When we arrived at school on Monday morning, we noticed something rather unusual – a beanstalk had grown in the classroom over the weekend and it had grown so much that it had started to grow through the ceiling tiles. Not only that, but there was a very large shoe dangling through the ceiling at the top of the beanstalk!
We wondered how on earth the shoe had got there and who it might belong to?
We thought it might belong to Mr Quinn or Mr Norris or even one of our dads.
But we all agreed this was unlikely as none of these people had been in school over the weekend – as far as we know!
We decided to read a story about a boy called Jack (and a beanstalk) to see if this might give us any clues…The version we read was by Nick Sharratt and you can re-read it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCsZ2F6TJao (Gavin Mooney)
We couldn’t believe it but the shoes in the story – the ones belonging to the giant – looked remarkably similar to the one stuck in our ceiling tiles!
The next day, Mrs Saunders came to tell us that a parcel had arrived for us from Amazon and, inside, there was a letter and a bag of magic beans!
Photo of letter to follow…
We set to work planting our magic beans and, thanks to the song we learnt for our Harvest festival, we already know what a seed (or bean) needs in order for it to grow successfully (sunshine and water).
We weren’t entirely sure how long it might take for our beanstalks to grow – here are some of our guesses!
In the end, we watched this time lapse recording and discovered that it might take around 25 days for our beans to grow:
In our maths lessons, we learnt that it is not only objects that can be counted but also sounds and actions. We used a small drum to count beats and we tried really hard to ‘do not count, hear the amount’ when doing so. By coincidence, we also had a music lesson with a visiting teacher who taught us how to play a djembe; a type of drum originally from West Africa. The teacher taught us how to play a four-beat rhythm, hitting the drum on the first beat and counting the next three. We loved this lesson and we were so impressed by the children’s musical skills! We didn’t manage to get a video of the drumming as Mrs Mooney and I had our hands full joining in, but we did get a video of the children learning the rhythm by walking and clapping it, just before we had a go on the drums (have a look on Seesaw for this).
In our phonics lesson, we learnt the sounds t, i and n. Do remember when practising these sounds that it is not tuh or nuh!
The picture prompt for t is t-t-tower and t is a bouncy sound. The handwriting prompt is ‘down the tower, across the tower’.
The picture prompt for i is i-i-insect and i is also a bouncy sound. The handwriting prompt is ‘down the insect’s body, dot for its head’.
The picture prompt for n is nnnnnnet and n is a stretchy sound. The handwriting prompt is ‘down Nobby, up and over the net’.
Have a lovely weekend everyone and see you on Monday!