Unicorn Class Blog                    Term 2 Week 2              Week Commencing 11th November 2024

This week the Unicorn class were curious and interested in learning more about Diwali, Remembrance Day, Children in Need, jelly and clay. 

The Unicorn Class took part in remembrance day on Monday with the rest of the school. We all held 2 minutes silence, some of us in a class circle on the playground and the rest of us whilst watching a short animation to mark Remembrance Day. We all painted poppies looking very carefully at their colours. 

This week we have explored clay and made diva lamps using clay and tools to make patterns. We enjoyed listening to the Diwali story with Rama, Sita and Ravana, the 10 headed monster with 20 arms. We enjoyed making puppets to retell the story and to make up our own versions. 

We enjoyed listening to and discussing the pictures in ‘Red rockets and rainbow jelly’ by Nick Sharratt.  We talked about what we liked and chose our favourite jelly in one of the pictures. We had the opportunity to explore real jellies. While we were exploring the jelly, we noticed in the water tray that when you put small items on top of the jelly it wobbled and the metal spoon that usually sinks in the water tray was able to balance on top of the jelly. We thought the jelly felt very sticky, cold, soft and looked wobbly. We enjoyed using spoons to scoop it into pots and pretend the teddies were having a party. We made jelly by pulling the jelly cubes apart, putting them in the bowl. We needed to use very hot water to dissolve the jelly. We very carefully stirred and we were fascinated by the changes and commented that the jelly cubes were getting smaller and the water had changed to an orange colour. We liked the smell. We tasted jelly, which most of us thought was delicious, some of us thought it tasted like honey

We looked at a picture of the elephants from the book ‘Elmer the patchwork elephant’, photographs of real elephants and a picture of Elmer. Then we used playdough to make elephants, thinking about how many legs does the elephant have? Does it have 2 big ears? Does it have a long truck? We then looked to see how the elephants were different or the same.

During Forest School Libby showed us nests that she had found in her garden whilst giving it a tidy before winter. We were fascinated by it and thought it felt very soft. We discovered the birds had used twigs, moss, mud and hay to make their nests. We then decided we would like to make nests, we worked together gathering sticks, leaves, straw and feathers to make it nice and soft. We found some stones that looked like eggs and placed them in our nest. We also painted some wood slices and pretended they were eggs too. This week we also enjoyed making music, decorating leaves and playing Hide and seek.

We listened to a book all about fire, enjoyed discussing the pictures and asking questions. After hearing that sometimes firefighters use foam and powder to put out fires. One child asked, ‘What is foam?’ which we then discussed and after the book we explored playing with foam on the tuff tray.

During maths we have been taking part with number songs, looking at numbers, counting of objects and actions. We have particularly enjoyed playing the Spotty dog, Ladybird game and how many spots has Pudsey's eye patch got. 

During phonics this week we have enjoyed singing the song, ‘The wheels on the bus’. We have been learning about Onomatopoeia, words that sound like what it means e.g. swish, beep, meow etc. We have also been playing games with oral blending and segmenting e.g. Georgie’s gym, Everyone j-o-g (jog), everyone touch your b-a-ck (back), giving clues and children need to work out what the robot talk is e.g. What goes b-ee-p? (Beep- the horn) and we had turns at talking like a robot. Mrs Fenwick and Zoe have been very impressed with us. 

Outside we have enjoyed collecting leaves, they have been used for trick or treating, money, as pretend rubbish to take to the dump, they have been swept into big piles to make fires, homes and to jump into. We have continued to develop our skills on the balance bike and climbing frame. We have enjoyed playing pretend families, What's the time Mr Wolf and playing with bubbles.

We went to the hall and practised our ball skills; catching, throwing, kicking and finding different ways to carry the ball. We also enjoyed playing Duck, Duck, Goose!

We enjoyed using the pegs and boards to make colourful patterns. We used the Mobillo and Brio train track. We have also made trains using paper, tape, pens and glue. We have continued to enjoy using the dolls house and home corner to role-play families.

On Friday we discussed Children in Need and Pudsey. Some of us made Pudsey ears using paper, glue, tape and felt tips. We used pom poms and tweezers to put some spots on Pudsey's eye patch and made and coloured pictures of Pudsey.

Next week we are going to be exploring daytime, night time and nocturnal animals. As part of this we will be able to explore dark and light in the dark tent that children on Friday afternoon kindly helped to problem solve and start to set up. 

Hope you all have a lovely weekend and look forward to seeing you all next week for more exploring.

Best wishes

Mrs Fenwick