This week the children have been focusing on "minibeasts" for our Understanding of the World, the children have continued to learnt insects names, the children also began to understand where they might live, how many legs to has and if can fly or not too. The children have loved the topic of minibeasts as they continued to ask more and more questions daily.
In Literacy, the story book the children focused on was called "Superworm" by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. This book allowed the children to name a variety of insects and encouraged them to think about what will happen next on the story. The children knew spiders make webs and the honey/comb comes from bees too! It was a very lovely story to share with the children as we followed what happened to super worm!
In the small world area, the children continued hunting in the garden, looking for insects. We introduced some more insects and the children began to compare them too.
"Big butterfly" - Freddie
"This has wings" -Aurora
"I've found a bug! Worms live in the ground" -Hope
"The ant is hiding in the soil" -Rueben
In the construction area the children were encouraged to create an insects which changed daily to make from natural resources. The children created some fantastic bugs, the children counted legs, looked at the shapes and really thought about what to use! In the water area we had some frogs with lily pads and logs, the children were encouraged to use their counting skills to count how many are in the water, on the log or on the lily pad too! They also loved looking at the range of coloured frogs.
For maths, this week the children had a focus of ordering the numbers 1-5 in the garden or matching the number to quantity. We continued to do daily counting and matching to the numeral, this week we have counted the ladybirds spots.
Focusing on fine motor skills, this week the children have using their pincher fingers to peal stickers and place them around the snails shell, this supports the children's strength in their fingers, to make it challenging for some they were encouraged to use tweezers. This week, using the paint the children have also been stamping the insects to look at the patterns they make, the children enjoyed seeing the wings and legs of the bugs being stamped especially the millipede!
The children have spent lots of time outdoors too, we have been on a bug hunt where children worked together to complete the hunt! They ventured into our forest school area to find some more insects in their natural habitats. The children have also been very busy creating our bug hotel for all the mini beasts we have been learning about. The children have loved building this and watching it fill everyday! We hope we have lots of visitors to our bug hotel! Year 5 also took the children into the forest school to show the children where the bugs live, we found lots such as millipedes, earwigs, woodlice, slugs and lots more. The children enjoyed finding them in their own habitats All the children have really enjoyed the mini beast topic and have learnt a lot too!
