This term so far the Nursery and Reception children have been learning about Winter and Castles.

For our Winter themed Learning Challenge ‘Why are there no leaves on most of the trees?’ we have been on a winter walk, looked at ice melting, made snowmen texture paintings and sculptures  using the crazy soap. We have read fiction and non fiction books about Winter. We also looked at current newspapers and online to see how the weather is broadcast and in the news. The children loved making and eating tortilla snowflakes and developing their scissor skills by making paper snowflakes. Making the most of the weather this half term the children had lots of fun playing in the snow.

For the Learning Challenge ‘Are all castles bouncy?’ the children began the challenge with having great fun on a bouncy castle. We then asked the question. Most agreed that all castles were bouncy until we began investigating by looking at non fiction books about castles and researching online. As many of the children like Mike the knight on Cbeebies this was our starting point. We have read Mike the Knight stories as well as other traditional tales linked to castles such as Cinderella, Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty. The children have loved making their own props including shields, helmets, crowns etc for our role play castle. They have been encouraged to make up their own stories whilst playing in the castle. Watch out for dragons, trolls and witches as we seem to have many at Thomas Gray.

Autumn Term

This term we have been having lots of fun in the Foundation Unit.  We will be doing work based on the story of  ‘Handa;s Surprise, as part of our learning challenge.  The children will listen to and act out the story of Handa’s suprise.  The children will taste different types of exotic fruit and describe them, they will have the opportunity to make fruit kebabs/smoothies and discuss healthy eating.  We will be comparing our local environment with Handa’s villiage they will also read stories about different cultures.