Spring Part 1

Happy New Year and welcome back! We hope all our families had a lovely Christmas.

Our new topic is Stories and Rhymes. This project teaches children about traditional stories and rhymes and gives them the opportunity to play with words and learn new vocabulary.

This week we have read the Gingerbread Man story and from this we are using our fine motor skills to cut out gingerbread people in the dough, counting their buttons and retelling the story in the small world tray with our friends.

Our new Talk4writing story this half term (where we learn the words, actions and then read the story using pictures) is The Enormous Turnip. Already the children are remembering the different characters of man, woman, son, daughter, dog, cat, and mouse. We also continue with our daily Dough Disco (Incy Wincy Spider) and Squiggle While you Wiggle (move 5) with our flipper flappers.

This week we continue with the "Long ago" theme looking at traditional tales and nursery rhymes. We chased Incy Wincy spider down the water spouts in the water trough, coloured and painted rainbow pictures, made pat-a-cakes and 5 fat sausages using the dough. We also explored ice thinking about how it is made what happens to it and how it feels. In the home corner we had a winters cafe with hot chocolate and marshmallows being served with take-away pizza! This weeks dough disco is to Twinkle Twinkle.

This week the children have been learning all about winter and the changes that happen during this season. They continued to explore the feel of ice and we talked about what happens to the ice and how to make ice. We even managed to make our own using the very cold temperatures at night!  We practiced our cutting and sticking skills by making snowflakes to decorate the classroom. We continue to learn our Talk4writing story The Enormous Turnip and have been acting out the story with each other. This weeks dough disco is to "Do you Know the Muffin Man" and our new Squiggle me into  a Wiggle move 6 is to hop, hop, hop!!

The children acted out our story of the Enormous Turnip for Talk for Writing using some of the words and actions they had learnt. They also got messy making cornflour gloop where they observed and felt the changes that happen when you add water to cornflour and how it changes from a liquid to a solid when you squeeze it. The children got to work washing the baby clothes using old fashioned brushes, bowls and soap. We talked about how long ago there were no such things as washing machines or tumble driers. They also had the task of using their funky fingers to peg the washing on the line.

This week the children have innovated the story of The Enormous Turnip and changed it to The Enormous Carrot!. They also changed the different characters of the story and then had fun acting out and telling it using those new characters. The children have also been learning about different shades of colours by mixing of white and black paint. We have looked at old fashioned portraits and painted our own versions and had fun at looking at photograhs of our teachers when they were young, trying to guess who is who and noting how much they have changed over the years!

Welcome back after half term. Our new theme is Ready, Steady Grow! This project teaches children about food and farming exploring themes including where does food come from, what plants and animals need to grow and what constitutes a healthy lifestyle.

So far we have had a farm shop, a farm vets in the home corner, dug up various vegetables using different tools and made peas, carrots and turnips from playdough. Our new Talk4writing story is The Gingerbread Man. The children made their very own gingerbread people, took them to Mrs Plumb to put in the oven but unfortunately they escaped! Mrs Plumb asked for the children's help to find them. The children went on a hunt and followed the clues to find them. They were all accounted for and taken home to eat!