This week marked the end of our topic on Polar Explorers and what a super exciting week it has been!
On Wednesday, Reception children had a fantastic time when they got to meet some real Polar Scientists! They organised some really exciting activities for us all to join in with. We held real Polar ice that had air bubbles in it which were a thousand years old! Observed and listened to the crackling ice as it melted, discussed pollution and flooding, built ice cores, tried on real Polar Clothes, shared information on Polar animals, created ‘Save our homes’ posters and even saw real cooking equipment and dried packets of food. There was a hive of activity and discussion across the three classes! One child said, “The ice melts because it is getting warmer and the water goes into the sea, then it gets higher and higher and places where people live get flooded!”.
We really enjoyed the story ‘And Tango Makes Three’, this led to lots of thinking about baby animals. We were keen to share our photos of us as babies with our friends and talk about how we have changed. Thank you to all those families who brought in photos, it is much appreciated.
Other learning this week:
– Learning the digraphs ‘ng’ and ‘th’
– An introduction to subtraction and creating our own number-lines’. 1-20
Next week is a special week in school. It is ‘Book Week,’ this year our focus is on the book, ‘Here we are’ by O. Jeffers. In Reception we will be focusing on Inuits. Learning about their lifestyles and comparing it with ours.
Other learning next week:
– Reviewing all the sounds learnt so far and focus on phase 2 & 3 tricky words (these can be found at the back of your child’s reading record)
– Continuing with subtraction
Rainbow challenges:
- Red- create a Polar character using Plasticine
- Blue- subtraction game- roll the dice and feed the Inuit the correct amount of fish from a bowl of 10 , challenge – write this equation e.g. 10-2=8
- Yellow- write facts about Inuits
- Purple- Create a soundscape
- Green- First design on paper a form of transport for Inuits, then use it to create a model using various construction. e.g. sleigh, a snow scooter.
- Complete your Polar Fact Book
- On Thursday and Friday each Reception class will engage in a creative activity which will be be used together to create our Inuit Character. e.g. pattern printing for the clothes, making fish and a fishing rod and finally creating Inuit art, looking carefully at the traditional patterns and shapes.
We wish you all a restful weekend!