Gung Hei Fat Choy! Robins and Wrens were so interested in Chinese New Year last week that we have had a Chinese themed week in Early Years. We have made lanterns and dragons, made Chinese tea in the restaurant, explored the rice and noodles, decorated our own willow pattern plates and researched our zodiac animal. Most of our Robins and Wrens were born in the year of the dog which means they are loyal friends, quick to learn, eager to please and always trying their best. We agree, Robins and Wrens are always trying their best! On Tuesday we cooked with Mrs T and made egg fried rice. It was delicious! Hallie told us “It just like nice. eggs, rice and peas. No thank you curry sauce, too spicy!” On Wednesday the Little Wrens went in search of a stick as long as their arm, which we then made into blossom. Outside we have done some ice investigating this week, with Marianne even painting her own ice jewel fit for a necklace. Very nice!
We have had a wonderful week this week. We have continued our learning on Christopher Columbus and we have been working hard designing and making one of his ships. We have been painting his ship too. We used the ship to travel around the world looking for jewels and guess what… we found some! In RE we are looking at special people and this week we heard the story of Jesus visiting the temple when he was 12 years old, we made puppets and retold the story which was so much fun! In science we are learning all about the animal groups and we have been looking at fish. We also enjoyed playing with the animals and making homes for them. In our English we have been learning about questions and we were able to sort questions from statement. We also wrote some questions of our own to ask Christopher Columbus. We have started our Chinese new year celebrations by making dragons, rabbit silhouettes and writing our names in Chinese. Busy, busy!
The Swifts have had a fantastic Science lesson progressing with their knowledge of forces. We began to look at the push and pull force and developed our Scientific enquiry for: “Are forces important in our everyday life?” The children got into the role of legionaries and recreated the building and construction of Hadrian’s wall! Emperor Hadrian’s got nothing on the Swifts class… what a fantastic wall! The children right from the beginning, from their writing, to their practical learning and into the tidying up phase of the lesson could link so many forces beyond push and pull with some even suggesting the Roman’s needed gravity, equal force and friction to support the building and development of the wall. Exceptional understanding and links going on. Well done Swifts!
This week we started our unit on fractions and enjoyed learning how to write improper fractions as mixed numbers. It always helps when Mrs Porter brings chocolate in!
In Science, we learned that light can travel through all states of matter (solids, liquids and gases) BUT only some of the materials we looked at were transparent or translucent. Materials that don’t allow light to pass through them are opaque. We also started to explore shadows and how we can make them change. It was great fun trying to make the tallest shadow on the school field.
Next week, we are going to make collages of the Solar System, so we used marbling inks to make special coloured paper to represent each planet. The results were amazing! We can’t wait to show you our finished collages.