Another week has zoomed past - can you believe that next week is the last week of Term 1 (just a reminder that it is only 4 days next week, we finish on Thursday). We have been amazed at how wonderful all our Robins have been when faced with new learning and challenges over this first term!
Reception started the week exploring Autumnal objects, from crisp orange leaves to conkers and worked hard not to give up, using tweezers to squeeze objects out of the ‘spider web’!
Out in our Rainforest area, our youngest Robins have loved extending their play with the wild animals and created enclosures using various barriers, “Look Mrs Brown, it’s Longleat!”. They even added cars and people to represent the wildlife park, discuss which animals were the most dangerous and celebrating the new arrival, “Mrs Brown, it’s a lion cub”.
Throughout the week, Year One have also been busy counting 1 more and 1 less than, they loved using a rocket to help them count down to 0 and were even rockets themselves! We did find it a bit tricky remembering to count backwards when finding 1 less but we didn’t give up! Reception explored their own counting, making towers and counting how many bricks there were in the tower- some of our towers became almost taller than us!
On Tuesday we continued our learning about Andy Goldsworthy and have become experts at recognising what materials he has used to create his various sculptures. Through our Art session, we explored the term ‘Imprint’ and used salt dough as our tile for the imprints to go onto. The children explored various different natural materials, selecting them carefully and discussing the different imprints that were made when they were gently pressed onto the salt dough. In true artist style we never gave up and if we didn’t like the imprints that we made, we simply started again until we were fully happy with our creations!
On our Welly Walk this week, we certainly used our Derek the Duck learning power ‘Don’t Give Up’ to ensure that we were able to succeed even when things were challenging. On our way we passed beautiful trees, filled with Autumn leaves, and discussed the seasonal changes since our walk last week. We showed courage as we faced the climb past East Shefford farm and up to the top of the field! As we passed the farm, we saw a tractor and all the bales of hay stored in the barn. Whilst walking up the bumpy track, the children shared stories of when they had done this walk previously and some were even able to see their houses! Even though our legs were tired, we persevered, climbing over the fence, and then walking happily down the field as we sang our Harvest songs! Wow what an experience!
We have also enjoyed exploring ‘cooking’ with Autumn coloured food and even made our very own McDonalds, creating anything from ‘Burgers’ to bowls of ice cream! They were even kind enough to make a Hot chocolate for Mrs Brown, which was much appreciated during the chillier weather! However, MacDonalds needed to be closed for a time after the oven broke, we hope to be up and running again soon!
We finished our week off with some bending and stretching in PE and also by getting our hands dirty when moulding and manipulating clay - keep an eye on these pages over the next few weeks to see what we are creating with clay….can you guess yet?
Phonics next week…..
Both EYFS and Year 1 will be having a recapping weekof all the sound learnt so far, so get your reading books out and get reading reading reading!