Unicorn Class Blog                     Term 3 Week 1                         Week Commencing 7th January 2025

All the children sound like they have had a wonderful Christmas. Children are settling back into school routines and we are lucky to have new starters who are settling in, building relationships and learning new routines quickly.

Wow, what wonderful winter weather to introduce our new topic ‘Wonderful Winter’. 

We have been using our senses to enjoy the snow and ice this week. We explored snow and ice balloons in the tough spot and we particularly enjoyed tasting ice pops, it was very cold in our hands like the snow and ice outside. We used winter playdough, little sticks and buttons to make snowmen, birthday cakes, hot chocolate and different flavoured smoothies.

We wrapped up warm and went for a winter walk to the walled garden where we enjoyed exploring the snow. We discovered we could make handprints in the snow as well as footprints. When we held the snow in our hands it melted and made our hands feel cold and wet. We discovered running in the snowy grass was great fun and some of us wanted to play the Gingerbread man. Some of us tried looking for animal homes like in Percy the Park keeper story, We discovered a hollow in a tree, a bird's nest and some holes near the trunk of the tree, we wondered what animals may live in them. We spotted a friendly robin who looked very interested in what we were doing. There were some long sticks that we enjoyed finding, comparing and carrying to put against the tree. 

We have also looked at close up pictures of snowflake patterns, then we made our own by folding a circle piece of paper and using scissors to make snips. We then enjoyed opening them up to see our snowflake. All the snowflakes were different like real snowflakes. Some of us decided to make winter pictures using collage materials, paints and glitter glue.

We have shared and discussed a range of wintery books this week including ‘Harry and the Snow King’, ‘One Snowy Night’ by Nick Butterworth and non-fiction books.

We discussed that winter was one of our seasons, what weather we may see in the winter and whether all countries have the same weather. We looked at different winter activities. Margot told us that in Poland it is colder and they have more snow. Oscar showed his photographs from when he went skiing and told us there was lots of snow, it was very cold but it was very sunny and bright. We also found out that in Australia at the moment it is their summer and warm so they are wearing different kinds of clothes from us. 

We enjoyed using the water tray with warm bubbly water exploring, pouring, using pipettes and pushing down on a dispenser to see the water squirting out.

This week we have also enjoyed playing families, looking after each other pretending to make food and drinks for each other. Pretending to go trick or treating and going to the library where Freddie pretended to be a special visitor. 

The magnetic shapes have been made into a train station for the Brio trains and trains track, hearts, houses, garages, boxes and stacked together matching the same shapes.

Our maths focus this week has been counting as part of this we have been singing number songs such as 5 currant buns and 5 little ducks went swimming one day. We also enjoyed playing the spotty dog game. We had to take turns to spin the spinner and then the number it landed on we had to find a dog with that many spots on, once we did this we turned over the dog to see how many bones we had got in the basket. We then counted how many bones we had altogether. We have also enjoyed playing with the number blocks train and sheep.

During phonics we have been playing listening games where we listened and worked out the sounds such as rain, tap water running and waves. We enjoyed doing the actions to the song Drip, drop, drip! We have been rhyming and enjoyed oral blending and segmenting whilst playing Georgie’s Gym. 

In the hall, we enjoyed playing traffic lights, bean bag games and Duck, Duck, Goose!

This coming week we will be continuing with our winter topic, we will be exploring the Polar Regions. On Tuesday we also have the Little City visiting our school.

If you have any kitchen tubes or empty yoghurt pots please can you bring them in over the next couple of weeks. 

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

Best wishes

Mrs Fenwick