Summer

Week 1

This week our topic has been to Explore and talk about different forces that the children can feel. 

We have been reading "Commotion in the Ocean" and have been practicing many songs such as "Five little fishes" ready to sing to our parents at rhyme time.

We have been using different forces such as pushing painted bubble warp onto paper to create patterns on our starfish. Dropping Lego from a height to observe gravity pulling it down. We have stretched, twisted and pulled playdough to make an ocean scene, showing how applied force can change its appearance. We have been wrapping wool around some fish templates, pulling it tight as we go. 

We have worked out that objects can not move on their own and have watched a car roll down a ramp due to gravity and pushed a ball to our friends using our pushing force. 

Our tuff tray contained lots of Goo and we used tweezers and nets to rescue the animals that were stuck.

Week2

This week our topic has been to explore and talk about different forces the children can feel. 

We have continued to read "Commotion in the Ocean" and learning songs such as " Marine Mammal Boogie song" which the children have found extremely funny. 

This week we created an Ocean themed drawing space under the table to encourage the children to mark make and draw the different Animals that they have been learning about. 

Within our role play area we had a Tea party with different Ocean animals, sharing our food with Jelly fish, sharks and Angel fish.

In our craft area we used cupcake cases and wool to create Jelly fish, counting the tentacles that we added along the way.

We used our playdough and coloured pasta to make our own versions of a coral reef, talking about the patterns we were making as we created them. 

We explored how different materials react to a magnet and discussed magnetic force.

Week 3

This week our topic has been to talk about differences between materials and changes they notice.

We have been reading "Sharing a Shell" and have been practicing many songs such as 1,2,3,4,5 Once I caught a Fish alive ready to sing to our parents at rhyme time.

There have been many fun activities this week, such as using a magnifying glass and our fingers to discover different patterns and different ways the shells feel. We have then used our mark making skills to draw a picture of these shells. We used the playdough to see if we could make a crab that would fit inside a shell, we added different materials into our small world area as we decided that all materials feel different. We used paper plates and water colours to create and decorate our own shells. 

Outside in our sand pit we created a beach role play area, adding beach balls, palm trees and buckets and spades to build sandcastles.

Week 4  

This week our topic has been to talk about the differences between materials and chnages they notice.

We have continued to read "Sharing a Shell" and learning songs such as "The waves in the sea"

This week our focus as been looking at reversible and irreversible changes. We have experimented by freezing water and observing that when it melts, it turns back into water which is a reversible change. When looking at irreversible changes we have mixed the ingredients together to make playdough, but realised that once they are mixed, we can't separate them back to our individual ingredients again. We also screwed up some paper, and tried to smooth it back out again, realising that we can not return it too its original state.

Within our classroom we have created an ice cream shop. Using paper to make different flavours of ice cream, we created our own money and the children enjoyed counting out their money to pay for their ice creams.

Our loose parts were used to create animals that we would find in the Ocean, such as making a Jelly fish from a large shell, stones and sticks. We were able to count the correct number of Shells to place in our buckets, matching the shells to the number on the bucket.

While outside we continued to enjoy our role play beach area, and used some of the sand to mix with glue, to create a realistic sand castle painting. 

 Week 5

This week our topic has been to understand that there are different countries in the world and to talk about the differences that the children have experienced or have seen in photos. 

We have been reading "Go Go Pirate Boat" and learning songs such as "A sailor went to sea" and "I'm a pirate" to sing to our parents at rhyme time.

During this week we have enjoyed looking at different maps and revisiting our past learning. The children are very knowledgeable about where different foods are grown and the different climate's that we see in different countries.

We have enjoyed many activities such as using tweezers to rescue the pirate's treasure and talking about and mark making phrases that we often hear from pirates. We have also made an ice cream stand, and the children have enjoyed putting in their orders, making and receiving their ice creams.

Week 6

This week our topics has been to understand that there are different countries in the world and to talk about the differences that we see.

We have continued to read "Go Go Pirate Boat" and learn songs such as the Weller man shanty.

This week we listened to some different types of music that we typically hear from different counties. We looked at and discussed the Maasai Tribe from Africa and were able to identify many differences in the way they live, to how we live.

This week we went on an exciting treasure hunt around the school. We found a treasure map in the classroom and the children followed the directions that the map showed, to find their treasure. 

We enjoyed many activities such as dressing up as pirates, making our own pirate/mermaid hats, making up our own pirate names, having a pirate picnic in our role play area and building a pirate ship in our small world area. 

When the children came in to school on Friday, they had to walk the plank across the room to be able to put their bags away, they children thoroughly enjoyed this.