Blog 14 - 20th January 2023
In our first weeks back together we've been thinking about birds. We have begun to recognise some of the most common birds we see in and around our school grounds:
Robins, Blackbirds (we have learnt that the male and female birds look different,) Pigeons (there are a lot of these on our field) and Bluetits
We have talked about the key features that all of these birds have and this key vocabulary has been used a lot throughout the week:
beak
feathers
wings
claws
soar
fly
The children had a fabulous time on a bird watching trip to our big school field.
It would be great if you cold do some bird watching this weekend and use the key vocabulary detailed above.
Back in Apple Class, the children carefully made observational drawings of birds. They looked at the pictures and chose which one to draw. We encouraged the children to hold their pencil with an effective tripod grip (thumb and 1st two fingers) and then to make the shapes they needed for the different parts of the bird. So, for example - round shapes for the head and body, a long thin shape for the legs and a pointed shape for the beak. Many managed this really well and their drawings are becoming really detailed and mature. We asked the children to look closely at the pictures of the birds to decide which colours to use.
We had snow this week and we started to turn our attention to the birds in our garden and how they survive during the winter months - especially how they get their food and how we can help them out!
So with this in mind we made bird feeders! We did some research to find out what birds like to eat. We found that they love to eat worms, insects, seed, fats and berries.
We got some mixed bird seeds, lard, cheese and raisins.
We mixed them togetehr into balls and smoothered it onto a pine cone and place them around our garden.
To make your own bird feeders at home you will need: bird seed, cheese, lard, pine cones, and some string (to hang it up).
Start by smothering the pine cone in lard and then ask your child to help roll it in the seed.
Next, add the cheese to the pine cone and add some string (for hanging) and then leave them to set. Once set, hang in your garden. If you have a go at home we would love to see a picture on your learning journals.
To give our fingers a good work out this week, we've been threading! Initially we used string and plastic pieces and then towards the end of the week we used string and cheerios - to hang out for the birds to peck out.
On Thursday we had one day of reading and discussing the Christian story 'Noah's Ark.' This was to celebrate World Religion Day. Mrs Farrar firstly read the story to us as a whole group and whilst she was reading children placed wooden animals inside the wooden ark, two by two!
Once the ark was complete the children had their free play - which consisted of creating a huge ark in our outside garden - using a big blue sheet for the flood. The children had opportunities to cut and stick animals onto their own ark and were able to practise writing different letter sounds for the different animals (p for penguin, t for tiger, c for cow etc.)
Can we make a plea for you to ensure that your child's clothing and shoes are named. We had some tricky times this week when we were trying to match up similar shoes and other items which had no names in.
Have a very restful and happy weekend.
Mrs Farrar and Mrs Grimes