Dickens Class (Year R)

 

 

 Literacy this term started with the story Funny Bones. The children enjoyed thinking of scary places they have visited and how this made them feel. They wrote about who and what they might meet there.

To follow we all went on a walk around our local park, just as Funny Bones did.  The children took photos of the different land marks we passed and used these to make their  own maps once we returned to the class room. Once these were complete we used them to retrace our route and see if we had remembered correctly!

 

The whole school celebrated Chinese New Year with a days workshop. Each class spent time with Charlotte an author and illustrator and Dickens class wrote a story called The Robber Dragon. The story included all the different children as their animal signs. The children also recreated the legend of Nian which involved making the monster and putting the story to music.  

 

Why elephant has a trunk?  This is the African tale the children have been exploring. This story prompted a lot of very interesting questions. How can he sniff without a nose? How can he drink if he can't reach the water? The children also thought about how the monkeys treated elephant and what it means to be a good friend. This led on to the children exploring different sensory experiences and as you can see the shaving foam was very popular.

 

 

 

 The whole school has been involved in designing our new garden area. The designs have been amazing in Dickens class mostly inspired from books we have read and previous gardening experience. We are eagerly awaiting Mrs Homer to judge the entries. The children have planted turnips, tomatoes, carrots, runner beans, sunflowers and snap dragons and are waiting for the first shoots to appear.

 

 

 

At the moment the children are looking out for signs of spring and so far have spotted blossom on the trees in the playground, daffodils and a few lambs in local fields. Let's hope we see some more sun before our class trip to Wingham wildlife park.

   During maths lessons the children have been using different substances to explore capacity and have been using the language they have acquired in their role play games in the class café. I have also been very impressed with how quickly the children have grasped using money. Some very complex transactions have been taking place involving combinations of different coins.

 

Our gardening project is not going as well as we had hoped! The early sun produced some strong seedlings but the recent rain has almost washed them all way. We are hoping for another sunny spell to revive. As you can see from the pictures below the children worked very hard to transfer the new soil to the garden area and are expecting positive results for all their hard work, fingers crossed!

 

      

 

 Our trip to Wingham Wildlife Park was a great success. The children explored the park and asked endless questions about all the different animals. As you can see some were even enough to hold the more exotic ones. We all looked out for Brutus and Clarence the two lions rescued from a circus and the children demonstrated great empathy when discussing the distressing experiences the lions had been through.

 

    

   

 

 

   

  At this moment in time the class room in full of insects that we are observing. We have our stick insects which laid eggs a few months ago and now these have hatched into tiny stick insects which the children are forever trying to count with varying degrees of success. In addition we have caterpillars, ants and silk worm eggs. All the children have been joining in catching new insects each day to observe in the magnifying boxes which we release each day as well. Our literacy has been focused around the different insects and related stories as you can see below.

 

    

 

 Our class assembly is fast approaching and the children are getting ready with lots of art and craft, singing and acting in preparation. I can't say to much or it will spoil the surprise for the parents! Another exciting event coming up is activity week when we will be visiting a number of transport themed attractions including the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch railway and the London Transport museum.