This week we asked the question ‘how does a caterpillar change?’.  We will soon find out for real, as after half term we will have our own class caterpillars to watch grow and change.  We can’t wait to see what happens.

We learned about the life cycle of a butterfly; from egg to caterpillar, to chrysalis to butterfly.  We used the internet to find information and watched videos of butterflies and their life cycles.  We talked about how they are all different, all symmetrical and made our own symmetrical butterflies, both using IT and at the art table.  Can you complete the life cycle?

We made symmetrical butterflies by folding paper, with a butterfly outline and blobs and patterns of paint on one wing.  When we opened them, they were all different and all symmetrical!

We supported our learning by reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.  We drew our own class story map to remember the story and repeated the story to one another (imitated it) to remember the story.  This will support our confidence when we write our story later.

In maths we explored sharing and grouping.  We had a teddy bear’s picnic and shared out 12 cookies between 2 teddies, then 3 teddies and observed what happened to the amount of cookies they got each time.  We added more plates and found the teddies had fewer cookies each time.  We understood that to share equally was fair; ensuing each teddy had the same amount each time with none left over.  We also used 10 pens to group into sets.  We were told that we needed to put 2 pens into a pot.  How many pots did we need? What about 3 pens in a pot? Was that possible? We found we had 1 pen left over.

We also planted our bean plants. 🌱 Some children chose to take theirs home to plant in their own gardens and others have planted outside of our classroom, in the obelisk. We can’t wait to see how tall they get. Maybe as tall as Jack’s beanstalk!

In Monster Phonics this week, we have been practising reading and writing CCVC words using our previously taught digraphs.  We also continued to read and write our 3 new tricky words – ‘time, out, house, about’.  We used the story of ‘Little Red Hen’ to practise reading these words.  Please find it at the bottom if you would like to practise at home! Please continue to read with your child regularly and make a note in their reading diary so we know they have read before we change their book.  It really makes a difference to their confidence and fluency. Please also continue to use spelling shed.  Again, this really helps the children to develop confidence and fluency with their segmenting and spelling skills.

Have a lovely half term and we will see you back on Monday 3^rd June.