Inspired by the Big Garden Birdwatch taking place this coming weekend, the children were really excited to get outside and see if they could spot some birds! They thought about how they would need to stay still and quiet so as not to scare the birds away, and so made bird hides all over the outside area. They also noticed and read signs around the area, challenging them to spot robins and buzzards, amongst other birds that we might see in Little Hadham. The children in Ash class used their knowledge of digraphs, such as ‘zz’ and ‘ar’, to read words such as ‘buzzard’, and the children in Saplings are beginning to spot their learnt sounds within words around the environment, such as the ‘d’ in ‘bird’! Super sound detective work everyone!
Our busy fingers activities this week have been enjoyed by all, as they have been getting straight to work as they come into school. Next week, on Wednesday 29th January, parents and carers are welcome to join us for our busy fingers activities from 8.45-9.10. We will be focusing on letter formation and will be taking inspiration from Chinese New Year!
The children have also been exploring hills and ramps, following our P4C session all about Jack and Jill! We wondered what might have caused Jack to fall down the hill..? The children came up with some brilliant suggestions, from tripping over a fallen tree to slipping on some spilt water from the well! They enjoyed taking this inspiration and re-enacting the song in the outside area. Many of the children also extended this theme and took to exploring the effects of ‘slippery water’ on the ball ramps outside.
The children thought about how Jack spilt all his water whilst climbing the hill. They had to work out how they could make sure a bucket of water didn’t spill whilst they carried it up and down the hill in the playground, and all around. Together, they worked out that it doesn’t spill as much if it isn’t full to the top. Such brilliant and thoughtful links being made.
In maths, we have been investigating weight, using the comparative language of ‘heavier’ and ‘lighter’! It has been really lovely to see the children developing their own experiments and making clear predictions. Something that really blew our minds, was that big things can be light, and small things can be heavy! The children found it exciting to see the scales change as they measured the weight of different objects.
During our forest session, the children listened to the story of The Three Little Pigs and had the opportunity to create their own small houses for the little pigs. The children worked well together and talked through their ideas. If a building fell down, they were able to think about how they could improve it and keep it staying upright.
We were very lucky to have two children from Willow class read us a story. It was all about how some families don’t have as much money as others and we thought about things that we could do to help others, such as donate food to food banks. The children always enjoy listening to stories from the older children.