This week we have been learning all about what we can grow to eat.  We looked at salad vegetables (cucumber, lettuce, radish and tomatoes) and talked about how we thought they grew.  We looked at their seeds and planted them for our greenhouse.  We learned how to plant the seeds in small trays, with compost and watered them before putting them in the greenhouse to keep warm in the sunshine.  We can’t wait to see how they grow and hope we’ll be able to eat them in a few weeks.

We thought about how farmers needed to water their crops and how much water they would need for a large field – a lot!  We discussed how the farmer might get that water to the fields when there isn’t a tap in the field!  We learned about irrigation, looked a pictures of the irrigation systems that  brought water to the field on a large scale and then on a smaller one and explored how we could create our own irrigation system to carry water from one part of the playground to another using pipes, buckets, tubes etc.

We continued exploring the story of The Enormous Turnip this week, by innovating the story.  We made a story plan using pictures and short written ideas of what we could change in the story to make it our own.  We thought of a different vegetable the man could grow into a enormous one!  We will write our stories next week.

We also learned how clay pots were made for plants to grow in.  We found out that clay comes from underground and can be used to make many things.  We watched a large bowl being made by a man on a potter’s wheel and were fascinated by how it changed shape on the spinning wheel with the man’s hands.  It then needed cooking in a kiln to go hard.  We then made our own clay pots by rolling out the clay into a long sausage shape and coiling it around to make a coiled clay pot.  They look great.

In maths we continued exploring teen numbers to 20 and began to complete number sentences using counters on ten frames up to 20.  The children are really good at understanding that 10 an 5 more is 15, for example, without having to count.

In PSHE we read the story “The Colour Monster” by Anna Llenas.  We discussed the story and talked about the different emotions and how they made the colour monsters feel.  The children then drew a picture about something that made them happy, sad or angry.

Forest School

We enjoyed making leaf crowns this week!  Please see the Forest School section on our class page.

Homework

Please continue to read regularly with your child at home.  It really is making a great difference.  Don’t forget you can also access extra online reading books on Bug Club.

https://www.activelearnprimary.co.uk/login?c=0

Spelling Shed

Please support your child to practise sounding out and spelling their words on the Spelling Shed app. It helps them to use and apply the sounds they have learned recently in phonics.  This week we are practising words containing the “or” digraph.  The children score points every time they practise their spellings on spelling shed and each class competes against each other for fun.  The top three scoring classes are read out in assembly each week.  Let’s see if our Robins can get onto the leader board next week.

https://play.edshed.com/en-gb/

Maths Shed

The children can also access Maths Shed through the same site as Spelling Shed.  They have new ‘assignments’ which are games that explore numbers to 10, so please have a play!

https://play.edshed.com/en-gb/login

Have a great weekend.