When we think about being healthy, we often think about our bodies. Whilst it is important to look after our bodies, we must also look after our minds. We learned that our mental health is how we are feeling and the thoughts we are having. It is normal to experience a range of emotions each day and how we feel can affect our behaviour. When Colour Monster handed round compliments, we noticed that we felt happy. There are many options for maintaining a healthy mind: having sufficient sleep, dancing, playing a board game, singing, drawing, sharing a book, painting, playing with family and friends, exercising outdoors, baking a cake. When we have feelings that make us feel uncomfortable, we know that we can talk to a trusted adult and they will help us.

Maths – developing our spatial reasoning by selecting and rotating shapes

This week, the children have had the opportunity to explore the attributes of shapes and select them for a purpose. They have been encouraged to explain why they have chosen a particular shape and why other shapes would not be suitable. We have been rotating shapes (noticing that they are still the same shape whatever their orientation) to fill a given space. It was fun to find the shapes that we needed to make our pictures.

It was also fun working in teams to solve a tangram square puzzle. We completed the challenge with such confidence that Mrs Shipley took the picture away to see if we could remember how to fit all of the shapes in the square. We were very proud of ourselves when we were successful (even if a few of us cheated – you know who you are!).

Jigsaws offer a brilliant opportunity to develop our spatial reasoning skills If you do not have one at home, you can make one from the front of a cereal box, a photo or a drawing.

Happy half term, everyone.

What have we noticed in the beautifully illustrated and nostalgic PEEPO (by Janet and Allan Ahlberg)? We spotted that, in the past (1940s), clothes were dried in front of the fire rather than in the tumble dryer or on the radiator. We noticed that there was a radio for entertainment rather than a big TV on the wall. Mummies slept in hair nets. The toilets were in the garden: that must have been handy when playing outside, wouldn’t it? Less so in the middle of the night. And the prams, well, how small were those wheels?! Beds, however, remain similar today, we still enjoy porridge for breakfast and we grow fruit and vegetables in gardens at home or at school.

We had fun guessing who was who in the baby photos so thank you for sending them in! The children talked about how they looked as a baby and how they look now. They considered what they can do now that they could not do as a baby. When we wrote about it, we tried very hard to remember our capital letters, finger spaces and full stops. We also noticed that, when we write about the past, there is often an ‘-ed’ on the end of the word, for example, played, looked, crawled, mashed (up food).

Why not ask older relatives what they recall from their childhood (if they don’t already delight in telling you!)?

Potting our beans

We have been so excited to observe the progress that our ‘beans in a bag’ have made over the last couple of weeks and we have been able to talk about the different parts of the plant. Can the children recall, for you, which part is the leaf, stem, bean and root? We also talked about the role of each of the parts of the plant before potting them in nutritious soil. The children understood that we will need to keep the plants hydrated and in the sunlight.

How tall will they grow, we wonder?

On Thursday, we spent some time considering the 80th anniversary of VE day. Isaac explained to us that VE stands for ‘Victory in Europe’. We looked at a map to find the United Kingdom and chatted about what we mean by ‘united’. We noticed that the flags for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Island come together to form the Union Flag. Our map illustrated how the UK is a part of Europe. We thought back to what we had learned on Remembrance Day and discussed, again, how we might feel if there was a war going on in the UK now. The idea of leaving our families as evacuees seemed very daunting but we agreed it was better to escape to the safety of the countryside. It is always enlightening to listen to Reception children drawing on their own lived experiences/discussions from home and how they relate to our topic of discussion. Isaac recalled visiting a war time shelter in Northumberland and Leon wondered if the beams in people’s houses might protect them from bombs.

Deaf awareness week

By placing fingers in our ears, we developed a sense of how challenging it might be for people who have hearing loss. We appreciate that some of our friends might need equipment to help them to hear more effectively and Luke told us that his grandad has a hearing aid. We learned that some Christians believe that Jesus performed a miracle when he enabled a deaf man to hear. If we cannot hear properly, we might need to find other ways to communicate and we practised signing a few words. Can they children recall what they were?

Preparing for sports day

Only two weeks to go! We are practising for our team relay races in our Tuesday PE lessons and out on the field. We are considering our tactics, such as holding our arm close to our bodies so that the egg does not fall off the spoon. What is really lovely to witness is the growing camaraderie within the house teams: cheering for our friends is, arguably, the most rewarding part of sports day. If you are out enjoying the (promised) fine weather this weekend, why not make up some races of your own?

Our current Talk for Writing text, ‘How to Catch a Star’ by Oliver Jeffers, has provoked some interesting discussion in RS. This week, children were invited to ask questions of children who had adopted the ‘character’ of the boy, the rocket, the seagull or the star.. Through effective questioning, we learned that (in our imaginations) the boy likes stars because they are shiny and sparkly and that he will “pop the starfish” he finds “in a tank and play with him later”. The seagull is prepared to “try a taste of crab” but thinks he’ll “prefer an ice-cream cone”. When the star was asked why she was pointy, she was clear that, “God created us with points”. The rocket felt he would need someone to “set him on fire” to shoot up into the sky.

When you read a story at home, why not encourage the children to be one of the characters and you can ask them questions? I’m certain that you will be impressed with where their imaginations take them (and you!)

Beans in a bag

Last week, we popped some broad beans into bags, added wet paper towels and attached them to the window in the hope that they would germinate. By Thursday of this week, we were rather concerned that the beans were more likely to bake than germinate in the strong sun that was hitting the window, so we moved them to a light but cooler area. In doing so, we were excited to notice shoots emerging from a few of of the beans. We wonder what will happen next.

A trip to our apple tree

….revealed that we were not the only visitors. We noticed that ladybirds were attracted to feast on the pesky greenfly (aphids), which want to eat the sap on the leaves of our apple tree. Mr Magnell showed us how the leaves curl in on themselves in response to the greenfly. Caterpillars also enjoy a leafy snack.

….we discovered, have three dimensions: length, width and height.

We learnt that, whereas a 2-D shape – such as a circle or a square – is completely flat, 3-D shapes are solid objects. Cubes, cuboids, cylinders, pyramids, cones, triangular prisms and spheres were handled and we noticed how they were alike and how they were different. We considered how many flat faces they had and whether there was a curved surface.

To help us solve a number of ‘crimes’ – including spilled milk, a painted table, stolen raisins and cut flowers – we had to consider the ‘footprints’ left by our 3D-shape suspects. By identifying the 2-D shapes within the 3-D shapes, we were able to work out which shape was guilty of which crime. The children were very keen for the ‘criminal shapes’ to be punished (rather punitively, it has to be said).

The crimes

The suspects

The evidence

The punishment

To emphasise the differences between flat surfaces and curved surfaces, we explored which shapes are better for stacking and rolling.

This knowledge about the properties of 3-D shapes helps us when we are building stable models in provision.

3-D shapes also inspired our storytelling this week. This week, Curvy Cone had a night of naughty antics in the freezer: smashing up apple pie with his point; melting the ice cubes and squashing the spherical peas into circles. The Reception children love to share what they have drawn/written with their storytelling heroes.

Please be sure to look out for 3-D shapes in your environment at home and when you go on outdoor adventures.

The last week has presented us with many opportunities to explore the natural world around around us, making observations and drawing pictures of living things.

Our apple tree now has soft green buds, tinged pink at the base.

When we return from the Easter holiday, will the buds have blossomed? We hope so.

A visit to Mrs Whittaker’s colourful forest school was a treat. We noticed the violas, primroses, forget-me-nots, grape hyacinths and the beautiful prunus tree (‘The Bride’).

Look at the beautiful drawings/collage we created.

The highlight of the visit for many, though, was noticing that there are tiny tadpoles emerging from the frogspawn. Thank you, Mrs Whittaker, for all you do to make this part of school so inviting.

Thank you to Isaac, who brought in his seven pet stick insects for us to meet. He answered lots of questions, very eloquently, in assembly and in our outdoor area. We learned that stick insects can live from 2-3 years. They are herbivores and like to eat (stolen!) privet. They are nocturnal and are most active at night. They ‘play dead’ when they feel threatened by a predator, tricking their enemies into thinking that they really are just a stick. We all had a go at ‘playing dead’ in the classroom, which was very peaceful.

When we undertook some research as a class, we discovered that stick insects have breathing holes down the side of their bodies and they shed skin regularly as they grow. They also have the ability to regrow limbs: wow! Humans need to take more care of theirs.

Happy Easter!

We have prepared for Easter by making energetic chick cards, decorating eggs and using our imaginations to think about what could come out of a chocolate egg.

Wishing you all a funshine-filled break.

Making (and, especially, eating) chocolate nests – symbolic of Spring – was one of the highlights of this week. The children noticed how the chocolate was a solid block and we wondered why it would not stick onto the rice crispies. When someone suggested that we needed to melt it, ideas for how we might do this were debated: suggestions of “building a fire”, “leaving it in the sun” and “putting it in a pocket” were considered but we settled on using the microwave. The chocolate melted into a delicious-smelling liquid. We stirred crispies into the mixture before spooning it into cases. Finally, we popped the nests in the fridge to cool and for the chocolate to re-solidify. The nests definitely passed the taste test so if you would like to make them at home, here are the instructions that we recorded in our writing books.

Mother’s Day

This week, we have reflected upon how our mummies and other grown ups care for us at home. The children have enjoyed making Mother’s Day ‘mummy’ portrait cards and flower pop outs for you.

Our storytelling session also took on a Mother’s Day focus with a bear called Ben, who wanted to treat his mummy. However, his head became stuck in the teapot, the toaster blew up and the flowers were sleeping. Can your child tell you what they wrote about?

Wishing all of our families a happy weekend.

We have been learning that our senses help us to make sense of the world around us.

Let’s start with our favourite sense! Our tongues are covered in thousands of tiny taste buds, which help us to determine if food and drinks taste bitter, sweet, savoury, salty or sour. During a test of crisps, dark chocolate, sultanas and lemon slices, the children recorded whether they did or did not like the taste.

Our noses are used to recognise things that smell nice, such as cakes baking in an oven or fresh flowers, and things that don’t smell so nice, such as trumps and sweaty feet. Our sense of smell helps to keep us safe. The smell of smoke alerts us to fire and the smell of sour milk warns us not to drink it. The children were brilliant at identifying the contents of our smelling pots: coffee, minty toothpaste, ginger, garlic and washing powder.

We use our eyes to see things. Many of us wear glasses to help us see better. When we returned from our walk, in the spring sunshine, to St. John’s church, we talked about all of the things we had noticed on the journey and in the church. We have also looked carefully at the frogspawn in the forest school pond.

Our ears help us to hear. In circle time this week, we enjoyed testing our sense of hearing when we played ‘Doggy, doggy, where’s your bone?’. We also noticed the sounds that instruments, water and leaves make.

When something touches our skin, our brains identify whether something is hot, cold, hard, soft, prickly, rough or smooth. What’s inside our feely box? What happened when we rubbed wax crayons on paper over the objects in our outdoor area?

Please notice which senses the children are using at home.

Thank you, Rev. Sharon….

….for welcoming us into your church and for teaching us that: stained glass windows helped people to understand Bible stories before they could read, organ music travels through pipes; a stole is like a scarf (but is definitely not stolen) and will be a different colour depending upon the point in the liturgical calendar or occasion and that the books we noticed contain the words to hymns. Well done, children, for sitting and listening so attentively. Thank you to all of the adults, who were able to join us for the walk.

….is the question we have been discussing, as hope is our focus value of this half term. For the children in RS, ‘hope is wanting something good to happen‘.

The children were invited to talk about, draw a picture or write down what they hope for and there were some wonderful contributions: a train ride; a visit to a museum; a story from a big sister; a turn with the puppets; a visit to the garden; some new shoes; to sit with a new friend.

As part of our learning about hope, we explored the concept of trust. We considered how Jesus placed his trust in God during his time in the wilderness, refusing the temptations offered by the devil [Matthew 4:18:22]. We also learned how Peter, Andrew, James and John left their fishing boats to become disciples, who followed Jesus [Matthew 4:1:11]. The children suggested that the fishermen were happy to follow Jesus because “they liked him” (Coby) and “He was the son of God” (Isaac). We played a fun game of ‘Follow the leader’ but recognised that we should only follow someone, whom we trust to make good and kind decisions.

brings new life and we have noticed that, while our class tree is still leafless as it wakes up from Winter, there are flowers on the ground under the tree. Did anyone know what the flowers were? “Yellow ones!”, said someone. “You mean daffodils,” Edie specified. We also noticed crocuses.

In class, we made observational crayon drawings of daffodils.

Lent

Ash Wednesday marked the start of Lent. We learned that during the 40 days (not including Sundays) of Lent, some Christians choose to give something up that they like/enjoy, just as Jesus gave up food and drink during the time he spent in the desert to be with God. We talked about what we might give up. Jay suggested “Pringles”. Leon thought he might give up his “house”.

I hope that the practice we put into flipping pancakes in our outdoor area saved some mess at home. We talked about how the ingredients used for making pancakes are not eaten until Easter by some Christian families.

Planting potatoes

We examined a real potato and gathered the children’s ideas about where potatoes come from. “The shop” was the most popular response but some children suggested that, before they arrived at the shop, potatoes grow “in soil”….”on farms”…”in fields”. We then found a toy potato in our feely bag and considered why it might not grow if we planted it. “Well, it will just get dirty, won’t it?” suggested Reggie.

Mrs Wake has kindly given us some seed potatoes to grow. We went outside and added nutritious soil to the bag – not too much as we learned that we will need to ‘earth them up’ when shoots appear. The seed potatoes were positioned carefully so they would have room to grow. We checked for stones as Aunty Mabel (Come Outside) warned that any stones might result in funny-shaped potatoes! The children suggested that the plants would need water and a sunny spot in the outdoor area. We can’t wait to follow their progress.

World Book Day

Thank you so much for all of the effort that went into costumes for World Book Day. Well done to Edie, who read us the story of The Ugly Duckling. I wonder which stories you might share at home this weekend?