The children discovered we had a visitor in our classroom when we came back after our half term break. They were very excited and wanted to know more about him! We discussed who he might be, where he might have come from and why we thought he was here. We noticed he was holding a picture too. The children thought this might have been his home as it looked like a jungle, but wondered why there was a tractor in the jungle. As a class we wrote down some questions to ask our Orangutan visitor...

When the children arrived on Tuesday our orangutan visitor was on the whiteboard and he had written us a message! He told us his name is Clyde! He also told us that he had come from a rainforest in Borneo. He told us he had come to our school because his home had been destroyed by deforestation. He asked us to research this with our teacher. Together as a class we searched on Google to see where Borneo actually was on a map. We then discussed how we thought he had got here. The children suggested he teleported, came on an airplane or maybe he came over the ocean. We also researched deforestation and realised that was what he was showing us in his photograph yesterday! 

On Wednesday morning, we arrived at school to find toys on our carpet! We suspected it must’ve been Clyde because he was sat in Miss Rhodes chair looking awfully cheeky!

We want Clyde to stay at our school but we were worried that Miss Dibnah might not let him stay  because he has been leaving a mess on the carpet! We decided to do some writing to let her know that he doesn't have a home anymore because people have chopped it down. The children also thought he might’ve lost his family and friends because of this too. See below for some brilliant examples of our writing this week...

In maths this week we have begun to explore numbers beyond 10. We have looked at these numbers on tens frames and have started identifying patterns between each number. We can see that they are all bigger than 10 as we can see a full tens frame. We know that they are built up of one 10 and further units. The children worked hard to count out objects onto tens frames and could start to see the patterns. They also started to recognise the matching numerals too.

On the iPads this week we researched about poisonous dart frogs. The children learnt why they are so colourful, this is to warn off predators so they don't eat them! The children then got to use a tool on purple mash to create their own poisonous dart frogs. There were lots of fantastic brightly coloured tree frogs with funky patterns created!

On Monday morning, not only was there a surprise banner on the board for Miss Rhodes birthday but there was also a note! We wondered who had done this. We thought it must be Clyde but what could he be telling us? We decided he must feel sad and want to go home. The children thought he must be missing his family! 
We started to plan a trip back to the rainforest in Borneo to let Clyde visit his family and friends! We discussed what we might need to pack for the trip. See below for some of the children’s ideas...

This morning our classroom had transformed into an airport! The children arrived and had to check in, go through security and collect their boarding passes and passports before getting on board the airplane. We used imagineering to role play our airplane experience! The children even ordered their in flight meals (school dinners). We then landed in the rainforest! The children loved showing me the different animals they could see, the sounds they could hear and which way we needed to walk around the rainforest! We then landed back in school. The children absolutely loved their journey! 

After arriving back into school we had a special visitor! Peter the park ranger had come to tell us that he was missing 2 animals from the rainforest. Perhaps these had come back to school with us when we visited? These animals were “Terry the toucan” and “Paula the python”. He needed our help to find them! He told us that they both loved to hide. He said Terry loved high trees and he also loved fruit! 

This week in maths the children have been mastering the skills of subtraction. We have been playing a subtraction game in provision this week. The children loved this game and were really involved! The children started with a full tens frame and had to take it turns to roll a dice and then take that many away from their tens frame. The children then had to work out how many they had left over. The aim of the game was to be left with 0 on their tens frame and then that made them the winner. The children realised when it got to closer to the end that they might not be able to go as they didn't have enough counters left on their tens frame to take away! The language that came from the children was fantastic and they showed an excellent understanding of subtraction!

Today we discussed how Terry the Toucan loves fruit. We tasted lots of different fruits and decided which ones we thought Terry would like. The children then produced some fantastic writing. Most children tried and enjoyed all the fruit!

Today the children went to Middleton park. We walked there in partners and crossed the roads safely with our teachers! The children were so sensible and well behaved on the whole trip. We went to Middleton park as we thought Terry might be there as we heard he likes high trees. We enjoyed a play in the park first, then we had some snack together in the sun and then we went into the woods to try and find Terry! We listened very carefully to see if we could hear him and then we started looking for the tallest trees. The children picked the tallest tree they could find and we decided we would leave the fruit salad here to try and entice Terry! Hopefully we can catch him on camera coming to get some fruit...

Today reception received an important email from Peter the Rainforest Ranger. He wanted our help to find Paula the Python. The children decided we should make some posters! We thought about what Paula looks like and what she likes and we designed some posters...

Paula and Clyde had a bit of a photo shoot last night and had left some photos on Miss Murphys iPad! These were vital clues for where we might find Paula and also helped us with our positional language. The children then set off to find Paula! We checked all the places from the photographs, plus our outdoor area! We then went to explore all around our school grounds. We eventually found Paula hiding high up in a tree! 

This afternoon we came in to a huge mess after lunch! We thought this must’ve been Clyde has he is always very Mischievous! Mrs Burke and Miss Dibnah said enough is enough and Clyde had to go! 
 We tried to come up with some ideas for where else he could live....

At first we thought he could go and live outside but what if he got back into school again and made a big mess?

Then we thought about places where other animals were looked after and thought of Chester Zoo and Yorkshire Wildlife Park!

Miss Penny went to ring them to see what they'd say.

Yorkshire Wildlife Park said that they'd consider it but they needed to know what to provide for him!

Here are some of our ideas that the children wrote down.

We then had to design what the enclosure would look like! The children chose to represent this in a number of ways, through drawings, constructions and junk box modelling. 

It was then time to say farewell to Clyde! The children were sad to see him go but it was time for him to go on his new adventure to Yorkshire Wildlife Park. The children made Clyde some cards, see below for some examples...

This week

This week the children have enjoyed the story 'Rumble in the jungle', we have enjoyed becoming familiar with this text and retelling it. We have enjoyed learning about the different animals in the story too! The children then spoke about their favourite animals from the story. We then wrote about our favourite animals, see below for some fantastic writing examples...