Beautiful butterflies

This morning we were learning all about butterflies and something that's very special about them - the pattern on their wings is symmetrical! We talked about what this means and looked at some examples to help us understand. Miss Ayres showed us how to paint on half of a piece of paper and then fold it over to make a symmetrical picture! We then tried our own, either doing patterns or a butterfly.

We also had some butterfly templates to decorate, either by colouring or using sequins and buttons. We had to think carefully about where each one would go so the butterfly was symmetrical. Then we added straws for feelers and put them on lolly sticks to make them look like they're flying!

We used the symmetry tool on the iPads to create symmetrical pictures.

We also used the interactive whiteboard and decorated a butterfly, looking carefully at the picture we had to copy to make sure we chose the correct colours.

We also looked at some funny pictures of monsters - only half the monster was there! To see the whole picture we had to use mirrors. When we put the mirror next to half of the monster, we could look in the mirror and see the whole picture.

We also explored size with our butterfly puzzle. To fit the pieces in you have to make sure the smallest one goes in first, and then the next smallest - if you don't put them in in the right order they won't all fit!

In maths we continued to explore symmetry and worked together to put coloured stacking counters on a butterfly picture.

Sharing our learning in a class assembly

This morning we shared some of our recent learning in an assembly in front of the whole school and lots of parents. It can be really scary to stand up in front of a lot of people (especially when you're only 3, 4 or 5 years old!) and we all did a terrific job.

We told everyone about our visit to the farm and Harrison, Jack, Fallon and Luke read their recounts. Some of us showed pictures we had made of lambs and Leo and Dexter showed some of our photos. We also told everyone that we had been learning about how other animals grow and Emily, Summer and Fallon showed their terrific models of giraffes and zebras. Finally we told everyone about our learning this week - all about the Very Hungry Caterpillar and the life cycle of butterflies!

Well done everyone in Nursery and Reception :-)

Litter picking!

This morning it was a beautiful sunny day and lots of us were playing outside. We were using our 'grabbers' to pick up some leaves when we found some litter - rubbish that had found its way onto our playground. We talked about what we could do and decide we should pick it up and put it in the bin. Since there aren't any bins outside, Mylo thought we should get a plastic bag to put the rubbish in, which he did.

After that some of us were very busy picking up litter from the playground. We talked about how some people drop rubbish and how it can make places like the countryside look very untidy, which makes us feel sad. We can try hard to make sure we always put our rubbish in the bin and encourage other people to do the same. We were being very responsible this morning (this month's school value) in tidying up and making the playground look even better - well done to all the litter pickers in Nursery and Reception!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

This week we are learning all about life cycles and we are beginning the week by learning how caterpillars turn into butterflies.

To help us learn this we read the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar and did lots of activities to help us learn the story as well as developing some of our other skills.

We used sequencing cards to get the story in the right order. We had to use our reading skills to help us and look at the book to check we had things in the right order. Doing this also helped us practise our counting and develop our understanding of the days of the week!

We practised our number recognition and ordering using caterpillars with numbers on.

We took turns and waited patiently as we played our Very Hungry Caterpillar game. To know how to play we had to listen carefully to instructions and we had to make sure we waited until it was our turn.

We did some writing about what happens in the story or what we know about caterpillars and butterflies.

We matched picture cards with the food the caterpillar eats with the right day of the week. We had to look in the book to make sure we had got it right.

We used our fine motor skills as we manipulated the playdough to make different things including a leaf, legs for the caterpillar, a cocoon and wings for the butterfly.

Check back later in the week to find out what we learn about butterflies and see some of our beautiful butterfly pictures!

Exploring the natural world

This afternoon we were learning the Creation story and talking about all the wonderful things in the world that God has made. After reading the story we used sequencing cards to help us retell the story - good practice of ordinal numbers! Then we went outside to see what things we could see that God made. We saw lots of things, including: the sun, the sky, trees, flowers (there are daffodils in the bark area that are starting to grow!), grass, birds, a squirrel and people.

Back in the classroom we chose something that God has made that we really like and thought of some ways we could describe it, such as "twinkling stars" or "the golden, shining sun." We all drew a picture of something we like and wrote a descriptive caption to go with it. We also talked about ways we can take care of the world God has made for us, such as not dropping litter, taking care of animals and being kind to people.

Here are our descriptive captions:

"A climbing monkey" - Blue

"A bright moon" - Harry

"Shining yellow sun" - Charlie

"Soft sheep" - Finlay

"Black horse" - Tommy

"Soft cat" - Olivia

"Funny dog" - Summer

"Beautiful butterfly and nice smelling flowers" - Lucy

"Soft fluffy clouds" - Harrison

"Kind giraffes" - Fallon

"Soft donkey" - Emily

"Green fern and lovely squirrel" - Jack

Creating animals

This morning we were challenged to create an animal, using whatever materials we wanted! We could make a model, draw a picture, use chalks, paints... or anything else we could think of! We had to think carefully about what our animal looked like so we could get the right colours and patterns, the right number of legs, the right kind of tail (or no tail at all!). We talked about where we could look for the information if we weren't sure and decided we could either look in books or use the internet (on the whiteboard or using iPads). We really had to use our thinking skills when making our animals to decide what the best material to use would be, what tools would work best, how we could do something if our first try didn't quite work out... we were very busy planning and making!

Animals and their babies

This week we are learning all about animals and how they grow. This morning we were learning about how animals change from babies to adults, including the different names for baby animals and how they look different to their parents.

We sorted some picture cards and matched the mothers with their babies. Some of the words for animal young we knew, such as puppy, kitten and lamb, but some words were new to us, like fawn (a baby deer) and kid (a baby goat).

We talked about how the babies looked different to the adults. With some animals they look quite similar, just smaller, but with some animals they are quite different.

"The chick is a different colour to the chicken, and the chicken has red on its face and the chick doesn't." (Fallon)

"The big goat has horns and the little one doesn't." (Luke)

"The butterfly has wings and the caterpillar doesn't." (Paul)

"A tadpole doesn't have legs and a frog does." (Dexter)

"This one's big and that one's little." (Tommy)

"They're different sizes." (Finlay)

"The mummy sheep has more fur." (Amber)