Unicorn Class Blog                     Term 4 Week 3                         Week Commencing 4th March 2024

This week has been another busy and fun week of exploring.

During Forest school we were very excited to visit the pond again. We spotted the frog’s spawn but did not see any frogs swimming or jumping this week. We wondered when the frog’s spawn would hatch and we would get to see tadpoles swimming around. Whilst looking at the pond we noticed there were tiny little water fleas jumping on the pond’s surface. We also noticed 4 different sized snails inside the pond. We enjoyed using the mallet and hammers safely to put nails into wood. The rope swings and hammocks were again popular this week. Some of us chose to decorate a den to make it look more interesting, we worked together carrying logs and discussing where we were going to place them. We also enjoyed taking turns to climb trees.

On World Book Day we enjoyed dressing up as different characters from books. Marcie dressed Benjamin Bear the class travelling bear up as a Tiger from the story, ‘The Tiger who came to Tea’. We enjoyed playing and making up stories around our characters. We also had Rob Jones, a local author come into school to share his very long fold-out books, ‘Where’s Brian’s Bottom?’, ‘Who’s Tickling Tilly’ and we were very lucky to be the first children to see his new book, ‘Where’s Willy’s Welly?’ which will not be released until 23rd May. Some of us decided to be an author and illustrator too and we made our own very long books, our books ranged between books about jet planes, octopuses, families and long dogs.

Outside we have been using the balls to practise our catching, throwing and kicking skills this week. We managed to score lots of goals by throwing the balls through the hoop. Some of us even managed to aim and get it through 2 hoops, we found this more challenging though. On Friday all the girls in the Unicorn class took part in an England Football initiative with other classes to get all girls in schools playing football.

Outside we have also enjoyed riding bikes and scooters, climbing on the climbing frame, using sponges to clean some of our toys in warm bubbly water, making food in the mud kitchen and houses using the large construction kit.  

This week we have been discussing ways we can stay safe outside. We had the story of Little Red Riding Hood we then discussed talking to strangers, how she does not know the wolf should she be talking to him, is it safe for her to be on her own, should Little Red Riding Hood have waited until a safe adult was free to go with her and not all flowers are safe to pick. Over the next few weeks we are going to be Safety detectives and look for clues of things that help keep us safe outside and make a ‘Safety Detectives’ book. We have also been learning the song ‘Twinkle, twinkle, traffic light’.

We all enjoyed making Mother's day cards and weighing, mixing, rolling and cutting out Shortbread biscuits for our Mummies. 

We have been enjoying spotting rhyming in books and noticing and saying the beginning sounds of words. We have continued to enjoy learning our Alphabet chant, we have recapped the sounds we have learnt so far and have focused on the g and o sound this week. 

We have continued to use lots of maths all around us this week, for example we have been counting how many children are in the class, at snack time working out how many more chairs, plates are needed. Alfie even worked out when there were 6 children at a table and there were 2 big bananas left. How many pieces each banana would need to be cut into to make it fair. We have been counting out our steps whilst playing ‘What's the time Mr Wolf?’. We have been building tall towers and comparing their heights. We made families of worms and compared their lengths. Whilst making Shortbread biscuits we measured the ingredient using weighing scales and counted how many biscuits we had made. We have been using the 5 minute and 3 minute timers for taking turns. Whilst playing hospitals, doctors and nurses told their patients how many injections they needed to have. We have also enjoyed the story ‘Emma Jane's Plane’ by Katie Haworth and counting how many animals got onto her plane during her adventure of flying through different cities around the world. We used our fingers to show the amount on the plane. We have also done lots of noticing what we could see in the pictures of different books. For example, whilst looking at a nonfiction book about planes, one child said, ‘ Look! There are 5 planes, 2 planes in the air, one on the runway and look there are 2 there.” There has been lots of good noticing like this by lots of children.

 Next week we will continue with our journey and travel topic with a theme of people who help us. If you have any books about people who help us your child/children are welcome to bring them in.

Look forward to seeing you all next week for more exploring.

Best wishes

Mrs Fenwick