**Summer 1**

 

As we head into the Summer Term we are focusing our learning on growing and changing.

To begin this new topic we read the story of Oliver’s Vegetables and have done some work on sequencing the story.

We have planted tomato slices and are hoping that the seeds in them will begin to grow into new tomato plants. To take care of our tomato plants we have been using pipettes to water them and this has made our fingers super strong too.

 

In Week Two we looked at the work of artists Yayoi Kusama and Giuseppe Arcimboldo and have been inspired by their work to create our own paintings of fruits and vegetables!

Continuing our vegetable theme into Week Three we decided to be like Oliver (from the story Oliver’s Vegetables) and try some vegetables. Although we didn’t dig ours up from the garden, we did help prepare them by cutting broccoli and spinach and podding peas. Miss Shaw and Mrs Thornton cooked and blended the soup so that we could all try it. Everybody had at least a taste, and some people even had a second bowlful. The adults in Reception were really impressed with everyone’s courage at trying something new.

 

 

During Week Four we focused on plant life cycles, using our growing tomato plants as a reference point to talk about what had happened so far. We did some sorting of living and non-living things and considered what plants need to grow and how we can care for them. Using pipettes to water our tomato plants has helped us to give them the right amount of water, and as a bonus it has made our fingers super strong too!

 

 

In the final weeks of Summer 1 we focused on the life cycles of frogs and butterflies.

We used resources in our environment including non fiction books to find out information and even had the chance to see some tadpoles first hand thanks to some very kind adventurers in our class!

**Summer 2**

 

Continuing the theme of growing after the half term break we have started to focus on how humans grow, and more specifically how we have grown from babies to children. As part of this we have thought about what babies can do and what we are able to do now and how different that is in just a few short years. We really enjoyed seeing each other's childhood photographs and seeing how our classmates have grown and changed since they were born.

As part of our learning we have been using non-fiction books again to find out new facts about the human body.

We learnt that:

adult bodies have 206 bones (which is more than a horse - they have 205!)

the world record longest foot was 38cm long

our tongues have 10,000 taste buds

We have drawn around, cut out and measured our own hands and feet and compared them to each other and the world record!

We have been making skeleton pictures and talking about the different bones in our body!

"The longest bone in your body is your femur!" - William

 

We have also enjoyed our visit to Meanwood Valley Urban Farm this half term where we learnt more about minibeasts and their habitats and observed animals and plants.

 

During Arts Week (week commencing 17th June) we have been exploring playdough and clay and designing and making clay sculptures!

 

In Week 4 we explored mapping in theme, literacy and maths!

Our learning was based around the Everywhere Bear book. We thought really carefully about positioning of places in maths, wrote about the places Everywhere Bear went in literacy and in provision we made our own maps using construction and small world materials.

We also did the "trip to an island" song from our LauLau SongDrawing to make an island map in our groups!

Our learning this week brought lots of joy!

 

 

Following on from our Everywhere Bear adventures we are working in Week 5 on becoming story makers ourselves!

We have been creating and describing characters and settings, building story settings in our construction area and making character puppets at our creation station!

In literacy we have been starting to plan our own stories, thinking about what will happen at the beginning, in the middle and at the end.