The life cycle of a caterpillar.

This week Nursery have become Scientists by observing the changes that happen in animals as part of our first case study, through our key text The Very Hungry Caterpillar for a second week. The children have closely examined the pictures within our story to work out what the physical changes in the caterpillar are. An egg, a tiny caterpillar, a cocoon or chrysalis and then a butterfly. Some of the words used to describe the above were as follows;

Egg – “Circle”, “Tiny”, “Bubble”, “White”, “Spot” and “Dot”.

Caterpillar – “Tiny”, “Big, fat caterpillar”, “Wriggly”, “Green” and “Bumpy”.

Cocoon – “Like a sleeping bag”, “shell”, “like a stick”, “Wood” and “egg”.

Butterfly – “Rainbow”, “Beautiful”, “Wings” and “Flappy”.

Nursery read another text which focused more on the life cycle and explained how the changes take place called Little Caterpillar by Autumn Publishing. I then modelled to the children how to draw a life cycle to help embed the cycle in their minds and demonstrate it was a loop (cycle) that started over and over again.

In our provision the children had the opportunity to explore and examine toys representing the life cycle.

We consolidated the events that helped make the life cycle process possible by playing the fruit game. The caterpillar ate lots of fruit to be able to make him grow. The children had to listen and run to a fruit called out by their grown up as part of activating our brains, it was lots of fun!

The children also revisited their previous learning from the week before when they painted beautiful pictures of the fruit. They each looked closely at their pictures and chose at least one piece of fruit and (with support and modelling) began to write the first letter sound for that item using their phonetic knowledge. Eg; Banana – b, Apple – a or Strawberry – s.

In provision the children independently used collage to create beautiful pictures of fruit and the caterpillar at various stages. They also created beautiful butterflies in the play dough and on the painting easel.

As the week progressed the children each worked with an adult and explained the process of the butterfly life cycle using the toys as physical props to help organise and consolidate their understanding of the life cycle. They were each recorded and were able to recall key vocabulary and other significant events within the story. Such beautiful work!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

This week Nursery have been storytellers, learning to retell the classic story of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle. The children became active learners by using physical literacy actions to embed key vocabulary and events from the story. They used the prompts to help them recall and retell the story.

The children have examined the key character, the Very Hungry Caterpillar and have looked at how he develops and changes throughout the story. The children have used models to paint and sculpt their own caterpillars. They have used loose parts to represent the variations of the character as both a caterpillar and a butterfly.

During their Tranquil Tuesday Crew, Nursery sequenced the story events and talked about the kinds and amounts of food the caterpillar was eating. They thought about the emotions the caterpillar experienced in the story looking a picture cues and their own experiences. They modelled these faces to each other.

After gaining a good understanding of the key character the children followed an online tutorial to help them draw the Very Hungry Caterpillar.

In provision we have also painted fruits from the story using toy fruits as inspiration.

During our Maths inputs the children have been learning to count using “careful counting”. This is touching and using number names for each object they are counting. The children became problem solvers as they began to investigate how they could find out; “How many of each fruit were in a basket?”

First it was demonstrated to the children how to carefully count using touch and number names for each piece of fruit and then they modelled to their peers, leading their own learning.

In our Thoughtful Thursday Crew the children thought about the cocoon that the caterpillar wrapped himself in and we likened it to being inside a sleeping bag or wrapping ourselves in our coats. The children practised the life skill of zipping their own coats using their fine motor skills.

Finally the children finished the week by thinking about the Very Hungry Caterpillar at the beginning of the story and comparing him to the end of the story. They used some of the physical literacy prompts to help them recall the stages of the caterpillar and key sentences from the text. They drew the caterpillar at the start of the story as either an “egg on a leaf” or a “Teeny, tiny caterpillar” and then as he appeared at the end of the story as “A big, fat caterpillar” or a “Beautiful, colourful butterfly” as they began to further understand the changes which the caterpillar goes through in preparation for when they become Scientists next week.

Shrinky Dink

What a great way to end our week, we added our first vegetable to our keyrings. After a week of learning all about spinach, critiquing and redrafting our outwork we were finally ready to transfer our final drafts onto the shrinky dink paper. It was so exciting watching them shrink in the oven and adding them to our keyrings.

Expert Visitor

We had a visit from the school nurse this morning who came to help us answer our guiding question ‘How will I be the healthiest version of me?’ We enjoyed listening to the story ‘Peace at Last’ and talked about the importance of sleep to make sure we have lots of energy and give our brains and bodies time to grow. We got some great top tips for good bedtime routines and shared some of our own, it was lovely to hear how many children enjoy a bedtime story. Before we said goodbye to our visitor we made a pledge that we would all try and make sure that we turn our screens off at least half an hour before we go to sleep and remember that we all get a better night’s sleep in our own beds!

Green Fingers in Class 3!

We had fun during our family learning session this afternoon when our grown ups joined us in class to find out the title of our new expedition ‘Ready, Steady, Grow! How will I be the healthiest version on me?’ We planted cress heads and peas and can’t wait to watch them grow.

Family Learning

We were joined by lots of grown ups this afternoon. We were really busy planting cress heads to observe in our classroom. – I wonder who will have the craziest cress hair! We also made a pop bottle green house to take home and watch grow. We filled in the first part of our seed diaries too. We can’t wait to see the photographs of what you have grown on ClassDojo!

Thank you to everyone who came and joined us.

Mrs Parsons and Miss Tinker xx

Hook Week – Clue One

We kicked off our hook week recapping our knowledge of the parts of the human body. We decided our expedition must have something to do with the body and our senses …

Rockpool Explorers!

Last week the children had a wonderful opportunity to explore a real life rock pool. They were able to touch a starfish, hold three types of crab and stroke an anemone. We also learned some amazing facts, the children’s favourite being that the whole in the middle of the starfish is both its mouth and bottom!

How can we save our seas? ♻️

In our first expedition case study, children in the EYFS have been answering the question ‘How can we save our seas?’. To hook the children into this we completed a gallery walk looking at a range of images showing how plastic pollution is damaging our planet and endangering the creatures that live there.

I was amazed at how well the children reflected upon the images, articulated what they saw and how this made them feel. This was the start of a fantastic case study that prompted our children to become activists and make a stand against plastic pollution! Look at some of their amazing posters sharing the message to use our recycling bins to help save the seas!