Unicorn Class Blog                     Term 3 Week 5                         Week Commencing 3rd February 2025

There has been great excitement in the Unicorn Class this week with our birds in winter theme.

We made bird cake for the birds because we found out it is harder for birds to find food in the winter because the ground is hard and the fruit comes off the trees in the autumn. We decided to make bird cake for the hungry birds. We broke up pieces of bread, carefully used a knife to cut up apples, and we scooped bird seed and raisins into the bowl. Next we used some of our senses to explore the lard that we were going to add to the bird cake. When we touched it we thought it felt “It feels smooth”, “Smooth like butter”, “Cold and silky” and “Sticky”. Some of us said, “It looked like butter but white”, “It looks like ice-cream”. Some of us liked the smell, whilst others did not like it. We needed to put it in the microwave before we could add it to our bird cake mixture. We were curious as to what it would looks like after going in the microwave and we made predictions such as, “I think it’s going to melt and look like a vanilla milkshake.”, “I think it’s going to turn runny like honey.”, “I think it is going to look like water.” When it came out of the microwave it was very hot so we did not touch it but noticed it had changed, we made observations such as “It’s changed, it’s runny like honey”, “Look! The lard has changed colour, it is not white anymore it is yellow.”, “It’s melted like ice”, “It’s stinky, I don’t like that smell.”, “Look, it’s turned into a yellow liquid.” Mrs Fenwick carefully tipped the melted lard into the big mixing bowl and we took it in turns to carefully mix up the ingredients. We then put the ingredients into yogurt pots. When the bird cake had set in the pots we carefully took it outside and hung them on the trees and bushes for the birds. We made some binoculars to go bird spotting, we noticed when we looked out the window a cheeky hungry squirrel had knocked down the bird cake and was having a feast. We spotted a robin on a branch close by waiting for the squirrel to move away before it flew down to enjoy eating the bird cake. A hungry pigeon enjoyed eating the bird cake too. We loved looking through our binoculars and ticking off the birds we spotted. We went to the walled garden with our binoculars and looked for birds. We looked at photographs and videos of birds and made our own bird pictures with concertina wings by folding the paper.

Outside we have loved looking for and spotting birds, playing the Gingerbread man, climbing and swinging from the bars, playing the floor is Lava, using the scoops and ball, using the large blocks to make roads, making dens, using the balance bikes and playing hide and seek. 

We have loved listening to and discussing books, this week, ‘Pink Lion’ by Jane Porter was very popular. It was about a lion whose Mummy and Daddy were flamingos. This story led to discussions about whether flamingos fly, we discovered they do fly not like penguins and ostriches who are birds but cannot fly.

During phonics this week we have continued to enjoy looking at and noticing rhyming. We used the rhyming discs in the bird seed and spotting rhyming words in nursery rhymes. We are continuing to learn the words and actions to our Alphabet chant. We have been learning the letters ‘i’ (Imagine itchy insects) and ‘n’ (Ned is near the net). The patter we use when writing the grapheme ‘i’ is ‘Down the insect, lift and dot’ and ‘n’ is ‘From head to toe and over the net.’ We practiced writing ‘i’ and ‘n’ letters in the bird seed, using chalks, pens, pencils and our magic fingers.  

Our maths focus this week has been exploring shape and describing the properties of shapes such as corners, sides, pointy, flat, round and straight. We have been on shape hunts in our environment, shape detectives, used the tap tap to make pictures, used pre-cut shapes to make bird pictures. The shapes were also used to make a camper van, rockets, sandwich, houses and a recycle truck. 

During our hall time we did our traffic light game, we used scarves and ribbons to pretend we were flying birds, we pretended the plastic discs were our nests and eggs and we played ‘Duck, duck, goose!

This week we have also enjoyed using the Duplo, Lego, drawing, playing in the home corner, Looking at books in the cosy area, joining in with action songs such as ‘Head, shoulders, knees and toes’, ‘Dingle Dangle Scarecrow’ and  ‘Sleeping bunnies’.

Next week we will be having a valentines theme which will include decorating hearts, threading and making cards. We will also continue a bird's in winter theme, 

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

Best wishes

Mrs Fenwick