Spicy art!

Today we have been exploring herbs and spices. We explored and smelt some different herbs and spices on the discovery table and on the Busy Fingers table we were challenged to pick up some peppercorns with tweezers and move them from one pot to another!

On the creative table we were making spicy pictures! We mixed some herbs and spices, like caraway seeds and paprika, into our glue. We spread the glue onto our pieces of paper and then stuck on lots of other herbs and spices such as peppercorns, coriander seeds and fennel seeds. We explored the colour and texture of our pictures, and of course the wonderful smells! Emily was very keen on making spicy pictures and made two!

This morning we also had a new mystery smell to guess on the discovery table (it was ginger), scented playdough (it smelt of mint!), apple-scented bubble bath in the water tray and scented paint to paint with. We've also started making some beautiful flower pictures that really smell of flowers!

Run, run, as fast as you can..!

This afternoon we have been learning how to retell a story. Can you guess which story it was..?

It was The Gingerbread Man! We retold the story and all joined in with the repeated phrase, "Run, run, as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!"

We worked together and followed a recipe to make our own gingerbread men. We used special cutters so our gingerbread men were either missing an arm, a leg or a head!

We also did lots of other activities this afternoon to support our understanding of the story. We made masks and puppets from the story, designed and cut out our own gingerbread men, practised our pencil control by making patterned gingerbread men and practised retelling the story.

Can you work out which sense we are learning about this week?

Here are some clues...

We said the syrup in our gingerbread men smelt sweet - we all liked it! Most of us liked the smell of the ginger. When the gingerbread men were cooking, we could smell them - and they smelt delicious!

Yes, this week we are learning all about smell! Check back throughout the week to see what other exciting things we are doing and learning as we explore the sense of smell!

Exploring rhyming words and poetry!

This week we are learning all about the sense of hearing. Today we have been learning to hear and say rhyming words through lots of different activities! We've been finding rhyming pictures in a puzzle (including a wizard with a lizard, a moon with a spoon and a king on a swing!), singing nursery rhymes, playing a rhyming game on the whiteboard, matching rhyming pictures and reading some rhyming stories!

This afternoon Reception learnt a poem called What Can I Do? It goes like this:

What can I do?

Do, do, what can I do?

I can do so much.

Do, do, what can I do?

Why don’t you come and watch?

Watch me, watch me, watch me…

Jump!

Jump! Jump! Jump!

Watch me, watch me, watch me…

Run!

Run! Run! Run!

Watch me, watch me, watch me…

Wiggle!

Wiggle! Wiggle! Wiggle!

Do, do, what can I do?

I can do so much!

We added actions to our poem and said it several times until we could recite it off by heart. Then we made up our own version of the poem. To do this we had to think of different things we could do and put them in the poem in the right place. This is our finished poem!

What can I do?

Do, do, what can I do?

I can do so much.

Do, do, what can I do?

Why don’t you come and watch?

Watch me, watch me, watch me…

Stretch!

Stretch! Stretch! Stretch!

Watch me, watch me, watch me…

Walk!

Walk! Walk! Walk!

Watch me, watch me, watch me…

Stomp!

Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!

Do, do, what can I do?

I can do so much!

In Play and Learn time Fallon worked really hard on writing her own rhyming poem about animals. This is Fallon's poem:

Goat on a boat

Dog on a log

Cat on a mat

Great rhyming words Fallon, and brilliant use of phonics to sound out all the words. Well done!

What can you hear?

This week we are learning all about the sense of hearing.

So far we have discussed what makes a good listener, explored lots of different sounds on the discovery table and guessed every day what has been in our mystery box! Yesterday it was pasta and today most of us thought it was a ball - we could hear it rolling inside the box! When we opened the box, we saw that it was a marble!

Today we also played a listening game where we had to identify different sounds. After listening carefully we shared our ideas about what we had heard. Things we heard included a duck quacking, a guitar being played (well done to Dexter, who identified this straight away), someone skipping with a skipping rope, a lamb and ocean waves.

All this week we are going to be practising our listening skills. What sounds can you hear around you?

Colour changing flowers!

On Wednesday we started an experiment to see what happens to white flowers when you put them in coloured water.

We have been using our sense of sight and our observation skills to see what changes occur. What we've seen is that the flower in the clear water hasn't changed colour, but the others have! We now have red, green and blue flowers in our classroom!

On Wednesday we drew a picture of our experiment showing what the flowers looked like when we first put them in the water. Fallon also added some labels to her picture.

This afternoon we have been looking at our flowers and thinking about the changes we have seen. We drew a picture of what the flowers look like now and thought of a sentence to describe what we have seen. Some of us tried to write the sentence ourselves.

We have learnt that a plant will drink up water through its stem and this water goes into the petals. If the water is coloured, the petals will change colour too! We have also learnt that some changes don't happen straight away - you have to be patient, wait, and keep checking until you see a change!

We have kept some of the flowers we didn't use for our experiment in our classroom. What do you think will happen to them? How will they change?

Observing in science

On Wednesday afternoon Reception began a scientific experiment to find out what happens to white flowers if you put them in coloured water.

First we looked at the flowers and talked about our knowledge of flowers. We could name some parts of the flowers, like petals and leaves, and we knew that flowers need to be put in water.

We had white roses and white chrysanthemums and we put them in separate bottles. Then we added either blue, red or green food colouring. For each flower we left one bottle with clear water in.

We talked a lot about what we thought might happen. Some of us thought the flowers would grow, some of us thought the stem might change colour and some of us thought the petals would change colour. We also talked about how we will know what has happened - we are going to have to use our sense of sight to observe the flowers over time to see what happens!

We drew a picture of our experiment - we'll use this on Friday to compare to our results so we can clearly see what has happened to our flowers!

By the end of the afternoon, the edges of the petals of the flowers in the blue water had started to turn blue!

This morning we were very excited to see that the flowers in the blue, red and green water have all started to change colour!

We're going to keep watching our flowers - check back on Friday to see what they look like!

Colours and Patterns

Today we have been using our sense of sight to explore colours and patterns.

This morning we looked at and sorted lots of different things by colour.

We talked about what would happen if we mixed colours together. Dexter said that "if you mix blue and yellow it makes green" and Amber said that "red and white makes pink". But how could we test this out? Could we mix a red feather with a white piece of paper and make something pink? No! Luke said we could use coloured cellophane and several people said we could use paint. We decided to explore mixing colours using paint! We had lots of ideas about what would happen when we mixed other colours together - we thought purple and pink would make lilac, purple and green would make blue and red and green would make brown. We explored lots of colour mixing this morning using paints, chalks, cellophane and our colour paddles!

We learnt that red and yellow makes orange, red and blue makes purple and blue and yellow makes green. We could also make lots of different colours and different shades by adding more colours! Do you think adding white would make a colour lighter or darker?

This afternoon we were learning all about patterns. We read a story called My Mum and Dad Make Me Laugh, all about a boy whose mum and dad like to wear really patterned clothes! We made patterns using counters, threading beads and multilink and played a game on the iPad where we had to sort the different coloured objects and complete the pattern. We also made some patterned collages with animal print patterns and shapes and made some lovely pictures of the colourful patterned elephant, Elmer!

Using our sense of sight!

This week we are learning about a new sense - sight! This afternoon we have been learning how to look at things closely and carefully - it's easy to miss things if you're not looking carefully!

First we read a book called Shark in the Park. It's about a little boy who looks through his telescope and thinks he can see a shark! What do you think he can really see..?

We talked about looking at things carefully and observing. Then we explored a range of games and activities to help us practise looking carefully!

We looked at Where's Wally books - you have to look really carefully on all the pages to find Wally!

We looked at some photos of animals that are really camouflaged - you have to look really carefully to see where the animals are hiding!

We played Snap - you have to make sure you're watching the cards carefully or you won't know when to say SNAP!

We looked at some Spot the Difference pictures and some wordsearches - you have to look carefully to see what's different and to find the hidden words!

We also looked at things through the magnifying glasses and magnifying sheets - they make things look a lot bigger and you can see a lot more detail.

How good are your observation skills? Are you good at looking carefully at what you can see?

Making textured playdough

Yesterday we made some special playdough that was a different texture to our normal playdough! We made one with cous cous - it had a rubbery texture. The second one we made had oats in it and was a bit bumpy. We talked about the ingredients we needed for the playdough and helped to count out the number of cups or spoonfuls we had to put in. We had to stir the ingredients together to make the dough.

After we had made the dough we played with it. We used lots of good words to describe how we could change and shape the dough, such as push, pull, squeeze, squash, stretch, pat and roll.

In touch with nature

This morning we went outside to explore the school grounds using our sense of touch. We felt all sorts of things and gathered some things in a tray to bring back into school to explore later. We felt things that were hard, soft, rough, smooth, bumpy, prickly and bendy! Not only did we have fun finding different things, we used great scientific vocabulary to describe the texture!

Exploring materials

This afternoon we were exploring different materials and learning to name and describe them. First we took it in turns to feel in the mystery box and try to identify some things that were in there. We had to try and work out what it was, what it was made from and describe it, for example, whether it was hard or soft, rough or smooth.

When we had got all the things out of the box we looked at them and talked about the materials they were made from. We discussed what the things were like and why this made them good for what they were used for - would a chair made of paper be good? If your clothes were made of wood, would they be easy to put on? No!

We looked at items made from plastic, metal, paper, card, glass, wood, clay and fabric. We also looked at a stone and a shell and talked about what they feel like to touch. We had some labels with the names of the material on. When we had read the word we had to find the object made from that material.

In groups we explored some other items from around the classroom and sorted them into groups based on what they were made from. We talked about whether they were hard or soft, rough or smooth, bendy or strong. We also looked at some differences between the objects - we had a soft skittle and a hard skittle, which felt different, and we had a clear cup that you could see through and a blue one that you couldn't, although both were made of plastic.

In our Play and Learn time some of us played a sorting game on the board. We had to catch items as they whizzed by and sort them by what they were made of - wood, glass, metal or rubber.

How many different materials can you find in your house?