Unicorn Class Blog                     Term 4 Week 1                         Week Commencing 24th February 2025

This week we have had lots of excitement about our new topic ‘Wheels, wings or walking?’ We have been exploring different ways that we can travel around the garden and hall. We have enjoyed sharing the story ‘Rosie’s Walk’ by Pat Hutchins. We were very interested in listening to the story, looking at the pictures, and discussing what Rosie and the fox were doing on Rosie’s walking journey. We helped Mrs Fenwick to make a list of items we would like to include for our Rosie’s Walk display and then some of us drew and painted some of the items. We mixed yellow and a little bit of red to make orange for our fox pictures and yellow with a little bit of blue to make green for our frogs. 

Our maths focus this week has been experiencing and understanding positional language. As part of this we have made obstacle courses using tyres, we got behind them and carefully pushed them so that they were in a row next to each other. We were then able to climb over and into each tyre. We were able to step on top of each stepping stone and weave in between the cones. In the hall we went over and under benches, jumped on top of spots and through a tunnel. We used prepositional language whilst building with magnetic shapes, blocks, Lego and whilst travelling around the climbing frame.

During phonics this week we have continued to play listening games for example where we heard a sound of vehicle travelling and then had to try and work out what vehicle had made that sound. We then enjoyed watching the different vehicles travelling. We all agreed on the helicopter, motorbike, boat. We had different opinions on the sirens of the emergency vehicles  police car, ambulance and fire engine but we all agreed it was an emergency vehicle. We have also used our good listening ears to take turns to listen to a musical instrument that was behind a sheet and work out which one had made the sound. We are continuing to learn the words and actions to our Alphabet chant. We have been learning the letters ‘g’ (The girl is glad) and ‘o’ (The octopus observes olives). The writing cue we use to write the grapheme ‘g’ is ‘Left around the girl, down her plait and curl.’ and ‘o’ is ‘From the top of the head and all the way around the octopus.’ We practiced writing ‘g’ and ‘o’ letters using our magic fingers, pencils and pens. 

The water tray has been popular for exploring materials with similar and different properties, we talked about what we noticed such as when I push down on the pinecone it goes down then when I let go it pops back up and floats. We also pretended to turn the water tray into the sea with different sea creatures, plants and making up adventures for the sea creatures.

The food shop and café that opened up this week under the cover in the outside area has also been popular. We have been using the sand timer to take turns at being the shopkeeper, café staff and customers. I have enjoyed visiting the café, chatting with the café staff, other customers also visiting and we had some delicious food made for us. Some of us have been busy writing shopping lists of items of food from the café shop. 

On Thursday afternoon we helped Benjamin Bear sort out healthy snacks for a Teddy Bear's Picnic that he needed to bring healthy snacks too (Snacks that are good for our body). We discovered crackers and bread are foods that give you energy, cheese, yogurts and milk are good for your teeth and bones, fruit and vegetables are good for your whole body, meat and fish are good for your muscles etc. We found out that chocolate, lolly pops, sweets and cakes have lots of sugar in them and were put into the not today, a sometimes snack pile. Nolan suggested we put them on top of the high cupboards in the home corner to keep Benjamin Bear's teeth safe. We also discussed the importance of brushing teeth. 

We have enjoyed listening to and discussing a range of fiction books. Some of them included, ‘We're going on a bear hunt’, ‘Munch Crunch’, Peppa travels around the world and nonfiction books about vehicles. 

We have also enjoyed making enclosures for the farm animals to go into, feeding them and making up stories around them. Using the diggers and trucks in the sand and going on journeys in the big car

At Forest school it was a very wet windy Wednesday this week. We loved exploring the muddy puddles that the rain water had made, we noticed that when we jumped up and down we were able to make the boat move without touching it with our hands. Some children commented that it looked like the waves at the seaside when they jumped up and down in the big deep puddle. Some of us mixed the mud and rain water to pretend we were cooking. We also enjoyed using the rope swing and walking around noticing the changes since the last time we were there. We noticed there was lots of Snowdrops, some children commented about different places they had seen snowdrops growing.

Hope you are having a lovely weekend and I look forward to seeing you all next week for more exploring. We are celebrating World Book Day 2025 on Thursday 6th March. This year's theme is to Read Your Way celebrating the reading that your child chooses to do in their free time without judgement. Please find more information on the world book day website: www.worldbookday.com Children are welcome to dress up if they would like to and we encourage you to reuse or exchange costumes instead of buying new ones. Children may also bring in a book they would like to share.

Best wishes

Mrs Fenwick