Unicorn Class Blog                     Term 5 Week 2                        Week Commencing 29th April 2025

This week we have been super excited about having real caterpillars in our class. We have loved watching them eat their food, sleep, grow, crawl to the top and have been fascinated by the silk that the caterpillars have produced. We have been wondering when they will turn into chrysalis and then butterflies. 

We were also very excited about having a real toad visitor. We were very quiet because we did not want to scare it. We were fascinated by the way it moved and thought it looked similar to a frog but had “bumpy bits on his back” and “crawled”. We found out that adult toads do not live in a pond but do lay their eggs in a pond like frogs. 

This week we have been exploring the life cycle of plants. As part of this we have been looking at the lifecycle of a sunflower. Sharing fiction and nonfiction books about sunflowers. Sophie told everyone, ”It is Spring at the moment like in the story”, Charlie stated that, “In the Autumn the seeds will come out of the sunflower when the sunflower droops and dies” and Freddie commented that, “Plants need water and light to grow”. We have been acting out life cycles of sunflowers and we each planted a sunflower seed, which we are very excited about looking after and watching grow. We learnt about Vincent Van Gogh, a famous artist and his Sunflower paintings. We then used watercolours to create our own artwork. We enjoyed a story, ‘Katie's sunflower’. Eliana shared her experience about going to an art gallery. 

We have also been learning about the life cycle of a bean. Some of us planted beans and the rest of us will plant them next week. We have also enjoyed the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, we have been acting out and retelling the story, discussing feelings, making magic beans, looking at different kinds of castles and homes and making castles and houses using junk modelling, magnetic shapes, blocks, Duplo and Lego. We also enjoyed working together to make garages and police stations. 

Outside we have loved using the balls to play catching, rolling and kicking games. In the sand pit we have enjoyed making different sized sand castles. We are all getting even more confident at moving around the climbing frame in different ways. The balance bikes have also been popular, we have been good at taking turns and sharing. Some of us set up roadworks, pretending the bikes were vehicles that needed to go around  different ways avoiding the cones. Playing schools was also popular.

During Forest school we had lots of water fun, making meals, drinks, puddles, looking in the pond, playing frogs and toads, climbing, using the hammock/swings and playing hide and seek,

During phonics this week we have continued to play rhyming games, used ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’ to do environmental and instrumental sounds and played Georgie’s Gym. We are continuing to learn the words and actions to our Alphabet chant. We have been recapping all the letters we have learnt so far and learning the letter ‘w’ ('Watch the worm wiggle.’). The writing cue we use to write the grapheme ‘w’ is ‘Wiggle down, wiggle up, down and up.’ We practiced writing the letter ‘w’ using our magic fingers in the air, using pencils and whiteboard pens. We also practised saying the sounds in words with these letters and breaking words down e.g. w-i-g wig and win w-i-n.

Our main Maths focus this week has been sequencing and comparing. We have been sequencing lifecycles and making comparisons between the size of each stage of the lifecycle e.g. The seed is smaller than the sunflower. Comparing the sizes of our buildings. Completing lifecycle puzzles and making patterns using magic beans.

Next week we will continue to observe our caterpillars. We are going to have a bee theme and as part of this we will be cooking using honey and making handprint bees. 

Hope you have all had a lovely long weekend and look forward to seeing you all this week

Best wishes

Mrs Fenwick