We have learned about the life-cycle of a frog and discovered some exciting new vocabulary. The children enjoyed learning the words; emerge, amphibian, frogspawn, froglet, gills and metamorphosis. We watched a really informative video clip which showed the amazing transformation from frogspawn, to tadpole, to froglet and finally into a fully grown frog. We then looked through a PowerPoint to further support the children's understanding of this life-cycle.

The children made their own little books about the four distinct stages of the frog's life cycle and wrote sentences to accompany each one. We focused on using the sequencing words; first, next, then and finally. The children also drew the life-cycle on paper plates, adding arrows to show what happened after each stage. Some children enjoyed making split-pin frogs and creating their own pond habitat, adding moss, water reeds, lilly pads, flowers and pebbles. We even made some frogspawn using cotton wool balls and used clay to make some little tadpoles.

In maths this week the children have been learning how to count on in 2s and noticing the pattern when they did this. We have been exploring adding pairs of counters to a 10s frame and quickly recognising the new amount. We revisited our work on odd and even numbers and then explored sharing small amounts between different groups. We used our knowledge of doubles to help us quickly work out how many each person would get if we only shared between 2 and discussed that sometimes we can not share fairly.

We enjoyed reading a beautiful book called The Bog Baby by Jeanne Wills and Gwen Millward. The story is about two little girls who find a tiny magical creature in a woodland pond and bring it home as a pet. The children in Form 1 all knew that the creature would get unwell if it was taken out of its habitat and that we must always leave minibeasts where we find them. The children then imagined that if they had discovered a magical pond and found their own Bog Baby, what it might look like. We then made our own little bog babies using clay, feathers, googly eyes, pipe cleaner and anything else the children wanted to add. The children thought about the features they would like to add, such as wings, ears, tails, arms and legs. We discussed how to pinch and manipulate the clay and the tools we could use to add texture. We encouraged the children to be creative and think of how to approach this challenge themselves.

We also took a walk and explored the school pond to learn more about pond life minibeasts. We spotted lots and lots of water snails, tiny beetles and a few creatures we couldn’t identify! The children had great fun pond dipping and were all excited to see what they had caught when we emptied their nets into the tray. We also discussed how important it was to place the creatures back into the pond once we had finished.

We have also been busy preparing for our Coffee Morning presentation next week. The children have loved learning their words, the songs and presenting all the facts they have learnt about birds. Thank you for supporting them to learn their words at home. They are all superstars and are very much looking forward to sharing their hard work with you all!

The fascination with minibeasts has continued with the children discovering that lots of creatures are making good use of the bug hotel they made last week. The Pokemon Shop roleplay has been enjoyed by all the children and they are becoming very enthusiastic artists, drawing their favourite Pokemon or creating their own monster.