Our topic this half term is 'Once Upon a Time'. We will be reading a range of traditional tales and completing many activities based on these stories. We started the half term by reading the story Jack and the Beanstalk. 

Jack and the Beanstalk

The children read the story and they practiced writing their names on a leaf that had fallen off the beanstalk. 

The children practiced their counting skills by counting the leaves that had fallen off the beanstalk when Jack chopped he beanstalk down. 

The children have loved playing outdoors and exploring the nursery garden in winter The cold doesn't stop nursery having fun!

           Goldilocks and the Three Bears

After reading the Goldilocks and the Three Bears story, the children felt that Goldilocks should have said sorry. The children pretended that they were Goldilocks and wrote a letter saying sorry to the three bears. We concentrated on writing initial sounds of words.

The children painted a picture of one of the three bears. they thought about the colours they needed to use and they also thought about the shapes they needed to paint to create a bear picture.

The children practiced their ICT skills. They dragged the images to be able to order them by size.

The children role played a teddy bear's picnic. The children had to count the plates, cups, spoons and bowls to make sure there was enough for all the bears. They used good counting skills to do this. 

We could not read the Goldilocks and the Three Bears story and not taste porridge. We made porridge and tasted it. The children loved and and asked for more!

Classroom display

Here is a photo of the Goldilocks and the Three Bears display of the children's work:

Cherry Blossom Fans

We looked at cherry blossoms in our nursery garden and some pictures of fans.  We decorated the paper by drawing on lines to make branches and painted with our fingers to make the cherry blossom.  

Tasting noodles

We talked about some of  the popular dishes eaten in China and in other places around the world.  We tasted noodles and talked about how they tasted, if we liked them and some children asked for more.

Year of the Rat collage

The children learnt that it is the year of the rat. The children discussed what the year of the rat means and then they created a collage of a rat.

Mini Mash

The children practiced their ICT skills. They learnt to scroll to choose a colour and then they coloured a Chinese New Year themed object.

The Three Little Pigs

Shape Pigs

The children have been learning about shapes and size. The children talked about the shapes and the sizes of them that they used to make their own pig picture.

Pig art

The children talked about pigs and where they live. The children thought about the placement of the paint on the page to be able to create a pig handprint painting.

Retelling the Story

The children were able to retell the story using pictures from the story to hep them. The children were able to uses words and phrases from the story when retelling the story.

Building houses for the Three Pigs

The children used a range of junk modeling materials to be able to create a house made of straws, sticks and bricks.

Gingerbread Men painting

The children explored using puffy paint to be able to paint their own Gingerbread Man. The children said "run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me I'm the Gingerbread Man."

Gingerbread Men decorating

The children read the Gingerbread Man story. The children then used icing and raisins to decorate their own gingerbread man. The children ate their creation and thought they were yummy!

Counting buttons

We counted the buttons on the gingerbread man and touched the correct number, we did some careful counting and recognised some numbers too.

Gingerbread Man Experiement

The children explored why the Gingerbread Man did not swim across the river instead of going on the fox's back. We realised that he disintergrates in the water. We also tested the gingerbread men ingredients individually to see what changes would happen when they were in the water.

Retelling the Gingerbread Man story

The children drew and wrote about the gingerbread Man story. We tried writing some initial sounds when writing.

Parental Engagement

We invited parents in to help us with a range of gingerbread man themed activities. We ate a gingerbread man, counted the buttons on gingerbread man, dressed gingerbread man, retold the story and made a play dough gingerbread man.

Three Billy Goats Gruff

Building a bridge and retelling the story

We used wooden blocks and a plank to build a bridge across the river and then told the story in our own words.  

"I'm going over the bridge, trip trap trip trap"

"Who's that trip trapping over my bridge?"

"I'm going to eat you!"

"On no please don't eat me"

"On no you're NOT!"

Cutting Skills

We practiced our cutting skills to be able to cut out the characters from the story. We used our characters to create a scene from the book. We also talked about what happened in the story and also the size of the goats.

Paper Plate Goats

The children used their cutting skills to be able to cut pieces of a paper plate to size to be able to create a goat.

Painting The Troll

The children thought about the colours needed to paint a picture of the troll. They also thought about the size and shape of the marks they needed to make on the page.

Making fresh green grass for the billy goats gruff.

The goats needed fresh green grass to eat so we made some! 

We watched as kitchen roll and paper towels soaked up spilt water so then experimented to see what would happen if we dipped kitchen towel into green water.  Wow!  We watched as the green water soaked up into the towel, making it green. It didn't take long to get a green grassy meadow for the goats.