Week 3- 17.3.23
I can't believe that's another week gone by in Pear class and what a busy one it's been!
In our topic work this week we have continued to learn more about Kenya and have spent time comparing the animals that we see in Alnwick in comparison to Kenya. We had fun looking at the Big 5 (lion, buffalo, leopard, rhino, elephant) and thought carefully about the environment in which they live and how this is also different to Alnwick and the landscape of the pastures etc. We even spent some time reflecting on learning from last half term by comparing the animals that live in the Arctic and Antarctica. The children had fun searching for various animals around the garden, sorting them into groups to determine where they live and then using construction materials they created their own environments for the animals.
Later in the week we read the story The Ugly five by Julia Donaldson. Although this didn't include the Big 5 we had learnt about earlier in the week, we noticed that these animals also live in Africa, in the same environment. Lots of the children noticed that these animals also had bright, bold patterns/colours on their body. We used this book as stimulus for drawing club where we invented our own ugly creatures! We had some amazing designs!!
This week is British Science Week and we were lucky enough to have Lucie Oxley into class to share some fab science with us.
We also thought about 'connections' in science throughout the week and we played some games of wildlife dominoes and matching animal faces together to make the correct picture.
We celebrated Comic Relief today with lots of red children around our classroom! We had fun designing our very own red nose which we hope you enjoyed looking at on our window display. We also found out about Comic Relief and what it is and what it means for people.
Our maths towards the end of the week focussed on finding out about 'tall', 'short' and 'long' and finding objects that were shorter, taller and longer all around our indoor and outdoor environment. We did lots of measuring using blocks, pencils and our hands.
Our 'Charanga' unit of ‘Our World’ continued this week and children listened and responded to 'Mars' from The Planets by Gustav Holst. We talked about how the music made us feel and had fun finding the pulse. We had fun singing 'Old Macdonald', 'Incy Wincy Spider' and Baa Baa Black Sheep. We then played along with 'The Wheels on the bus'.
In our RE activities this week we continued to find out about why Easter is a special time for Christians. We listened to a story called 'It is Easter time' and our Pear friend Tessa brought us some hot cross buns to try. We thought about the shape on top of the buns and if we recognised it or not. We then found out that hot cross buns are traditionally eaten on Good Friday, the day Jesus died. The cross on top is a ‘Jesus cross’. Tessa thought the bun was like the stone door of the cave.
Jigsaw this week saw us think about 'Food Glorious Food' with activities based around healthy eating. We sorted foods which were healthy and foods which weren't so healthy. Jigsaw Jerrie Cat raised his paws so then we paused and thought about the food we all liked. We thought about what healthy food does do to our bodies. We ended our session by singing ‘Food, Glorious Food’.
We celebrated 'Comic Relief' on Friday coming to school dressed in red from head to toe and donating £1 donation. We also designed some fantastic red nose characters for the competition- we hope you liked seeing them in our class windows. We made each other laugh throughout the day with our hilarious jokes!
We have also been doing lots of reading as always. Please do remember to bring in reading books and reading records each week. Your child also must have a set of spare clothes in a bag on their peg. We are running really low on our class supply of spare clothes due to non-returns. In this wet, icy and snowy weather your child may need a change of clothes so please make sure they have spares from Monday.
Many thanks,
Have a lovely weekend,
The Pear class team