On Monday, the children were very excited to tell each other all about their half-term news. They shared their holidays, trips, visits to friends and families and activities enjoyed at home. The children very proudly showed their Home/School Journals and we even watched some videos that had been uploaded to Tapestry. I challenged the children to then write a sentence about their half-term, completely independently, in their literacy books. It was tricky, but they all gave it their best try.

It has been great fun to start our topic on Amazing Animals this week. We will be focusing on the seven continents of the world and learning about animals from each of them. The children looked at the world map closely on the CTouch and located the United Kingdom, discovering that we live in Europe. The children were quite surprised to see how small our continent is compared to others! We also learnt a catchy song all about the continents to help remember their names.

We have focused on North America and Africa this week and learnt some amazing facts about the animals that live there. One particular fact that the children loved was that beavers have transparent eyelids that act like swimming goggles when they are under the water! Everyone also tried to hold their breath for 15 minutes just like they can... we discovered that this is very hard to do!

The children then made a start on their Amazing Animals fact book. They each chose an animal that we had learnt about and wrote about its habitat, diet and a fun fact about it. Drawings were also added to accompany their writing. For our page about Africa, the children drew their favourite animals and learnt how to write labels. We will continue to work on these books over the next few weeks, adding pages for each of the continents.

In maths, the children have been deepening their understanding of number bonds to ten. Using tens frames to support their understanding, the children added counters to find all the different ways to make ten and recorded these as addition sentences. On the carpet each morning, we look at our large velcro tens frames and place each of the children's names in a space. We discuss how many children and adults there are in Form 1. Children are encouraged to explain what they can see, for example; I can see 3 and 7, so I know that is 10. This daily practice has really supported their understanding of the composition of ten.

Form 1 have also been thinking about being resilient and having a can do attitude to learning. We listened to the story The Dot by Peter H Reynolds and discussed how the little girl was feeling in each part of the story. The children all noticed that the character was feeling quite worried and didn't want to try at the beginning. However, once she had a go, her confidence grew and grew and she discovered she was brilliant at painting dots of every size and colour! All the children were given their own dot to decorate in any way they wanted. Some used paint, pastels, tissue paper, feathers, glitter, pens or a combination of many. They all look completely unique and the children demonstrated lots of creativity and most importantly a can do attitude!

In art, the children have been looking closely at the different patterns on animals' fur, skin and feathers. Using a 2x6 grid, the children filled each square with a different animal pattern. They used a range of techniques to create this piece of work and they look really effective.

The children have also loved playing in the Russell House Vets roleplay this week, caring for the animals and making them all better.

It has been a wonderful start to the second half of the Spring Term.