Unicorn Class Blog                     Term 3 Week 3                         Week Commencing 22nd January 2024

This week we have been enjoying exploring the wonders of the Polar regions. We were fascinated by the world map and our inquiring minds had some great questions such as ‘where do we live?’, ‘Where is Nettlebed?’, ‘Where do I live?’, ‘What is the white?’, ‘Why is there white at the top and the bottom?’ and ‘What is the green?’. We found out where England was on the world map and that Nettlebed and all the different places where we live in the Unicorn class were in England. We discussed the white was ice and snow, on the top of the world map and globe was the Arctic and on the bottom was Antarctica. 

We enjoyed exploring animals that live in the Arctic and Antarctica. We were amazed by the interesting facts about these animals such as; reindeers’ eyes are golden in the summer and change to blue in the winter, Arctic foxes have small ears and noses to keep them warm and when walruses are swimming under ice they use their tusks to break holes in it to allow them to breathe. We enjoyed using hammers to break up and crush the ice to rescue polar animals. The ice felt very cold and when some of the ice broke off, it reminded us of the iceberg, which was in one of the stories, ‘Lost and Found’ by Oliver Jeffers, that we have been sharing this week. 

The story ‘Lost and Found’ led to interesting discussions about what is lost and found, times when children and their families had lost something and where/when they were found. This also led to discussions about feelings around losing something, feeling lost and lonely. We also discussed and packed what we thought we would need to take with us if we went to a very cold place like Antarctica. Some of us then cut out pictures of what we would bring with us and stuck it on a picture of a suitcase. We enjoyed acting out the story and pretending we were going on a boat adventure. We compared sizes of our boats, enjoyed taking turns to be pushed around in them and working out ways that we could move them ourselves whilst inside. We also enjoyed making telescopes and maps for our adventures. We enjoyed looking for polar animals that had been hidden around the class and recording when we had found them. Some of us wanted to cut out pictures of polar animals to make a collage and some of us wanted to make books. We enjoyed using the boats and people in the water tray. Alfie and Dudley had a great idea of making a lake at the top of the tray, first they decided to use wooden blocks to try to prevent the water from travelling down. They soon discovered that the wooden blocks floated so they decided to get the red clay bricks instead.

This week we have also enjoyed playing doctors and nurses, caring for each other and the babies. Nolan wrote out prescriptions so that his patients could get some medicine from the pharmacy.

The playdough table was turned into an ice cream factory, scoops of ice cream were made using the tray mould, we decided how many scoops we were going to put into the cone and the amount of treats we put on the top. They all looked delicious.

We have also enjoyed working together and on our own to build using Duplo, lego, 3D shapes and Stickle bricks.

This week we have continued listening to sounds in the environment, rhyming, oral blending and segmenting activities, working out beginning sounds, we found working out middle sounds more challenging.

We have continued to enjoy number songs, listening to and using positional language to find and describe where the polar animals had been placed and describing and comparing the size of the polar animals, using our subitising and counting skills.

Outside we have enjoyed transporting melted ice water to the sand tray making lakes for the animals and dinosaurs, moving the wet sand using different vehicles and containers, making roads using large paper and crayons, using the bikes, cars and scooters, playing ‘Hide and seek’ and ‘What’s the time Mr wolf?’, climbing and moving around the climbing frame and using the stepping stones as part of an obstacle course. The stepping stones have also been turned upside down to make sledges and containers to try and throw snowballs into. We have enjoyed finding the number cones and using them in our play. We have continued to enjoy using the sheets and pegs to make dens and igloos. 

During Forest school this week we enjoyed using spades and long sticks to make holes in the ground. Monty and Oscar discovered 3 different sized worms, they found a small one, then a big one and then an even bigger one. They held them carefully and when they had finished looking at them and showing others they put them back into the soil, the worms’ habitat (home). We enjoyed using the playdough to make different sized worms and snails. We discovered lots of seeds on the ground that had started to germinate, we noticed that most of them had a little root, one seed looked a bit like a snail. We also enjoyed running up, down and along the top of the hill, using the swings and hammocks, den building and mixing up mud and water to make hot chocolate. 

This coming week we are going to be learning about ‘Lunar New Year’, which date changes each year. This year it is held on the 10th February, during the school holidays and is the year of the dragon. If your child/children has a story at home that they would like to bring in to share they are welcome to do so. We are going to be making some indoor, quiet but colourful fireworks over the next couple of weeks if you have any empty jars or clear plastic bottles please would you be able to bring these in too.

Many thanks

Hope you are all having a lovely weekend

Best wishes

Mrs Fenwick