This week has certainly been a chilly one and has allowed for lovely discussions around the changing temperatures and things that we have noticed, such as the bitterly cold wind and how the rain water in the tough trays has turned to ice! Our EYFS children, certainly enjoyed exploring the outdoor area finding all the places that were previously full of water and discovering that they were now full of ice and were stuck together and that the ice was still there at the end of the day - it had not melted!

Every morning we look at the BBC weather map and we discuss the four countries that make up the United Kingdom- Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. We then look specifically at the weather in Great Shefford and discuss how the weather will affect our day ahead - is it warm enough to do outdoor PE without a jumper, will it be wet play, will we need wellies on etc. On Friday, not only did we discuss the weather in Great Shefford, we discussed the weather in Mumbles in Swansea - I had explained that my Mum lives there and when we talk on the phone, she tells me how cold it is (my Mum also reads this page…hello Mum). We compared the temperatures and the weather and the wind speeds. So Mum, when we talk on the phone later this evening, this is what the Robins children have told me I need to tell you. We have both had sunny days today with not much wind. We have had it colder than you, we were 2° colder as we only reached 5° and you reached 7°. Tonight (Friday), we will be colder than you as we will be -2° and you will not go below freezing.

As the Robins were telling me all this information, I was smiling, not because I found it funny but because I was just delighted at how well they understand the weather forecast and how seriously they take all their learning of real life experiences - it means so much to them. If you have friends or relatives in Scotland, Wales or Northen Ireland and you want us to check in on their weather please pop a message in the Home School link book and we will take a look!

This week…….

Reception got off to a flying start in Maths this week and with the help of the Number blocks 1-5, they explored the purpose of counting, recognising that it helps us find out ‘how many’ objects there are, recognising that the last number in the count tell us how many there are altogether! With Miss Robinson they began by playing ‘What’s the number?’, working out which number was hidden in the bag by feeling it. What a lot of fun we had with this game, with the children using some fantastic language such as ‘curves’, ‘straight lines’ and ‘edges’. They then helped Miss Robinson check her own counting skills to make sure that the Number blocks were matched with the correct numerals, Miss Robinson was very grateful for their help!

Year One also got off to a flying start and began exploring the number 20, recognising different ways to represent the number including exploring how many tens and ones it has. They were also able to discuss the different ways that number 20 was represented and recognised that they found it easier to see it quickly when they could see two sets of 10 using a tens frame, as they know 10 + 10 = 20! Throughout the week they have also been using number lines to count on and count back within 20.

In Art Year 1 continued exploring Aboriginal Art, exploring colouring mixing to find ‘earthy’ colours that they could see in the Aboriginal picture.

Reception were also extremely busy in their Art session and explored self-portraits, using mirrors to recognise what features they have on their face, the shapes they could see and colours. We even had a go at tracing over photographs of our own faces, when asked what they thought of their pictures, their response was “scary!”

Now if you were asked to close your eyes and try to stack corks on top of each other, how easy would you find it? Would you be able to resist looking? And what methods might you use to help you overcome the challenges that you faced? Well, this week both Early Years and Year One were able to answer all these questions within our Jigsaw (Personal, Social,Heath Economic - PSHE) lesson! The children loved being set such a tricky challenge and despite coming across many difficulties, they persevered and came up with methods to help them succeed, such as holding the corks as they placed another one on top and swapping hands to their hands didn’t get too tired!

On Tuesday Early Years children became ice hunters and after reading the story Jack Frost we went searching for ice within our outside area and discussing what it was like when they found it.

After finding and exploring the ice, we then collected natural items such as twigs, leaves and grass to make our very own frozen cupcakes! After collecting them, we put them inside our cases and filled them with water, we then left them outside and waited to see if Jack Frost would freeze our creation…..and he did!!!!!

Our afternoons have been jammed packed with learning- we just don’t know how we have managed to squeeze it all in Science- exploring the different parrts of a plant, indoor PE, Yoga, French, Pantomimus, RE, spelling, Show and Tell, Library, outdoor PE and we even had a vist from Red Kites who were asking us lots of questions about what types of films we like!!!!! We even caught up with all the photos on Owls page, showing their trip away in Oakwood. Despite the Robins children saying they had not missed their brothers or sisters they were squeeling with excitement when they spotted their sibling in the photos and you could see by their faces that they were bursting with pride (and had missed them!!!!).

Take a look at just a few of the things we have been learning.