beanstalk, the children wanted to grow their own beanstalk. We talked about what we would need to grow a beanstalk and how we would look after it so it would grow extra tall and reach the giant's castle! As a next step to this activity we have looked more closely at the different parts of a flower/plant. The children deconstructed a flower and sorted it into its different parts: flower, petal, stem, leaf and roots . We then talked about why each part is important to the flower/plant. The children then choose to reconstruct their own individual flower using the parts.
This week we have been learning about the life cycle of a frog. We have visited the pond at forest school to look for frogspawn and tadpoles. We were very lucky to find lots of tadpoles! We have brought them back into our classroom to observe them change into froglets and hopefully little frogs! On returning from exploring the pond and catching tadpoles some children choose draw and paint the parts of the frog life cycle and others created a pond using reggio materials and loose parts from our classroom. en sequenced pictures and
What an amazing experience we had this week at school - we were lucky enough to have a visit from Steven Lewis-Neill, a scientist who loves the great outdoors and minibeasts! We went exploring together in forest school and learnt so much about flowers and garden creatures. We found and named many flowers including daisies, dandelions, bluebells and daffodils. We also went on a minibeast hunt and found many creepy crawlies such as woodlice, centipedes and beetles hiding under plant pots and logs. We also got to meet Steven Lewis-Neill's toad, frog and mice!
What a fantastic time we had on Sports Day! The children really enjoyed joining in all the exciting games that Miss Farrell had set up for us outside. We loved seeing our Mummy's and Daddy's cheering us on too!
What an amazing time we had visiting Thornton Hall Farm! We got to see and feed many different animals. We talked about how to look farm animals and what we use them for in our daily lives. First we feed the new born lambs. In the next barn we were all very brave! We were given some animal pellets by Farmer Rebecca and got to feed the sheep, cows, goats, pigs and llamas. The animals licked the food out of our hands! After that we meet some baby chicks that were just one week old. Then we got to hold and pet some rabbits and guinea pigs. What a lovely experience for our children!
On returning back from our half-term holiday we discovered that our tadpoles had changed into baby frogs! We were so very excited to see them hopping around in the water and sitting on the pebbles. We decided that they were getting too adventurous in our classroom - one nearly jumped out of the container! We released them onto lily pads back in our forest school pond. The children have been engrossed in this line of enquiry this half-term and have loved observing this real-life experience!
