Jungle

Can you believe we are in the Summer term? We had such a lovely half term last term learning all about gardening and growing. We planted our own seeds and watched them grow, we also planted cress and tried it and we learnt all about beanstalks and what could be at the top of them! We had a great time.

We are now very excited about our jungle journey and what is going to happen! We are excited to learn all about jungles, what lives there and what grows there! We are going to have a jungle role play area and our classroom is going to be full of our work. If you'd like to come and have a look, feel free!

If you have any questions or queries please do come and speak to Mrs Gray, Mrs Caradice, Mrs Brown or Mrs Norton.

We were so lucky this week as a lady from the RSPB came and talked to us about different wildlife who live in our Nursery garden. We listened to a story and then went outside. We were given a pot and had to work in partners to collect different dandelions, grass, leaves and mud. We then made our own home for different minibeasts as we learnt that they like the dark and the damp. We then got a magnifying glass each and searched for different bugs. We found ladybirds, spiders, minibeasts and ants. We had lots of fun!

Week 1

This week we are celebrating Easter and learning all about the Easter story and why it is important. We will try and retell the Easter story.

We have made Easter buns using Rice Krispies, chocolate and mini eggs. We practised our fine motor skills by stirring the mixture and we thoroughly enjoyed watching the chocolate melt.

We also went on an Easter egg hunt outside in the Nursery garden. We found lots of easter eggs and then counted them and practised our number recognition. We had lots of fun. We also made Easter cards to give to our families. We had lots of fun cutting and sticking and writing our names using our name cards.

We had a Maths lesson and did an Easter egg counting activity. We counted objects and placed them on the correct number from a selection in front of us. This helped us with our number recognition.

We had a go at making Easter chicks. This was lots of fun. We used paint and then stuck on feathers for the wings and a beak and feet. They look really cute.

Week 2

This week we have started our new topic all about the Jungle. We have loved learning about the different animals that live there and what they eat to survive. We have made paper chain snakes using our fine motor control and chose which colours we wanted to use. This was lots of fun. You can see them hanging up in our classroom.

We have also done some imagineering outside. We have used our brand new astroturf area which is so exciting. We can use it in all weathers and it will protect us from the rain and wind!

One of our favourite activities was ordering snakes in length order. We had to think which snake was the shortest and which was the longest using different terminology. We had lots of fun putting the snakes in order and we kept trying until we got it right.

Weeks 3 and 4

We have been reading Rumble in the Jungle and have learnt lots of different things about all the animals who live in the jungle so we have based our activities around this.

We went outside and practised our gross motor skills by pretending to be different jungle animals. We used huge arm movements to be elephants trunks and we crouched to the ground pretending to be monkeys and tigers. It was so much fun.

Also when we were outside, we talked about the different jungle animals and chose our favourite one to draw on the playground using chalk.

We hope your child has been coming home singing our song this half term. 'Walking through the jungle' here are the words so that you can join in the fun.

Walking Through The Jungle.docx

Our favourite activity of the week was probably making animal tracks in paint. We chose a few different jungle animals and dipped their feet in paint. We then made patterns on the paper.

We played a game called 'feed the monkey' We used our fine motor skills to pick up a banana and feed it to him by posting it into his open mouth. This game also gave us a chance to practise our counting skills, we counted out how many bananas the monkey had eaten! 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10.

We love painting our hands to make fabulous pictures - look at our monkey hand print paintings!

We used our hand print for the monkey's body and legs, round sponges to print the head and ears and added a curly tail, a branch to swing from and other details using a paint brush. They really do look like they are swinging through the trees.

Week 5

We enjoyed the Julia Donaldson story 'Monkey puzzle' the children loved it and enjoying joining in with repeated phrases - " No, that's not my mum"

We make animal masks and then used them in our jungle role play area.

We played the game 'Where is monkey?' This was great for helping children to use words to describe the position of something. " Put monkey under the table," "Place monkey on top of the fence," "Sit monkey between the plant pots." Children listened carefully and put monkey in different places and tried to use the position words themselves.

We loved inviting our parents into school to help us make a monkey face. We used a slice or bread, chocolate sauce, raisins and bananas. Once they were made - we ate them! They were delicious.

We used mini mash to create our own jungle scenes and jungle animals.

We looked at pictures of jungle animals and tried hard to select a suitable colour or pattern. We loved the black and white stripe pattern to make zebras and the snake skin pattern so that we could draw long, slithering snakes.

We enjoyed singing and acting our the number song 'Five little monkeys.'

Five little monkeys swinging in the trees,

teasing Mr Crocodile "you can't catch me,"

along comes Mr Crocodile , as quietly as can be...

SNAP!

Four little monkeys....

Three little monkeys...

Two little monkeys...

One little monkey....

We tried really hard to thread the string through the holes on the monkey faces. It's tricky work and takes a lot of concentration. We developed our hand-eye co-ordination and fine motor skills.