It was lovely to welcome the children back to school this week. They were full of news of their half term breaks and keen to jump straight back into their play! This half term, our learning will continue to be inspired by our ‘Out of the Egg’ topic and, with that in mind, our first Spotlight Story was ‘Eggday’ by Joyce Dunbar which you can revisit here:

This story challenged us to think about animals that hatch out of eggs as well as animals that do not. We talked about it being ok not to know something and how this is an important part of learning. We also talked about how we can check things or find things out by asking other people, especially grown-ups, who can help us to ask Google. I was amazed by the children’s knowledge: some of the animals suggested to add to our list included platypuses, sharks, salmon and, of course, dinosaurs.

This led us very nicely onto our next Spotlight Story: A Dinosaur Called Tiny by Alan Durant which you can listen to again in this youtube clip:

The children absolutely loved this story and, as you can probably imagine, many are already dinosaur experts! It therefore made perfect sense to suggest that they might like to turn our role-play area into a dinosaur museum. They thought this was a great idea and quickly set to work. First, we made a list of the things we would need to make and gather to create our dinosaur museum. Next, we set to work, writing signs, building models and displaying dinosaur eggs, teeth, claws and skin! The children really took ownership of this project and I was so impressed by their curating skills.

Our final Spotlight Story, was another dinosaur favourite: Tyrannosaurus Drip by Julia Donaldson which you can revisit here:

We used a non-fiction book about dinosaurs to help us identify the dinosaurs in both Tyrannosaurus Drip and A Dinosaur Called Tiny. We used this opportunity to remind the children about the difference between fiction books (made up stories) and non-fiction books (books with facts).

In our phonics lessons, we learnt a new red word:

To help the children remember and understand the meaning of this red word, we asked lots of questions such as; what is your name? is that your cat? is that your coat? etc.

In our maths lessons this week, we have been continuing to practise our subitising skills, taking snapshot photos of dot arrangements with our eyes and challenging ourselves to recreate them without looking at the original.

In our picture news lesson this week, we talked about who Boris Johnson is and why he said sorry recently. We agreed that it is important to say sorry when things go wrong with our friends and family but only if we really mean it! We listened to the story ‘Sorry (Really Sorry)’ by Joanna Cotler (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hLMw_0iHjc) and talked about lots of different things we can do to make sure the person we are saying sorry to feels that we really mean it.

In other news, our Very Healthy Caterpillar display is finally finished – doesn’t it look fantastic!

And, finally, here are a few of this week’s invitations to play:

Have a lovely weekend everyone and see you on Monday.