Moon rock cakes!

This morning we made 'moon rock cakes'!

We learnt what a recipe is and that it tells us the ingredients we will need and the method (what to do). The recipe also tells us how much of something we'll need and we talked about how we could work this out. We agreed we needed to weigh the ingredients using the scales.

We learnt how to rub the flour and butter together using our fingertips.

Then we mixed in the sugar and the dried fruit.

After that we used a fork to beat the egg and talked about the different parts of an egg - the shell, the yolk and the white.

We stirred it again so all the ingredients were mixed together.

We took spoonfuls of the mixture and put it on a greased baking tray. 

Then we cooked them in the oven. When they were cooked we had to wait for them to cool down!

When they were cool enough, we ate them. They were delicious!

Here is the recipe for our moon rock cakes - why don't you try them at home!

Moon Rock Cakes

Ingredients

200g self raising flour

100g butter

75g caster sugar

100g mixed dried fruit

1 egg

4 tsp milk

Method

1.        Rub the butter into the flour.

2.        Add the sugar and the fruit.

3.        Mix in beaten egg and milk.

4.        Place spoonfuls of the mixture on a greased tray (they spread slightly).

5.        Bake at 200°C for 15-20 minutes.

How many faces?

This week we are learning all about 3D shapes. This morning Miss Ayres' group were learning how to describe 3D shapes. They don't have 'sides', like 2D shapes, they have 'faces'. To help us remember this we drew some faces on small pieces of paper and stuck them onto our 3D shapes. It was easier to count the faces and it helped us remember the vocabulary. We used full sentences to describe the shapes, such as "a cube has six faces" and "a sphere has 1 face." This also helped us to remember the names of the 3D shapes!

Phases of the moon!

This week we are learning all about the moon, and in maths we are learning about shapes.

This morning we talked about what shape the moon is and how it doesn't always look the same. Although the moon doesn't change size, it looks like it does because sometimes we can't see all of it. This is because some of the moon is dark sometimes and it looks like it's not there.

We learnt the names for the different phases of the moon - full moon, gibbous moon, half moon, crescent moon and new moon. We looked at a sphere that was painted half black and moved it around so we could see the different phases of the moon.

Then we used Jaffa cakes to show the different phases of the moon! 

We had to hold our Jaffa cake without taking a bite first, to show a full moon!

Then we took a bite and made it a gibbous moon. 

We took another bite to make a half moon. 

Then we took another bite and made a crescent moon! Dexter said it looked like a "sliver" - great word Dexter! 

Then we took another bite, and it was all gone! When all the moon is dark and you can't see it, it's called a new moon.

We looked at pictures of the different phases of the moon and put them in order, trying to remember the names.

Then we made the different phases of the moon in different ways. We used oranges and took some of the segments out - can you tell which phases of the moon we have made?

We used playdough to make the phases of the moon...

... and we cut paper plates to make the different phases! We could cut a plate into either two half moons or a gibbous and a crescent. Then we could put the pieces back together again to show a full moon!

We also used the phases of the moon cards to play matching games like Pairs and to order the phases.

Our challenge is to look at the moon next time we're looking outside when it's dark and see which shape it is! Can you work out which phase of the moon you're looking at?

One small step for man...

Yesterday afternoon Reception were learning all about the Moon Landing. This was when, in 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. We watched a video of him walking on the moon and talked about how it might have felt to be the first person to be on the moon - do you think he was excited? Nervous? He would certainly have needed to show a lot of this month's value, courage!

We found out that it took four whole days to reach the moon - that's a very long journey! We also saw on the video that the astronauts left a flag on the moon of their country, the USA.

We sang a song about the moon landing and what the astronauts found there, like rocks and craters and moon dust!

We also talked about how we know about the moon landing. Because it was an event in living memory, there are still people alive who remember it happening (but not Miss Ayres!) We also know what happened because we have video of it as well as photos.

Follow up work from our trip to the Gaddesden Estate!

Today we looked at all the photos from our trip yesterday to the Gaddesden Estate. We used them to remind us of all the things we saw and did and we talked about what we had learnt.

We explored the things we had brought back and used the magnifying glasses and magnifying sheets to look at them more closely.

We used pencils and colouring pencils to do some observational drawing of some of the things we had brought back. This means looking at it closely and drawing it. We thought about the size, shape and colour of what we were drawing.

Emily and Fallon also added labels to their fantastic drawings.

Adventures at the Gaddesden Estate!

This morning we went on an exciting trip to the Gaddesden Estate where Mrs Halsey kindly showed us around her gardens and let us explore!

First we looked at lots of exciting things such as leaves, conkers, walnuts, wheat and lots more!

We enjoyed running around and in and out of the trees!

There was a lot to see and explore!

We looked at lots of vegetables and had great fun digging them up! We collected them in our trug and Mrs Halsey let us take them home!

We sat down inside to look at and talk about all the things we'd seen and done and have a nice warm drink and a biscuit!

Mrs Halsey gave us some lovely pots with bees on (we saw some flowers in her garden that attract bees who make honey). We collected some things in our pot to take home and put on our discovery table at school.

We have all had a fantastic morning - thank you very much Mr and Mrs Halsey for letting us look around your lovely gardens and making us feel so welcome!