Unicorn Class Blog                    Term 6 Week 4                Week Commencing 24th June 2024

Wow, what a warm week, all of the children have coped amazingly. 

We had a seaside theme this week. We listened to ‘The Sea Saw’ by Tom Percival. This was an ideal book to discuss feelings of the characters in the book and our own feelings and experiences. We discussed what we may see and do whilst at the seaside such as seeing lots of sand, sea gulls, boats, splashing in the waves, rock pooling, making sandcastles, having a picnic, eating ice-cream, going on a boat trip. We also discussed what lives in the sea/oceans and what animals helped Sofia’s bear. We have had a small world seaside, that we have enjoyed using to make up our own stories and loved playing in the big sandpit pretending we were at the seaside building sandcastles and covering our legs in sand. One of the highlights was making real ice-cream and the next day sitting in the shade eating the ice-cream whilst having story time. We have also enjoyed using the pompoms, pegs, paper cones, tweezers and spoons to make different ice-creams. We used our great imagination to think of different flavoured ice-creams, to sell and buy. We did good counting of how many scoops we were putting into the cone. We also made different flavoured and sized lollies using paper, felt tips, straws and Sellotape. 

During maths we compared the sizes of the animals that helped Sofia’s bear and put them in size order from the small fish to the big whale. We also made comparisons with the different sized animals in the book, ‘There was an old Woman that swallowed a fly.’ This week we have enjoyed exploring the balance scales and used words such as heavy, light, balanced, same, weight, lighter and heavier. We were surprised that the big teddy giraffe was lighter than a smaller animal. We have also enjoyed singing and taking part in number songs.

During phonics we have been continuing to use the letter names and sounds on alternate days to say and do the actions to the Alphabet chant. We have continued to enjoy Georgie's gym. This week we have been practising writing the letters s, a and t using the ‘Success for All’ phonics scheme Letter Formation Cues. S- Left around, right around from head to tail. a- around the apple and down the leaf and t- down the tower, lift and cross. We have also continued with playing listening games, seeing if we can work out what is making the sound and have continued to enjoy rhyming books, games and nursery rhymes.

We shared the story of Red Rocket and Rainbow Jelly and then we started to make a class book of the things that each of us like.

I asked some children whether they could tell me about what they did when they went to Forest School this week to go into the Unicorn weekly blog that is shared with their parents. This is some children's excited responses:

“Libby sprayed water at us, we had water play, we played on the swings and hammock, we coloured leaves and made them sparkly.”

“Played with water, we made a big puddle with it. I played with the swing. Then we went back to school.”

“Eloise, Harper and I all played on the swing, the log swing, all of us. Zoe pushed us. We liked playing in my sister’s den. We played mummies, daddies and babies.”

“We went on the swing and me and Autumn kept falling off. We went in my brother’s secret den. We also went in my sister’s den.”

We have had lots of water and ice play this week to cool us down. We have loved using water to paint the fences and draw pictures on the floor. We painted different shaped and sized ice, exploring what happens to the ice when it is painted and started to melt. We only used red, yellow and blue paint but noticed we had made other colours too and as the ice melted the water in the tray was green. 

This week we have loved using the brio train track, we have worked together making different tracks, some of our discussions whilst doing this included, sizes of the track, the directions we wanted the track to go, where our trains were going, how many trains and whether it was fair. Some of us decided to use the timer to take turns with our favourite trains.

We have also enjoyed building with blocks and Stickle bricks, using the home corner, making patterns, playing seaside games, making jellyfish, drawing pictures, using the play dough, blowing bubbles, using the bikes, scooters and climbing frame, using our great imagination to pretend sticks are different things such as crocodiles, wands, brushes and small trees. 

We have also continued to practise our Sport’s day races. Sport’s day will be this coming Thursday at 9am on the All Weather Pitch for the Unicorn Class. Please see the email sent on the 18th June for more Sport’s Day arrangements.

Hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Best wishes 

Mrs Fenwick