Global Citizenship

This week was Global Citizenship Week and we have been learning about our responsibility for keeping the Earth habitable.

We based our learning on the film Wall-E.

Can you remember what happened to Earth in the story?

Can you remember why it happened?

We learned about what we need to sustain life on Earth and how we all have a responsibility to play our part. We had a discussion about what we could do to repair the damage already caused and stop us causing more problems.

Amelia~ We can plant more trees for oxygen.

Amber~ We can make more houses for bees because the bees make flowers grow.

Eli ~ We need to put the rubbish in the bin.

Keaton ~ We got to clean up all the mess on the floor, it keeps going into the ocean and killing all the animals.

Princess ~ We can use our bottles and our boxes again, like we do in the workshop.

Evie ~ We can recycle and use the recycle bin, just look for the sign on the boxes.

Some children painted and drew pictures of what the Earth might look like if we don’t start taking care of it, some children planted some seeds and we all recycled some rubbish to make our very own Wall-E.

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What have we been learning?
That it is EVERYONES responsibility to look after our environment.
That what we do impacts on other people and animals around the World.
That we can ALL make a difference if we work together.

Ramadan

Some of our community in Garnet class and the wider school are Muslims and spoke about how and why they celebrate Ramadan and Eid. The children in Garnet class wanted to learn more.

We asked one of our adults in class to tell us about her celebrations,

Can you remember what she told us?
Can you remember why Muslims fast?

We learned that during Ramadan which lasts for 28 days, Muslims do not eat whilst the sun is in the sky. We learned that they spend the time during Ramadan reflecting on their lives, thinking of ways to be better people and being thankful for all they have.

We learned that Muslims have a feast and a party to celebrate the end of their fasting. They cook delicious foods, wear new clothes, go to Mosque, give to people in need, give gifts to family and friends and meet up with family and friends.

When we learned about Eid, one of our children demonstrated how he and his family pray in the home and told us that when he prays he thinks about all the different ways he can help people.

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In class we decided to spend our time thinking about how we can be better friends, some children made cards or gifts, others were extra kind and helpful. We decided to make some friendship people for our wall, we worked together to write down all the ways we would like to be a good friend and then after we had all written our names on it we placed it where everyone could see.

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The children decided that they would like to have a party in class to help our Muslim friends to celebrate Ramadan.

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What have we been learning?

That not all people have the same Faith.
How Muslims celebrate Ramadan and Eid.
To be tolerant of, accept and celebrate the diversity of our school community.

University Challenge – Blooms of Colour

Flowers come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, and colours, but here’s a challenge that will get you thinking about how we can change a flower’s colour. Find more details here:

Painted Daisies: Simple Science Experiment for Kids

You will need: White flowersWatercolour paint or food colouringWaterSmall jars or glasses

Have a think about how you could do this – maybe you could paint the petals (but they’d probably end up in a yucky mess!) Can you think of a way to help the flower change its own colour? Here’s a hint: think about how a flower drinks water… Got your problem-solving skills at the ready? Let’s go…

Step 1: Ask an adult to help you find a white flower (you might be able to find a daisy or another white flower growing wild). Make sure you don’t pick a flower without permission. You could even buy some white flowers from a shop. One flower will be OK but the more flowers, the more fun you can have!

Step 2: Put each flower in a separate glass or vase with a small amount of water.

Step 3: In each jar or vase, add a different colour watercolour paint or food colouring. You’ll need to add quite a lot of paint or food colouring to make this work.

Step 4: Now sit back, watch, and wait…estimate how long you think it will take before the flower starts to change colour? An hour? 3 hours? A full day? A few days? Why not take some photos every 30 mins to compare?

Step 5: Enjoy seeing the flowers change colour. They’re doing this as they drink the water – they’re taking in the paint or food colouring too which is changing their petal colours.

Step 6: Why not have a go at repeating the experiment? Why not try mixing colours and see if you can make a rainbow of flowers? Talk to an adult about what you expect will happen. Ask an adult to help you to carefully split the flower’s stem into two. Put one half of the stem in one colour and the other in another colour. What do you think will happen?

Key Worker Heroes 2

Last week we celebrated and showed our appreciation for the support Key Workers gave us during the COVID Crisis.
The children were so engaged with their learning on this day that they wanted to explore and learn more so, this week we have been learning all about their different roles and how they helped us.

First, we wrote a list of some of the Workers we wanted to learn more about. After the children had written their list using their current phonics knowledge, Miss Deighton showed the correct spelling and explained about split digraphs.

Some children went on to write sentences about their favourite key workers and others wrote helicopter stories.

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We used the resources from the deconstructed role play area to practise our drama skills, Miss Deighton began the story and them we moved around the circle with each child telling us what happened next in the story which we then acted out.

The children enjoyed this so much that they carried on telling their own stories in continuous provision.

Key Worker Heroes

Over the last year we have all been relying on an army of Key Worker Heroes to help us to survive the Pandemic. These range from the bin men to nurses and doctors to shop workers and bus drivers.
This week we had a day where we payed tribute to all these people, we used the opportunity to dress up as our heroes while collecting money for our school project where we are raising money for the children’s hospital.
The children and their families made lots of effort and really made us proud.

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WELL DONE EVERYONE!!!

Musical Performance

Garnet Class had a real treat this week, we were invited to take part in a musical performance delivered by Concerteenies and Polly Ives

The performance was based around a Story called Perfectly Norman.

Can you remember what the story was about?

Before Polly came to school she sent us the book to read in class and asked us to learn some songs so that we could join in with the performance. We really enjoyed the story and learning the songs and couldn’t wait to meet Polly.

When Polly came to see us she brought along a friend called Kimmie who played the Viola, she was amazing and the children were very impressed with the beautiful sounds that she produced.

First we played an emotions game, Kimmie played the music and we expressed the emotions that the Viola made us feel……. happy, sad, anxious, scared and sleepy.

After that we had a little practise of the songs and Polly was so impressed with how expressive we were that we jumped straight into the performance.

We listened to Polly tell the story and joined in with the songs and actions. We whooshed and flew and spun around. We had such fun and enjoyed it very much.

Caterpillars and Butterflies

Over the last 2 weeks we have been looking forward to receiving our new pets in Garnet class. Before we could get them though we needed to learn all about them because we wanted to be able to look after them properly.

First we looked at the fiction book ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ and learned all about the days of the week and about what happened from when the caterpillar popped out of the egg.

We sequenced the story.

We wrote our own Story Map.

We acted out the story and wrote our own version during Helicopter Story Time.

We knew that The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a story book and know that storybooks aren’t always true so we decided to carry out some research using the internet and by looking at Non Fiction books. We found out that the lifecycle which Eric Carle wrote about was true but found out some other interesting facts too.

Can you remember what you found out?

The children became very interested in the fact that there were several different names for the cocoon and for the caterpillar.

Can you remember what they were?

They also became very interested in the patterns on the wings of the butterfly.

We found out that they were symmetrical and the children decided that they would like to replicate these in all sorts of ways. They painted pictures, drew using chalk, used large blocks, loose parts and workshop materials ……. here are a few examples.

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We went to see if we could find some caterpillars in the secret garden, but unfortunately none could be found, we did find some signs that they had been around but thought they must be hiding because of all the noise we were making. The children took their own photographs using the iPad.

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Once we had learned all we could about caterpillars and butterflies we welcomed our new pets into the classroom. We are ready to take good care of them as we watch them grow.