Exploring the world!

This afternoon we did some geography and began to explore and talk about the whole world! We looked at the globe and learnt that our planet is called Earth, our country is the United Kingdom and the rest of the world is made up of countries, which are all very different, and lots of sea. We found the UK on the globe and talked about how small it is compared to many other countries.

We rolled the globe around in a circle and all pointed to a country that interested us. Then Miss Ayres told us some things about that country. We looked at countries that have sea next to them and countries that only have land around them.

Then we worked in pairs and looked at a picture of somewhere in the world. We talked to our partner about what the place looked like, what we thought it might be called, if we thought it was hot or cold, what animals might live there etc. Then we shared our ideas with the rest of the class and found out where in the world our photo was from, looking to find it on the globe.

Brianna recognised the desert straight away and said "there's sand, it's hot" and said there might be camels there. Emily and Fallon had a picture of the rainforest, and we talked about how some rainforests are being cut down and the animals are losing their homes. Olivia pointed out that the trees could grow back up again, but Miss Ayres explained that they take a long time to grow. Finlay and Harrison knew their picture was a cold place ("freezing" said Harrison) and Finlay said there was water under the ice. We found the Arctic and the Antarctic on the globe and talked about the different animals that live there, such as polar bears and penguins. Jack and Blue had a picture of mountains which they recognised were cold. We learnt that the mountain in the picture was Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world! Olivia and Harry had a picture of the sea and said fish might live there. Emily added some more ideas, saying "whales, sharks and dolphins." Tommy and Charlie had a picture of the beach. We looked again at the globe and how some countries have a coastline and some don't. Summer had a picture of the English countryside and we talked about some things we recognised as being from our country, such as the green fields.

Afterwards some of us made pictures of the different places in the world we'd looked at and we looked at our new atlases and all the maps of the world. We also looked at Google Earth on the iPad and zoomed in to see Great Gaddesden and our school! Emily and Charlie were also busy putting puzzles together, first a tricky one of the whole world with lots of pieces and then one of Europe.

Preparing for a bear hunt!

This morning we've been talking about things to pack when we go to different places, like what we bring to school, what we'd take on holiday to the beach etc.

We talked about all the different places the family visit in the story We're Going on a Bear Hunt and the different types of weather they face. We came up with lots of ideas of things we might need and found them in the classroom. We chose:

• long trousers for the long, wavy grass because "there might be stinging nettles" (Finaly) or "there might be thorns" (Emily) or the grass might have things in "that bite us" (Fallon)
• welly boots for the deep, cold river and the thick, oozy mud
• torches for the big, dark forest and the narrow, gloomy cave so we can see where we're going
• hat, scarf, gloves and a coat for the swirling, whirling snowstorm - something to keep us warm and dry!
• binoculars so we can look out for bears!
• magnifying glasses so we can look closely at other things we see along the way
• cameras to take pictures of what we see!

We gathered all the things and shared them out. Then we acted out the story on the playground, wrapping up warm during the whirling, swirling snowstorm, shining our torches on the ground in the big, dark forest and the narrow, gloomy cave and splashing and squelching with our wellies in the deep, cold river and the thick, oozy mud!

After that we used the welly boots to make patterns on paper by putting the wellies in paint and walking across the paper - the boots all had different patterns on the bottom so it looked different on the paper!

We're going on a bear hunt..!

This week our learning is focused on the fantastic story 'We're going on a bear hunt'. We have been learning how to perform this story and make it exciting for people to watch. We watched the author, Michael Rosen, performing the story and talked about what he did that made it a good performance, such as adding actions, using his face to make expressions and using his voice to show how he was feeling. We've been practising telling the story and tomorrow we are going to perform it for Mrs Comer - watch out for our video!

We've also been busy this week making binoculars to go on a bear hunt, making some swishy swashy grass from the story, making masks of the characters to help us retell the story, using playdough to create scenes from the story and exploring some snow, like in the 'swirling, whirling snowstorm' in the water tray.

This afternoon Reception also composed a musical accompaniment to the story, deciding which instruments worked best for each part of the story. After practising playing our instrument, we listened to the story being read aloud and joined in with our instruments at the right time to make the story even more exciting! We recorded our performance on our touch screen computer and then played it back, talking about what we liked and why and which bits were the most effective.

If you want to watch Michael Rosen's storytelling of the story, you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gyI6ykDwds&safe=active

Ben Bear's adventures!

This week Ben Bear spent his first week with children in Nursery and Reception and had a wonderful time with Jack and Olivia. Jack and Olivia looked after him all week and have put lots of lovely things in his diary - writing about all their adventures together, photographs and pictures they have drawn. Today they shared Ben's diary with the class and told everyone about the fun things they'd done.

Porridge, storytelling and lots more!

We've been really busy this week learning the story of Goldilocks and developing our learning in lots of ways based on the Goldilocks story.

We made porridge and learnt how to stay safe when cooking. We tried different toppings on our porridge, such as sugar, syrup and chocolate sauce. We talked about which ones we liked best.

We made masks and puppets of Goldilocks and the Three Bears and used these to retell the story,

We have also been learning about size. This morning we have been learning how to compare two things, saying whether one is bigger or smaller than the other, and how to order things by size, going from the biggest to the smallest or the smallest to the biggest. We ordered ourselves by height in our groups and practised the mathematical languages by thinking of sentences for our group, e.g "Jack is bigger than Blue," or " Reece is smaller than Harry."

Then we explored lots of activities to help us learn about comparing and ordering by size and using mathematical language to talk about size.

We had lots of pictures from the Goldilocks story which we ordered from biggest to smallest.

We had a small, medium and large puzzle. We fitted the pieces together and talked about what it was that was getting bigger in the picture. Luke was very good at using full sentences to talk about which were the biggest and smallest things.

We sorted the compare bears according to their size.

We ordered towers of multilink from biggest to smallest.

We sorted welly boots by size. We agreed though that when you have a pair of shoes they need to be the same size!

We used different sized playdough cutters to make small, medium and large playdough cakes!

We did a colouring challenge sheet where we had to colour the tallest thing blue and the shortest thing red.

We've still got more exiting Goldilocks themed activities ahead this week - tomorrow we'll be learning about high and low notes in music as we sing a song about the Three Bears and on Friday we're going to explore lots of different materials to see which makes the best bed!

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

This week we are studying the story Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Today we read the story and acted it out in the role play using different sizes of chairs and bowls. We talked about the different sizes and used the language big, bigger, biggest and small, smaller and smallest as well as medium or middle sized for the different bears' things. We did well remembering what happened next in the story and some of us are beginning to use deep voices for Daddy Bear or high voices for Baby Bear.

Then we explored some other Goldilocks activities, including listening to the interactive story on the board, playing a Three Bears game, doing some Goldilocks addition work and making some Wanted posters for Goldilocks. We've got lots more exciting Goldilocks themed activities planned for this week, so watch this space!

Teddy Bears' Picnic!

All this week we have been reading and learning about The Teddy Bears' Picnic, and today was our own Teddy Bears' Picnic!

We made teddy sandwiches and rice krispie cakes with gummy bears on to eat at our picnic!

We packed our food and drink up in a basket and got our teddies and some blankets to sit on. We also chose some outdoor toys to play with. Then we carried everything over to the penfold!

We sat on the blankets with our teddies and had our sandwiches, fruit and drinks.

We ran really fast in the teddy races!

Then we sat down and ate the yummy cakes we had made!

Then we played with the equipment we had brought over.

Finally we sat down to listen to a story all about a bear who has a picnic on the moon!

Then it was time to go - we packed up all our things and made sure we hadn't left any rubbish on the ground. Back in the classroom we talked about what we'd enjoyed best about our teddy bears' picnic. Some people said eating the cakes, some said the sandwiches, some said listening to the story, some said the races - Dexter said "I enjoyed everything!"