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Spring 1

'Hot or Not'

Personal, Social & Emotional Development

We read 'The Day the Crayons Quit' and talked about how to look after the equipment in school. We looked around the classroom to see how we could look after the glues, pens and bricks so nothing gets broken or dries out. 

The Day the crayons quit - Books Alive! Read Aloud book for children

We talked about keeping safe and how important our 'trusted adults' are. We spoke about what makes a trusted adult and who they are around us. The Caterpillars thought carefully about those around them and each named a trusted adult in their lives. We named parents, staff at school and police officers. The Caterpillars did themselves proud as everyone knew who they could trust if they were sad or worried. 

We talked about the safety of medicines and how our trusted adults should be the only people who give them to us. We thought about how medicines aren't sweets and they are there to make us feel better only. 

We talking about how to keep safe on the roads. We talked about who keeps us safe on the roads and the role of a lollypop person. Miss Robinson helped us use the zebra crossing correctly and how the lollypop person can stop the traffic and make it safe to cross. 

We created our 'Emotional Thermometer'. We looked back at 'The Colour Monster' and talked about our feelings and how it related to our thermometer. We are going to use our thermometer to see if anyone needs help or looking after. 

Physical Development

On our visit to the forest this term we have been learning about road safety with a lolly pop lady ‘visitor’. Inside the forest the children enjoyed making bird feeders using cherrios and pipe cleaners. They also had fun making dens and campfires and playing playground games. 

We have enjoyed being back in the Dance Studio. Miss Burton has linked our dances for this term to our 'Hot or Not' theme. We danced the The Lion King, Frozen, The Conga, and moved around the dance studio like different African animals. 

This half term in dance, we are learning about actions, dynamics and space. 

We used tweezers to build up the strength in our fingers whilst making Igloos. It was a fine art to make it sturdy, but the Caterpillars showed great resilence and kept trying! 

Our time in the forest school was busy looking at the bare trees. We made bird feeders to help the birds get energy for the winter. We used our fine motor skills to thread cheerios onto pipe cleaners and hang them in the trees. 

Literacy

We wrote about your holidays and what we enjoyed. We heard lots of news from the children as they are excited to tell us about their time at home. 

We are reading 'Handa's Hen'. With our link to Africa, we had to get on a plane to visit. We looked at a map to see where we were going and how far away  it is from the United Kingdom. 

We have been building chicken coops, retelling the story, building the tallest giraffe and making animal footprints whilst in provision.  

We read 'The Gruffalo's Child' and made amazing Gruffalo's using playdough and our fantastic fine motor skills. 

Maths 

We have been counting on on a number track. We played a game by rolling a dice and seeing how many more we can move on. We enjoyed playing with a partner to see who got to number 10 first. 

We were looking at numbers 1-5 and how they build a staircase as the next number is one more. We built staircases with counters, stamps and even went up the stairs to check the pattern was the same. When we were confident, we hid a number from our partners and they very quickly worked out who was missing! 

We using '5 Little Speckled Frogs' to look at the composition of the number 5. We worked out that even when frogs had jumped into the pool, we still had 5 frogs all together. We now know lots of ways to make 5. 

We looked at how to show 6 and 7 on a dice frame. One dice frame wasn't big enough so we needed a double! Wherever we places the aliens on the dice frame ( our flying saucer), we still had the same number we started with.

We played with the blocks to see if each character had 6 blocks, whose tower would be the tallest. We found lots of ways to explore this. 

We have been looking at more and fewer. We made tick lists to find out the Caterpillar's favourites. We found which had more and which had fewer votes. We looked at lots of ideas provided by the Caterpillars, such as, Pokemon, films, characters, colours and lunch choices. 

Understanding the World 

It was quite a first week back at school. Snow and ice can only mean one thing... time to explore. The Caterpillars loved being outside in the snow and navigated the big hill using their gross motor skills. Well done everyone! 

For a complete contract to the cold weather, we have been exploring life in Africa. We have been learning about African animals as well as exploring Handa's Hen. We sorted animals into 2 hoops of African and not African. We used our expert, Miss Daughtry, and picked her brains about her recent trip on safari. We looked at her incredible photographs of African animals and asked so many questions! 

We read Handa's Hen and thought about the weather in Africa. We looked outside at our weather and realised it was quite different. We took out a thermometer and a homemade rain gauge and kept checking on them throughout the week. A storm was coming... we predicted there would be lots of rain to fill our rain gage. Although... we hadn't thought about the power of the wind, which blew it away! 

We loved our time in the Dance Studio learning all about Chinese New Year. We talked about the animals taking part in 'The Great Race' and how the different years are now named after the animals. We have some Caterpillars who were born in the year of the pig and some who were in the year of the rat. This year is the year of the snake. We celebrated by taking part in Chinese dancing with ribbons and the big dragon. We loved it, thank you Miss Burton. 

We loved exploring the forest and lots of signs of winter. Mrs English set us a challenge, to take off our coats and jumpers and to see how we felt. We talked about the importance of using winter clothes to keep us warm. We finished off our week with our favourite way to warm up. We made hot chocolate and loved drinking it at the forest cafe. Refills were requested but we had already run out of time by enjoying our first cup too much!

We took part in an investigation to find out which activity would keep us the warmest. 

1) Throwing and catching with bean bags

2) Cycling and scooting 

3) Putting on hats and scarves 

4) Digging in the sand 

5) Huddling together like penguines

 

 

Expressive Art and Design 

We looked back at our termly self-portraits. We discussed how much better we had become with our name writing and fine motor skills. We have drawn a new portrait to sit over the top of the previous one and looked at how much we had improved. 

We are learning about Edward Tingatinga, our African artist. We learnt about his style of painting and how it was so different to Martin Ridley. The children described his artwork as not real as we are very used to seeing Martin Ridley's lifelike, photograph style paintings. We loved Edward Tingatinga's bright, bold and fun paintings and wanted to have a go. We practised our dotty style painting technique using cotton buds. 

We had a great time African Drumming! We had Unbeatable Energy in to spend the day drumming with us. We explored rhythms and techniques and even danced in an African style. It was a great day and we loved putting on a performance for the adults at the end of the day to show what we had achieved. 

We did a step-by-step drawing of a lion and a giraffe. We thought carefully about how to make our animals fill the page so we could paint the in the style of Edward Tingatinga. 

We painted our animals Tingatinga style. We used cotton buds to create dots using bright colours. The Caterpillars took great care of their paintings and thought carefully about where they wanted the colours to go. 

We painted the sunsets for our Edward Tingatinga art. We stuck out finished animals on and we really proud of our achievements. We held an art gallery to look at everyone's fantastic creations! 

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