Long Ago - Spring Term 1

In the Long Ago project the children will learn about their history and how they have changed from when they were babies. They will learn about their family history and heritage and find out what life was like when their grandparents were children. They will learn about what it was like to go to school in the past and how everyday objects, such as clothes, toys and vehicles have changed.

Our big question this term is: How has life changed?

Week 6

Our companion project this term is all about nursery rhymes. We shared our favourite nursery rhymes, played guess that tune, learnt all about lullabies and recorded some of our singing to share with our grown ups. 

One of our favourites was Humpty Dumpty. Our favourite activity this week was our Egg Drop challenge. The children received a letter from Humpty Dumpty asking them to help him find a way to protect his shell. The children drew their ideas, collected their materials and tested them using water balloons. We discovered that soft, cushiony materials protected Humpty well, hard materials cracked his shell and bouncy materials were unpredictable, sometimes bouncing him into a wall or onto the floor.

We also learnt some new rhymes. After learning the rainbow nursery rhyme and doing a rainbow relaxation I challenged the children to use paints and mix colours to complete a rainbow.

WOW event - Fashion Show

The children worked incredibly hard to design and help make their t-shirts come to life. They loved creating the runway, choosing the music and practising their moves in preparation too. We invited our parents to join us and then played a range of old fashion games to end our event. 

Week 5

This week we were challenged to guess what a selection of old objects were. The children gave brilliant guesses and were really surprised by how life has changed.

We then began to look at old toys. We shared a non-fiction book during story time and learnt about the different materials that toys were made from.

We drew a picture of our favourite teddy and talked about how it is different from toys in the past.

Week 4

This week the children have been looking at old clothes. We started by reading the fairy tale Cinderella and talking about the clothes that royalty wore in the past. We then looked at photos of our past kings and queen added labels to talk about the features we had noticed. We discussed how clothes would be different for people that weren't rich and how in the past people would often make-do-and-mend. We then began to design and create our own t-shirts. 

Week 3

This week we have been talking about special events in our past. We looked at photos of ourselves when we were little and talked about how we have grown and changed. The children shared some of their memories and created a memory book to keep in school. We also continued our learning about seasons. We looked at festivals that are celebrated around the world and added these to our calendar. The children recognised lots of the festivals that we celebrate and  were interested in how families celebrate in different ways. We enjoyed exploring the traditions shared during Chinese New Year and talked about the food we like to eat during our own celebrations. 

Week 2

This week we are learning about chronology and putting events in order. 

We started by looking at the seasons in the year. We talked about events that happen during the year and how the weather changes. We used the book 'A Year with Kipper' to help us. The children were very interested in learning which season their birthday was in. We then created a calendar as a class. 

Later in the week we explored how our school has changed over time. Mrs Czornookyj came to talk to the children and we looked at lots of photos to discover which parts of the school were the oldest and which were the newest.  We learnt that Class 1 and the Hall are the oldest buildings, that an extension was built onto class one next. Class 2 and 3 were then built and finally the Reception classroom was created out of the potting shed. 

Week 1 

This term our topic is 'Long Ago' and our Question is "How has life changed?". We started our new topic by exploring lots of artefacts and photos n our topic box. The children then helped to create our new role play bedroom using clothes, toys and objects from the past.