Unicorn Class Blog                     Term 3 Week 4                       Week Commencing 29th January 2024

There has been great excitement this week in the Unicorn Class as we were learning about Chinese New Year, also known as Lunar New Year or the Spring Festival. We learnt that the date changes from year to year depending on the first new moon of the lunisolar calendar. This year it is on the 10th of February, this is when we will be on our school holiday. We enjoyed listening and discussing the Chinese Zodiac story of the great race and how the 12 animals got a year named after them. We learnt that this year it is the year of the dragon. We enjoyed using the small world to recall the key characters and events. On the playground we had fun taking part in a range of races. Also playing ‘What’s the time Mr Dragon?’. We enjoyed learning about how different families celebrate Chinese New Year, such as cleaning and decorating their homes, getting together with family and friends, having special meals, giving red money envelopes and sometimes presents. Some children made comments comparing this to Christmas celebrations. We watched with fascination the parades showing dragon dancing. We then used boxes, paint and collage materials to make dragon’s heads, so that we could do our own dragon dancing. Some children used junk modelling material, tape and pasta to work out how to make their own instruments. We took it in turns to wear the dragon’s head, be the dragon’s body by being under the sheet and playing the musical instrument. We tried some Chinese food, most of us enjoyed the prawn crackers best. We explored using chopsticks in the home corner and with noodles in the tuff spot tray. We used our senses to explore some Chinese artefacts. The spin rattle drum and fan were very popular, we were good at taking turns using them. Some of us used oil pastels to draw some of the artefacts. We made Chinese lanterns to decorate our classroom.

We have explored and been particularly curious about different forces this week. We were interested in the magnetic force whilst doing a range of activities such as using the brio trains, magnetic shapes, magnets and the magnetic clothes to dress the children in the pictures.

We were also interested in the sinking and floating force, wondering why the colourful (plastic) spoons floated and metal spoons sank. The metal bowl floated until it was filled with water and the metal bowl with holes in (the colander) sank. The Numicon pegs that had one hole also sank even though they were made of plastic the same material as the spoons that floated. We enjoyed collecting the pegs in our bowls and watching them sink to the bottom of the water tray.

We enjoyed preparing and eating a delicious fruit salad using melon, apples, strawberries and bananas. 

During Forest school this week we enjoyed climbing a tree, making it into a pirate ship and den. We enjoyed using different natural materials to make patterns in the playdough and decorating pebbles. We used the mud kitchen and leaves to make a special feast. We loved exploring pheasant feathers and then enjoyed taking turns to hide and find the feathers. We were interested in bird spotting, we noticed and enjoyed watching 3 pigeons flying onto and walking on one of the trees. We noticed that most of the bird cakes we made have been eaten now. We noticed that the mud was softer and found a worm on top of the ground. We also discovered some squirrels climbing up and around trees. We used toy woodland animals to make homes, stories and play hide and seek.

We have continued to enjoy exploring rhyming, we discovered lots of rhyming in books and noticed that lots of the rhyming words had the same ending sounds. We have been continuing to practise writing our names on our pictures and creations. We have been learning the alphabet chant from Success for all phonics, and have focused on the ‘s’ and ‘a’ following the programme. 

This week we have explored finding different ways to represent amounts, for example whilst singing number songs we used children and our fingers to represent the amounts in the songs. We used numbered tangerine pots to explore different ways to represent the amount on the pot such as by using Numicon pieces, tangerines, five frames, dice frames and pegs.

We have continued to enjoy constructing using Stickle bricks, Duplo, Brio and wooden blocks to make a range of models. For one model we used wooden blocks and worked together to make a stable for the horses to go in next to the castle. 

This coming week we will be continuing to learn about ‘Lunar New Year, Shrove Tuesday (pancake day) and valentines day. 

We will be making our Special quiet and beautiful indoor fireworks. If you have any empty clear plastic bottles please can you bring these in.

Many thanks

Hope you are all having a lovely weekend. 

Best wishes

Mrs Fenwick