This week the children have been focusing on polar habitats for our Understanding the World, they discussed where animals may live in the polar regions. They all had a good understanding of this. The children were given a task to group the polar region animals and none polar region animals together and they all understood where they belonged. They began to look at 'camouflage' as lots of children observed that lots of polar animals are white. The children enjoyed looking at penguins and understanding that they huddle together to stay warm!
In Literacy the children read 'lost and found' by Oliver Jeffers, the children understood the penguin didn't not belong in a house so he needed to go home. The children also recalled from their knowledge from last week that penguins live in the South Pole. The story gave lots of opportunity for 'know more remember more' moments. We revisited the polar animals that we learnt about previously, which the children remembered (even the tricky ones!) The children are very inquisitive and it is lovely to see their interests flourish. They have all really enjoyed this learning topic this half term of 'Brrr... it's cold' and have found it very interesting. Our Communication and Language has continued through learning new vocabulary such as:
polar regions,
habitat,
camouflage,
huddle.
The children have explored further into the small world area with all their new and existing knowledge as they would name animals, habitats, noises and what they might be doing. The children remembered most animals even the tricky ones and reinforced last week's learning for some too by learning new animal names! It has been lovely to round the topic off this way to see them using all their knowledge being used in the provision.
In Maths the children have focused on size ordering from smallest to biggest using polar themed images, the children are very confident identifying the biggest and smallest but begin to get challenged ordering the sizes in between. Some children independently were able to order 6 pictures from smallest to biggest!! The children have had a big focus on subitising this Spring term so at multiple times of the day children are asked to be subitise on the spot. This has been working very well with the children to develop this skill.
In Expressive Art and Design children have used stamping brick outline to created bricks on an igloo the children all enjoyed creating these. The children now know animals don't live in igloos but people do! This week's fine motor skill has been using stencils to promote their pre writing shapes of a circle. This allows children to understand the motion they should be making to create it and using a range of pens and pencil to promote good hand grip. In the construction area children were asked to create a habitat for an animal to live, they were given a range of materials to use. This promoted open ended learning opportunities as the children could use their own imagination and explore freely.
For Valentine's day the children completed a range of activities from making love posions, heart decorating and making heart cookies (with playdough). The children shared who they love and reasons why, which was lovely to hear. They also had a valentines disco to dance and sing with all the friends that they love!
