Grasshoppers

Hello everyone,

This week we have been learning about grasshoppers.  It's been really interesting because none of us knew that much about grasshoppers.  We found out some amazing facts.   Did you know that:

• They can jump 25 times their body length
• Grasshoppers have two big eyes made up of thousands of little eyes
• Their eyes all look in different directions

Mrs Young, Mrs Mayers and Mrs Ball think they would like to have grasshopper eyes - it would be really useful in the classroom !

We have written some fantastic stories again about grasshoppers.  Mrs Young is really impressed at how well we are using story language.  We've also done some brilliant non fiction writing and tried to use bullet points for all of our amazing facts.  Gracie did an amazing job with her her non fiction writing !

In maths we have been learning how to estimate - or have a really sensible guess.  Why not see if you can have a go at home?  We have also been measuring with all sorts of different things.  We measured how tall Emmie was with big bricks.  We estimated first and Bailey got his estimate exactly right - Emmie was 15 bricks tall.

We all had a trip out this week (apart from Mrs Young who got left behind to go to a meeting) and went to the fantastic hippodrome.  We tried out lots of the circus equipment and Mrs Young thinks we could probably put on our own circus now !  We even had a go on the tightrope and the trapeze - how brave.
                                                Look how good we are on the tightrope

 

 

 

 

 

And just look how fantastic we are on the trapeze......

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tony is amazing - has he done this before? 

We also had a go at juggling, hoola hooping and plate spinning.  Some of us found this really difficult - especially Mrs Mayers.  Amazingly Mrs Ball could actually juggle - don't leave us for the circus Mrs Ball.

 

 

There was also a chance to look around the museum.  We saw lots of things that were used in the circus in the past and a video of the synchronised swimmers.

We also had a disco this week and lots of children from our class had a great time.

 

 

Having a drink and a rest !

We have a week off for half term now so have a good holiday everyone.  Remember to keep practising those tricky words and sounds and see if you can read through your reading books a few times.  I hope the weather cheers up for us.

See you in a week on Monday 3 June all ready to do some more exciting learning.

Grasshopper Class

Butterfly Week

Hello everyone,

This week is caterpillar and butterfly week and we started off on Monday by thinking about everything we know already about caterpillars and butterflies.  We thought of some tricky questions to research and have found out all the answers by looking on the internet or in non fiction books.  Mrs Young heard on the radio one morning that some scientists have xrayed a pupa to find out what goes on inside as the caterpillar is turning into a butterfly - wow!  Hayden and Bailey suggested that I google it on our computer to find the video and it was amazing.  Why not have a go at googling - xray of inside a chrysalis and watch it together? 

We have found out that caterpillars are always eating.  When they hatch they are so hungry that they eat their egg shell.  They eat so much that they get too fat for their skin - so they shed their skin and guess what?  They eat that aswell !!  We also found out that most butterflies only live for about 2 weeks.

We have read lots of great stories about butterflies.  We really liked The Crunching Munching Caterpillar by Jack Tickle - it was such a good story.  Gracie, Sienna and lots of the other children wrote their own great caterpillar stories too.  We have learnt how to draw our own butterflies and we have been making our pictures symmetrical (the same on both sides).   We also made some fantastic sponge print caterpillars.

 

 

 

What great symmetrical patterns

On Wednesday the school nurses popped into our class to teach us about the importance of washing our hands properly so that we do not get poorly.  We all had a go at the magic cream and then we had to wash our hands really carefully to check that all the magic cream had gone.  It takes quite a long time to wash your hands properly.  Also did you know that it's really important to dry your hands really well because bugs love damp or wet hands.

 

 

On Friday in PE we learnt how to hoola hoop - Mrs Ball was really good at it and so were Charlie, Holly and Eysan.  We had great fun wiggling to keep the hoops going.  We also learnt to roll the hoops to each other - it's not as easy as it sounds !

 

Charlie was great at hoola hooping

 

 

We have worked together a lot this week and Mrs Young was really pleased with how polite we were and how good we were at sharing.  Well done everyone !

 

 

Next week Mrs Mayers, our lovely student teacher, will be doing some of the teaching in our class.

 

Mrs Mayers

That's all for now.

Grasshopper Class

Spider week

Hello Everyone,

This week we are learning all about spiders - Mrs Ball hates spiders so she will be glad when this week is over !  We have had fun finding spiders outside in the sensory garden and looking closely at all their legs.  We have made spiders out of paper plates and we have made our own mini spider webs too.  It was quite a long job to thread the webs !

 

Thomas made his spider with no help at all

 

 

Gracie and Sienna worked together to make this web - good teamwork girls

 

 

Tomasz made a dragon fly from Knex

 

We have also had great fun making our own giant spider's web outside - we had to be the spider spinning his web and got into a big tangly mess.  It was really important to work as a team because if one person lets go then the web is ruined !

 

 

 

We have sung Incey Wincey Spider and used the instruments to keep a steady beat in music.  Why not have a go at home -incey wincey spider song

We have had another go at writing stories this week (about spiders).  Gracie, Bailey and Hayden had some great ideas for stories - well done.

In maths we have been making number sentences to 8 using + and = signs and we found it quite tricky to get the signs and numbers in the right place.  Perhaps you could have a practise at home this week?  You could try out this game on the computer too -  addition games

We have also had a look at telling the time (O'Clock).  We have looked at clocks and talked about faces, hands, seconds, minutes and hours.  We also talked about what time we did certain things like getting up, going to bed etc.  We found out how long a minute was by using the sand timer - we had to jump for a whole minute (it's a long time when you are jumping !)  Perhaps you could have a go at timing yourself at home?

Mrs Young sneaked into the Clubs this week and took some pictures so that we can all see what happens at Art Club and Archery Club.  I'm sure you will agree the clubs look like great fun.

 

Elija, Charlie and Emmie make fish at Art Club

 

 

Take aim ...................

 

 

.....................Fire !

 

Bronwen and Sidney at Archery Club

 

See you next week

Grasshopper Class

Bee Week

Hello Everyone,

This week we have been busy learning all about bees and I think the children will agree it's been the most interesting week so far in our Minibeast Topic.  We have found out so many interesting facts about bees from non-fiction books and the computer.

 Did you know that bees have 5 eyes - 3 small ones and 2 large ones? Did you know they have 2 stomachs - one for feeding themselves and one for carrying the pollen and nectar?  When they get back to the hive they spit the pollen and nectar back out to make honey - yuck !  Lara felt sure that they would have some way of cleaning it before we eat it so we don't need to worry !

 

 

We all tasted honey on Tuesday and most of us liked it.  We have also made our own bee pictures, paintings, puppets and bee hives.  Bailey and Eysan used their own ideas to make brilliant bee puppets.

 

 

We have been doing lots of writing this week - both non-fiction and fiction - and Mrs Young was really impressed with how well we are remembering to use our phase 3 and phase 4 phonics.  Gracie, Holly, Tony, Lara and Jazlyn wrote brilliant bee stories all on their own - well done!

We have also pretended to be bees collecting pollen and nectar.  We had to work as a team to do this and it was great fun.  We also had a go at communicating like bees in PE - by dancing !

 

 

In numeracy we are getting really good at counting backwards from any number up to 30.  We have looked at 3D shapes this week (solid shapes) and learnt the names - cube, cuboid, cylinder, cone and sphere.  We went on a 3D shape hunt around the school and found lots of cylinders (fire extinguishers) and cuboids.  We found a few cones in the PE cupboard but hardly any cubes.  Why not have a look round when you are out and about to see what you can spot?

                                      Hayden and Charlie made a house with cubes and pyramids

 

Holly found a cone in the food technology room

We have also been learning about tessellation - that's when shapes fit together without any spaces and we've had fun trying out different shapes.  Hexagons tessellate really well - we found out that bees make their honeycomb using hexagons so that they can use up all the space in their hive.

 

Jazlyn spent ages making sure these shapes tessellated - what a good job she has done

 

See you next week

Grasshopper Class