Ready Steady Grow - Spring Term 2

In the Ready Steady Grow project the children will take part in practical activities to explore where food comes from. They will learn what seeds and plants need to grow and grow a variety of plants. They will explore what constitutes a healthy lifestyle, including eating fruit and vegetables, exercise and teeth brushing. They will find out about life on a farm and about baby animals.

Our big question this term is: Where does our food come from?

Week 6

As part of our Signs of Spring companion project, we have been able to explore Easter traditions this week. We have understood why Easter celebrations take place, the religious beliefs of Easter and the typical events or items that we see over Easter time such as Easter eggs, Hot Cross Buns, crosses and new life. We listened to the Easter story to help us understand why people celebrate Easter. On Tuesday, we retrieved our knowledge of this and then we, of course, tasted some of the foods that we see over Easter time such as Hot Cross Buns. Our express element of our project was in form of a WOW event. We invited our grown ups in to school to help us explore and retrieve our learning and enjoyed taking part in a Easter Egg hunt.

Over the term, we have enjoyed exploring our Big Question over the term ‘Where does our food come from?’. We have been able to use many elements of our learning to be able to answer our question from making food ourselves (bread) to understanding if foods are animal or plant based. What a super term we have had full of learning from our Ready Steady Grow topic! 

For circle time this week we focused on money, in particular recognising the value & discussing how we get it (earn it) & what we do with it (save or spend it!) We ordered the coins by value from least to most, talking about the shape and colour of the coins. We then had a go at using the coins to pay for items in our classroom role play cafe! 

Week 5

We started the week by having an amazing lesson which we found super interesting!  We learned all about the life cycle of a frog, we took particular interest in how the frogs change from the beginning of their life. On Tuesday and Wednesday to innovate and express we were able to retrieve previous learning by talking about where bread comes from and how it is made. We watched the ‘Come Outside’ video again to remind us of the journey to make bread and we also read ‘The Little Red Hen’ and learned about how they make bread in the story too. We used our knowledge to then make our own bread! It was very exciting and we made sure we used our knowledge to help us remember key information about making bread. 

For circle time this week we were thinking about how we can look after our world. After a good discussion of things we can do around school and at home, such as recycling and picking up litter with litter pickers. We watched a clip about why it is important to look after our planet and what happens if we don't, such as the effect it would have on the sea animals. We then made our own bird feeders to look after the wildlife in our school and also made posters to encourage everyone to look after our world by putting rubbish in the bin. 

Week 4

This week we have started our spring companion project. We have been looking at different signs of spring, what we know about spring and what spring can look like. We have been able to explore the weather and typical weather we may see in each season. However, we have made sure we understand that the weather is not guaranteed in any season and the weather can surprise us! We have our own weather chart to check and record the weather daily. We then explored spring celebrations such as Holi. We learned that this is a Hindu celebration that happens in spring and we looked at how this is celebrated. We also had a super treat on Friday! Class Three had a visit from a tractor and because this linked so well to our Ready Steady Grow topic, we were able to go and explore the tractor too! We got to go inside and beep the horn! 

British Science Week

Friday 10th March marked the start of British Science Week and in order to celebrate this we had a very fun filled afternoon of Scientific investigation! We learnt all about broccoli: From farm to fork, finding out about the six important stages: Growing, Harvesting, Shopping, Preparing, Cooking & Eating! We had lots of activities to help with our learning including: printing patterns with broccoli, observational drawings, using our touch sense for finding broccoli in feely bags, making our own storybooks around the six stages & we also planted our very own broccoli seeds and will be looking after them for the next few months! 

Week 3

This week we have been continuing to explore the concept ‘growing’ and build on our question for the term ‘Where does our food come from?’. We have been able to make observations and describe how and why vegetable scraps grow and we learned that plants need water, light, air and warmth to grow. We then were able to use our knowledge of past and present to look at farms in the past and farms in the present and make comparisons of these. We learned that a farm is an area of land and its building used for growing crops and rearing animals. On Wednesday we looked at animals and their babies. We learned that animals are living things and there are different types of animals. We learned the names of the animals and their babies such as cow and calf & sheep and lamb.

For circle time this week we have been thinking about being helpful at home and caring for our environment. We came up with a list of jobs we could do around the classroom, we then decided who would have each of the jobs to do! We then made a badge showing our job role and had the opportunity to draw a pictures of us completing our jobs! 

Week 2

This week in our topic learning we have been continuing to look at food. We have been able to make simple prints using a variety of tools. We have experimented with designs, patters and effects. We have also been able to use our knowledge of colour mixing to explain what we know when we mix colours. We then started the develop aspect of our topic learning and looked at seeds and how things grow. We were able to observe, record and talk about materials and living thing and understand that some plants produce seeds so that they can grow new plants. We can name and describe basic features of plants and trees and we know that parts of plants and trees include a trunk, branch, twig, roots, stem, flowers and leaves. We then were able to investigate what seeds need to begin to germinate.

For circle time this week we have been thinking about how we can look after our friends. We had lots of discussions about our ideas and then we had the chance to act out some scenarios when someone might need help. We then made thank you cards for friends, drew pictures of our friends to show a time when they have helped us and role playing how to help the babies who were poorly. 

World Book Day 

On Thursday 2nd March we celebrated World Book Day by dressing up as our favourite characters. We had lots of fun in the classroom, creating our own book marks, sharing stories, listening to stories online and designing our own book covers. We also took part in an exciting Bringing Books to Life workshop where we acted out the story: Where the wild things are. 

Week 1

We have had a fabulous start to Term 4 and beginning our Ready, Steady, Grow topic. We have started by beginning to recognise origins of some foods – we learned that food comes from different sources, including from animals such as meat, fish, eggs and dairy or from plants such as fruit and vegetables. We then were able explore fruit and vegetables using our senses. We discussed vocabulary such as rough, smooth, hairy, slimy, shiny, sweet, sour, juicy, crunchy, soft and hard.

For our circle time we focused on how to look after our special people, discussing ways in which we can help our families. We then drew pictures of our families, of us helping our family members and made collages to show how we feel when we look after someone.