At the beginning of the week we invited a huge tiger and a smaller friend of his to tea (thanks to George for the smaller friend). They sat at the table and proceeded to eat all of the sandwiches, buns, cakes, drank all the tea from the teapot and even all of the contents of the fridge and all the water from the tap! Of course we read the Tiger who came to Tea and listened to the story on a CD. Some children chose to ride the big Tiger and he received lots of hugs as well as being heavily leaned on whilst recalling the story through a storyboard.
We also had two fish to stay for the week and learned how to keep them happy and well by caring, cleaning them out and feeding them.
On a minibeast theme we read lots of different bug books as well as some Deadly 60 fact books. Did you know that horseflies fly faster than any other bug – they can reach speeds of 90mph – the speed of a FAST car! We were able to study snails, woodlice & beetles all week as we had a plastic tank full of them – we learned what they need to survive, they had earth, bits of tree, greenery and lots of items to hide underneath as well as a water spray every day – the children even made a snail race track and we labelled snails (with white sticky removable labels) and raced them with much cheering .. first one to the bullseye was the winner, which was 3 points, children added up scores – the children named their individual snail…. Some notable winners were… Batman, Tom, Spiderman, Robin & Jess!
We have also been watching lots of caterpillars grow this week, we found them in a silky nest in a hawthorn hedge and they are going to turn into moths.
Then we thought we would have a go at making a moth trap from a cardboard box and hung up a white sheet with torches overnight hoping to catch some different types to look and then let go the next day. Imagine the anticipation! The trap was empty the next day and the following day… just not the right conditions overnight! We will try again. One child remembered something that had been said the day before and suggested leaving the bedroom window open and reading a book with the light on to attract moths – something that I am very familiar with!
All of the leavers are really getting ready for school now with lots of chat about where they are going. We’ve been practising Jolly Phonics, blending sounds and reading some three-letter words as well as recognising numbers with games and songs.
Thank you to all of our children for another lovely week. Enjoy the weekend.