Fee fi fo fum!

What a wonderful week we have had in Early Years!

The children have really enjoyed our focus text – Jack and the Jelly Bean Stalk. We noticed that Jack and the giant had very different shoe sizes, with the giant wearing BIG shoes, and Jack wearing small shoes. The children enjoyed developing different words to describe these sizes, ranging from tiny all the way to enormous! We then enjoyed taking BIG footsteps in the role of the giant, and small footsteps in the role of Jack tip-toeing around the castle! Funnily enough, the big steps were also accompanied by big voices, booming out fee fi fo fum, watch out everyone here I come!

Ash class thought about the sounds they could hear in each descriptive word, as they wrote responses to their learning. Saplings were invited to explore their own shoe sizes, drawing and cutting around their footprints and comparing them to a giant one!

The children also really enjoyed their first official yoga session. They had been introduced to their ‘super sitting’ pose previously, and this time, they could practice it in the hall! The children did really well with their listening skills, following instructions and copying movements and poses. To close their practice, the children enjoyed showing the spotty ladybird just how still they could lay in their resting pose. With the promise that the ladybird would land on anyone who remained still enough, the children were highly motivated! Needless to say, the ladybird was able to land on all of the children, demonstrating that our self-regulation, listening skills and learning behaviours are all showing great progress.

In maths, the children in Ash class have been exploring weight, comparing light items with heavy items, and making predictions of their own. A discovery that a large seed pod was lighter than a small satsuma, caused a great deal of excitement amongst the children, with many of them being convinced of some trickery afoot! After some tests (and retests!) the children concluded that just because something is larger it doesn’t mean it would be heavier. Great detective work, I’m sure you’ll agree!

Saplings have been enjoying creating structures and patterns in maths, and loved building the bridge for the three billy goats to help them keep safe from the troll! This has led to some wonderful role play and narratives during choosing time, incorporating bridge building to fishing for the troll’s food!

During our PE lesson this week the children continued to develop their ball skills. They have been increasing their aim and target practise through learning to throw under and over arm. The children were able to watch their friends throw the ball or bean bag and say whether it was under or over arm.

The children were very imaginative during our Tales Tool Kit story this week. They created a story where ‘Mr Pig’ was as fast as a cheeter and out ran the Big Bad Wolf! They are getting so confident at sharing their ideas with their friends and exploring how to describe the characters with adjectives to add details to their story telling.

In Forest School on Friday the children enjoyed looking at the steam that was flowing due to all of the heavy rain. They also explored stomping and squelching through the mud! We found our favourite rocks and enjoyed making muddy potions with twigs and berries that we found!

Our Fairytale we enjoyed learning about this week was ‘Jack and Jill’.  The children had a brilliant time fetching the pail of water up the hill! There was lots of splishing and splashing as the water was carried along the line of children to reach the top of the hill. We discussed capacity and the children were able to say whether the buckets of water were full, half full or empty. We investigated what level of water was easiest to transport the water up the hill; the children all agreed that carrying a half empty bucket was best. Great investigation Ash and Saplings class!