Week commencing 19th May
The Investigation Hub
Characteristics of Effective Learning- Thinking Creatively and Critically
Continuing with last week’s interest in fossils the children have explored using clay and tools to make prints. We encouraged the children to look around the classroom for objects which would make patterns. Later, we searched outside for patterns in the natural world, occurring on stones, tree bark and leaves. We then decided to make clay faces on the trees!
“You can roll it to make it flatter”
”The leaves made lots of lines”
”I made a smiley face with hair”
”I did make circles”
”I made it all flat cos I rolled it”
”Curly Wurly! It’s some footprints… big footprints”
Outside Learning
We took advantage of the windy weather and made kites! Lots of perseverance was required when sticking the masking tape onto the paper to fasten the string. Then lots of gross motor opportunities were seen in action as the children ran, lifted their arms and helped the kites to fly in the wind!
Some of our boys have shown interest in creating tracks for cars. They used balance beams and planks of wood to build a racetrack! This week, we also introduced a variety of ball games. We began with circle time, using a football to explore different ways of moving it—such as rolling, bouncing, and throwing. The children then used smaller balls to hit moving targets (bike tyres), which required a lot of hand-eye coordination!
Parents as Partners
We shared our core text “How big is a T Rex?” and had lots of fun singing the dinosaur song. The children were inventive adding in new verses, such as, the flying dinosaur goes “flap, flap, flap” The children have been keen to work on 2d shapes! We have been spotting shapes in the environment, such as clock faces for circles and doors for rectangles. Why not practise spotting shapes when you are at home? This is a fun opportunity to practise shape recognition and to talk about the properties of shapes (curved sides, pointy corners) In the Studio, the children explored further opportunities to explore shapes and patterns using paint and bubble wrap!
On Thursday, the children were challenged to solve a problem. They found trapped dinosaurs in ice and had to work out how to rescue them. First, they thought they could warm the ice with their hands but soon discovered it was too cold to hold onto for long. Then someone suggested “we need hammers!” and so we thought of something similar we could use to bash the ice with!
“it’s turned into an ice cube” “How can this open?” “It’s freezing!” “I can’t melt them” “That’s Spinosaurus!”
We are always so amazed with the learning journey the children create each week! Thank you for all of your amazing ideas Investigators! We have lots of lines of development to continue with after our break. A special well done to the children who took part in the Saltwell Park run today! Thank you for taking part with your family members, you have made us very proud!
Next week will be half-term for our term time children, we look forward to seeing you again on Monday 2nd June! Have a lovely weekend 🙂
