This week in our Wise Wednesday community meeting we reminded ourselves of our new Science characters that are going to help us to think scientifically.
Next, we had some Science riddles to try and solve – look at how many scientific superstars we had this morning!
I wonder if you can solve the riddles? Have a go …
1 – With my powerful lens you can look at the stars, and spot the planets like Venus and Mars.
2 – I’m a type of energy. You use me every day … for light, cooking, computers and the music that you play.
3 – I am a gas that is found in the air. Without me, there would be no life anywhere!
4 – I am a precious metal mined from deep underground. I’m yellow in colour. In jewellery, I’m found.
5 – I am part of your body, with a very important role. Your voice, sight and memory are some things I control.
6 – I can be sunshine, snow, wind or rain. I change every day … people often complain!
7 – Plant and animal cells too tiny to see are magnified when you look through me.
8 – I am a liquid. In rivers I flow When I freeze I am ice. I’m called H2O!
Science is about understanding and making sense of the world around us. It allows us to be creative and curious, as well as being able to answer questions that we may have. To celebrate science week Year One have been planning and carrying out an investigation to help us answer the question âHow do flowers and other plants drink?â Weâve made predictions and considered how we can make our tests fair. Today with the help of our grown ups weâve worked together to set up our experiment.
We are excited to see what happens to our flowers over the next few days and to answer some of the questions we have been asking.
Which colour will we see first in our flowers?
Will the colours mix and make new colours in the flowers?
How long will it take for the flowers to change colour?
Crew Chadwick has enjoyed taking part in some great ‘outdoor crew’ sessions this week, led by Mrs Jackson. In our first session, the children enjoyed sculpting clay into different animals. Take a look at some of our creations…
Our number one rule in Class 1 is to be kind, therefore we loved our next crew activity. We got to make bird feeders for all of the local birds and hung them in our Norton Songbird Cafe. Within minutes of them being hung on the tree, a beautiful robin was already feasting away! Looking after nature is something we spoke about in our last expedition, ‘How do we show we care’. It felt great, carrying out this act of kindness.
Crew Chadwick would like to give a BIG shout out to Mrs Jackson for planning and resourcing such great activities. We loved it! Thank you đ xx
This morning in crew, Y2 have been thinking all about World Wildlife Day and what we can do to help the wildlife both in our local area and around the world.
Crew Goodyer have had a lovely week taking crew outdoors and enjoying some early Spring sunshine!âď¸ Mrs Jackson led our crew on Tuesday when we made some wonderful clay animals and this morning we walked around our grounds looking for signs of spring. Being out in the fresh air and sunshine is a great way to start each day.
in crew this morning, Crew Gate have been thinking all about craftsmanship and quality. Weâve been thinking of all the ways we can produce work we are really proud of. We spent our crew session praising our friendâs craftsman.
Nursery have been very âhoppyâ this week as they moved on to exploring the life cycle of a frog, continuing our âWe are scientistsâ agenda of our expedition. We began our investigations with a very engaging and funny rhyming text by Kes Gray titled âOi Frog!â The children immediately fell in love with the comedic main character Frog, who explored what a host of animals sit on, as he didnât want to sit on a log, as Cat demanded he should. Nursery enjoyed matching animals to their rhyming seated objects and have practised independently over the week, even sharing their rhyming with their parents in our family stay and play session on Friday.
On Tuesday after the children were hooked into frogs, we investigated how a frog begins its life revisiting some of our prior learning from both caterpillar and chick life cycles. We placed toy models of the varying stages of frog into our cycle. The children connected that the caterpillars eggs and frogs were similar in more of a bubble kind of egg, rather than a shell. As we moved through the stages, the children suggested their own movements of how we could represent the cycle. We then played a game of âFroggy saysâŚâ called out the stages and the children demonstrated their moves to embed their learning.
During Tranquil Tuesday and Thoughtful Thursday crew the children followed models of how to draw a tadpole and a frog. They independently had a go with fantastic results! Such beautiful work.
The children used their scientific knowledge, construction and creative skills to create an egg box tadpole or frog, as a choice in provision. They copied examples and produced some amazing models!
Even our Maths work was frog themed, as we have been getting better at counting to three, using careful counting (touch counting to check our thoughts). We sang three little speckled frogs and acted out the song, supporting each other to count in sequence. Next we considered if we had three frogs, how many lily pads would they need to have one each? How many tadpoles if each had one baby? And how many flies they would need to feed the mummy frog? Of course I threw a few too many tadpoles and flies in the mix to check the childrenâs understanding, but there were âno flies on themâ – the children could âtoad-allyâ see through my trickery.
Nursery then demonstrated and consolidated their understanding by counting out three frogs from a pond to a lily pad.
As a lovely end to our week we shared our learning with our families, playing in the provision during a family play and stay session. Mums, Dads, brothers and sisters, Grandmas, Grandads and Uncles all had lots of fun spending time and playing with their special little people. Thank you to all who attended and for all of your support, they were two beautiful sessions and we even squeezed in a demonstration of our daily Nursery Rhyme singing as part of our phonics!
This week is Childrenâs Mental Health Week, so to advocate for this Nursery have been taking part in some mindful and relaxing activities to help them understand how it feels to feel calm and relaxed but more importantly how they can achieve this in times of upset, sadness or anger.
In our Mindful Monday Crew the children took part in animal yoga. They worked hard and had lots of fun recreating the modelled poses and practising yogi breathing.
During our Wise Wednesday Crew the children talked around what they noticed about the faces of some characters on a feeling thermometer as we checked in. Some children said that the characters from 3-5 on the scale looked; âSadâ, âScaredâ, âFrightenedâ, âWorriedâ or were âCryingâ. The children then pop corned, what they could do to cheer themselves up? Some of our ideas were fantastic, the children said âGo for a scooter rideâ, âGet a hugâ, âPlay with toysâ, âBounce on my trampolineâ, âStroke my doggyâ, âRead a bookâ, âBakeâ, âWatch Blueyâ and âSingâ.
Nursery then took part in a carousel of four different activities, each lasting 3/4 minutes which taught them strategies of what they can also do in school and at home to help them calm, relax and self regulate. These activities were;
At the end of the session we all checked back in to share how the children thought the characters on the feeling thermometer would feel now, if they had taken part in the activities we had? The children said âhappy and calmâ, âexcitedâ or ârelaxedâ. The children then suggested which was their favourite activity – lots of fun and relaxing had by all. Great, powerful work Nursery!
It might be Mental Health Awareness week this week but we think it is important to understand and talk about how we are feeling everyday. We decided to make some bookmarks to remind us to think about how we are feeling and to ask others too.
