Where does rain come from?

As part of our topic on water, this week we have been learning all about the water cycle and where rain comes from. We have been reading a non-fiction text called 'Splish, Splash, Splosh' by Mick Manning and Brita Granstrom, which tells us all about how rain is made along with the many uses of water and how it gets to our homes.

We have also learnt that all living things need water to survive, and so we have decided to challenge the children to grow a plant and look after it all by themselves, by making sure that it gets some sunshine and is regularly watered. We would like to thank one of the children's grandfathers for very kindly donating some giant sunflower seeds.

We are looking forward to taking care of and watching these seeds grow. We can't wait to see how tall our sunflowers get. 

Can we save Humpty Dumpty from cracking when walking the plank?

Pirates and Dinosaurs!

On Monday Mrs Prosser found lots of items a pirate might use left in her cupboard, how strange! We had a think about what we already knew about pirates and read the book 'Captain Flinn and the Pirate Dinosaurs' by Giles Andreae. Throughout the week we have created pirate names for ourselves and written a list of the things we would need if we wanted to be a pirate. We practised reading some key words linked to our topic, as we did this we stomped around the room chanting our sea shanty:

Yo ho ho!

Yo ho ho!

Pirate Dinosaurs

Go! Go! Go!

As part of our 'Fact or Fiction?' topic we have spent the last few weeks looking at a non-fiction book about Castles called 'In the Castle'. We are now able to describe the different parts of the castle and know that they were built a very long time ago.

In maths this term the children have been using Numicon to support them with their learning. Numicon is a great tool that helps children to understand about size order and number without having to think about the numerals. Each piece of Numicon has its own unique shape and colour.

This week we have been looking more closely at the different shapes and seeing if we can recreate them using special pegs on the Numicon boards. We had to think carefully about where we could start and how we could test if we had made the right shape. The children showed us that they could match and re-create the different Numicon patterns and test their work by placing the Numicon piece over the peg. The children were encouraged to talk about their work and how they can prove their answers.

Great work Reception!

The Magic Porridge Pot Explosion!!!

This week in Literacy we have been reading the story 'The Magic Porridge Pot'. Before sharing the story with the children on Monday we showed them a little experiment. The children made predictions about what might happen when we mixed together vinegar and bicarbonate of soda. The children then used their knowledge of what happened in the experiment to predict what might happen in the story.