Last week, we continued on with our worldwide travels, visiting different landscapes around the world, inspired by the story of ‘We’re Going On A Bear Hunt’. The next landscape on our list was a very snowy one! And many of us already knew (thanks to Santa!) where in the world we would have to go to find such a landscape – that’s right – the North Pole! We discovered that there are actually two poles – one on top of the world called The Arctic and one on the bottom of the world, called Antarctica. We also learnt that Antarctica is the only continent on earth without people living there (apart from the Scientists who travel there to learn more about our wonderful world). Although people don’t usually live there, Antarctica is famously home to eight species of penguins. You can find out more about the different penguins here: https://www.passportandpixels.com/types-of-penguins-in-antarctica-photos/

We decided to wave goodbye to the lush foliage of the Amazon rainforest and head south on our magic carpet. We remembered to put our hats, gloves, scarves and snowboots on before landing as we knew the landscape would be very different to the one we were leaving behind. There are no streets in Antarctica, but the visiting Scientists take lots of photos, so the little orange man was able to guide us safely into land using one of these. Isn’t it stunning!

Our visit to Antarctica inspired our next spotlight story – the delightful ‘Lost and Found’ by Oliver Jeffers which you can revisit here:

Next, we travelled north to the Arctic and learnt that, despite it being a similar landscape (at least at first glance), penguins do not live here. Instead, the Arctic is home to a much larger animal – the polar bear!

We learnt that, sadly, life is getting more and more difficult for polar bears because the ice in the Arctic is melting due to global warming. Our next spotlight story was called ‘The Journey Home’ by Frann Preston-Gannon. This is a beautiful, touching but thought-provoking story. It features a polar bear and three other animals that we have already met on our travels. Can you remember which animals they were? A black and white animal that lives in China, an orange animal that lives in the Amazon rainforest and a grey animal that lives in the savannah. We were also introduced to an animal that became extinct, because of humans, more than 300 years ago. You can revisit the story below to find out more:

As you can probably imagine, the story prompted lots of conversations about the importance of protecting all of the animals in the world and making sure we care for our wonderful world to keep it healthy and safe. We were visited by some members of the school’s Eco Warrior team who told us about the projects they work on in our school to promote eco-friendly behaviour and ideas. Mr Quinn would like to invite two children from our class to join the team – so please remember to send in your letters asap if you would like to be considered!

In our phonics lessons, we have been busy learning the final few special friends sounds within set 1: ll, ff, ss and ck. These sounds are often found at the end of words, for example, hill, puff, kiss and kick.

In our maths lessons, we have been learning how to use the terms ‘more than’ and ‘fewer than’ correctly; helping Stanley and Gruffy (our class pets) to sort out their squabbles!

Finally, this term, we have been enjoying some fantastic gymnastics lessons with Coach Riann. Here are some photos from the lessons:

I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend – and Happy Mother’s Day!

We were delighted this week to welcome the Hobgoblin Theatre Company to St. Matthew’s to watch their production of Little Red Riding Hood. We absolutely loved the show and wanted to say a huge thank you to all of the actors (including the uncle of one of our children) who entertained us brilliantly!

Naturally, the show prompted lots of discussion about the traditional tale of Little Red Riding Hood, its characters and, in particular, its different versions. Some of us prefer the version where the wolf eats Grandma! Others of us would rather read a version where Grandma hid under the bed or in the wardrobe. Which version do you prefer?

The story also found it’s way into our play when our role-play area was transformed into Grandma’s Cottage! Look very carefully…who is that sleeping in Grandma’s bed?

In our phonics lessons, we have been practising our set 1 speed sounds and focusing especially on the special friends qu, ng and nk. We have also been reading our speedy green words and trying to hold a ditty (a mini sentence) in our head before having a go at writing it.

In our maths lessons, we played the hiding numberblobs game; working with a total number of six, I put some ‘numberblobs’ into the five-frames and kept some hidden in my hand. The challenge was to work out how many ‘numberblobs’ were still in my hand. This was a very tricky challenge and required us to use lots of different mathematical thinking! Why not have a go at home, start with a small number like 2 and gradually build up to bigger numbers. Can you have a go at playing the hiding numberblobs game with a total of 10? Use can you anything you like as numberblobs – spoons, socks, pieces of lego, toy cars – anything you have at home. 

Finally, we celebrated World Book Day on Friday and came to school dressed up as some of our favourite storybook characters including The Rainbow Fish, Where’s Wally and Winnie the Witch!

We hope everyone is having a lovely weekend, see you on Monday!