Today the children were very lucky to be visited by a fire engine from our local fire service. The firemen spoke to the children about their job and about staying safe around fires. They got to look at lots of the fire service's equipment and even got to have a turn at shooting water from the hose.

In order to bring our enquiry to life, the children spent some time creating the Big Bad Dragon! They were encourage to explore colour mixing on a sheet of paper. Once these had dried they were cut into strips and the children worked to create paper chains from their strips. These were joined to a dragon head to create our fearsome character. Great team work Hedgehogs.

Kandinsky

This week, the children have been learning about the Russian artist Kandinsky. They have tried really hard not only to say his name but to also remember that he was born in 1866. We looked at his work 'Circles in Squares' and the children felt inspired to create their own piece in his style.

Poppy Wreath

This week, the children used their Kandinsky skills to create poppies using pre-cut circles. They had to order to circles from smallest to largest in order to make an effective poppy. These were then used to make our class wreath which was placed at the base of our school cenotaph during our Remembrance service on Friday.

After learning that poppies are a plant which has a flower, the children enjoyed pretending to be poppies themselves. We started to learn the words stalk, flower and petals to describe the parts of the plant. Then the children were given some time with their sketchbooks to explore painting a poppy in the style of Kandinsky. They all agreed on a plan for how to do this - starting with a black circle in the middle and then adding red around the outside. The poppies they created were beautiful!

Answering our Enquiry

All week the children have been working on their ideas for what would happen if Elmer met Kandinsky. We have read lots of Elmer stories, produced lots of artwork in the style of Kandinsky and the children drew plans to show what they thought might happen. Finally, they were given lots of paint and time in order to answer the enquiry. They all produced a brilliant Elmer artwork that was covered in Kandinsky style circle patterns. Amazing Hedgehogs!

A Visit from The Police

The children were very lucky to receive a visit from our local police officers this week. They spoke to the children about how the police are there to help them and how to call the police in an emergency. They also spoke about stranger danger and told the children that if a stranger tries to get them to go with them, they should yell "No, go away!" then run back to their adult and tell them what happened (yell, run, tell).
They also got to explore the police officers' uniforms, trying some on if they wanted to, and we went outside to have a look at the police car. The children were really interested in the police car, and many asked some really good questions about the sirens, the lights, and the stickers.

This week, we have been using the Gingerbread Man story as our context. After an initial read of the story we created a story map to show the man events of the story. We then encouraged the children to think of ways in which the Gingerbread Man could change his fate and survive "to go and live in a gingerbread house" as one of the children put it! We had many suggestions including he could swim across the river, he could build a bridge and he could use a boat. As we investigated each change we added adaptions to the story map to show the impact it would have on the Gingerbread Man's fate.

Re-Telling the Story

We have been doing lots of active re-telling of the Gingerbread Man story this week. The children have loved getting into role and shouting his catch phrase as loudly as they could!

Gingerbread Investigations

This week, we have been investigating if the children's suggestions about how to save the Gingerbread Man would work.

Swimming: after making some predictions about what might happen to the Gingerbread man when he is placed in water, we put him into a bowl of water and observed him. He initially floated, but after a little while he sank and broke apart. We introduced the children to the word "disintegrate" to describe this process. As this happened, a child suggested that he would be safe if he had a helmet and a waterproof diving suit. We collected some resources from our loose parts play area and constructed a suit (a rubber glove and a plastic lid). This did keep him safe! The children were thrilled!

Bridges: The children worked hard in teams over numerous child-initiated sessions to build bridges to save the Gingerbread man. These became more and more "fit for purpose" as the week progressed. By the end of the week, they had included ramps for the Gingerbread Man to be able to access the bridge and traps to catch the other characters as they entered the bridge.

Boats: For this investigation, a new story line was created that, as the Gingerbread Man reached the river, there was no boat but there were some materials lying about (sticks, leaves, plastic bags, pine cones, fruit, and stones). The children were encouraged to investigate if any of these would enable the Gingerbread Man to safely cross the river. Some of the children quickly referred back to our scarecrow investigations last term involving floating and sinking. By the end of this session, the children were accurately using the word "disintegrate" to describe what happened when he fell off or sank with each material. Only some leaves (if they were big enough and had no holes in them) and the plastic bag would allow a safe escape.

What amazing scientists and engineers you have been this week Hedgehogs!

Washing Machines

This week, we have been talking about how our families are the same and different. We spent some fun time outdoors exploring how our families get their clothes clean. We found out that some people have black washing machines and some have white ones. Some families have no washing machine and take their laundry to a laundrette. Some families use washing powder, and some use liquid soap. We knew the action of a washing machine was to spin around, and we tried to recreate this with our whisks. We spent a lot of time trying to decide on the order needed to wash our clothes, remembering to close the door to the washing machine "or bubbles will fill your house!" one of the children observed. After we had cleaned our clothes, the children pegged them out onto our washing line. Great job, Hedgehogs!

The Nativity Story

This week, the children have been learning about the story of Jesus' birth using our knitted nativity characters. As we told the story, the children recalled a lot of events from our nativity production! They remembered that Mary was visited by an angel, that Mary and Joseph had to ride on a donkey, and that baby Jesus was born in a stable.

The children have enjoyed accessing the knitted nativity scene as part of their provision this week. There have been lots of accurate re-tellings of the story and some very entertaining deviations from the story, including the addition of dinosaurs and a tiger!

Sand Pit Number Hunting

This week, to support our maths learning, the sand pit has been enhanced with some large wicker numerals (0–5) and a large collection of objects to sort. The children have been encouraged to sort the items by counting features or recognising them as numerals. To stretch our little mathematicians, we added some items that could be sorted into different groups and asked them to justify why they had chosen to put them in a particular group. For example, a dinosaur was included, that could be placed in the "1" group because it was a single dinosaur or in the "4" group because it has four legs. The children loved this activity and stayed at it for 20 minutes, chattering constantly about what they had found and how they wanted to sort it. Brilliant job, Hedgehogs.

House and Shop Role Play

This week we have been talking about how our families are the same or different. To support this exploration, we set up a role-play house and shop for the children to explore. They have loved having access to it, and all week they have been using the recipe books to try to create numerous treats, first buying items from the shop. The children have found it really interesting that we included some food and drink items that they had never encountered before, such as oat milk, soya milk, and noodles. This led to some interesting chats about different dietary choices. Some of the recipe magazines included recipes from cultures around the world, which helped with this discussion.

Flapjack Class Business

What a busy week we have had making flapjack!
Our class business journey started a few weeks ago when we tasted flapjack and decided that this would be a good product to sell at the Christmas fair. Following this we had to perform a business pitch to Mr Hawkins and Miss Anstey asking for some money so that we could buy the ingredients needed. Thankfully we were successful and we received a cheque to use to help to get us started.
The children then worked in groups to follow a recipe - carefully measuring out ingredients and mixing them together in order to make our delicious treats ready to sell on our Christmas Fair stall. It was a huge success and within 10 minutes we had sold over 100 pieces of flapjack! What an amazing team effort Hedgehogs.

Our Church Visit

To help us to better understand some parts of the Christmas story, we went on a trip to our local church where some volunteers had generously given up their time to lead activities around the story of the birth of Jesus. The children behaved beautifully and when we arrived some of them thought we were visiting a castle! Although it was a bit chilly, the children were really enthusiastic about what they had seen upon our return to school. 
Many thanks again to all who volunteered to accompany us on the trip.