As the weather has felt very autumnal this week, we have turned our attention to thinking about animals that hibernate. We started by reading Don’t Hog the Hedge to help us research which animals hibernate and which do not. We knew that hedgehogs and badgers hibernate, but we were very surprised to learn that toads and queen bees do too! We were also interested to find out where animals hibernate. We learned that some make a nest of leaves, whilst others find caves or wet mud to settle down for the winter. Some of the children decided to make their own hedgehogs. We experimented with using leaves to make hedgehog prickles and we tried using the clay to make our own hedgehog sculptures. The children thought hard about the textures they wanted to create, using materials such as pasta or matchsticks to create the spines. 

We also made our very own delicious hedgehog bread rolls. We first had to weigh out our ingredients to make sure we had the right amount. The children were fantastic at recognising the numbers in our recipe and on our scales, then we had lots of fun tipping them in and mixing them all together. We each had our own piece of dough and Mrs Nelson taught us how to fold and stretch our dough to wake up the magic yeast to help our bread grow big. After it was cooked, we decided to give it a try. We first had to cut our bread open so we could add the butter. Everyone had a super try at using a knife to slice their bread and spread on the butter before we had our first yummy bites. It was delicious! 

On Thursday, we enjoyed reading The Girl who Never Made a Mistake as we discussed that it is okay if we don’t always get things right on the first try. Mrs Nelson and I shared stories with the children about times we have made mistakes and how they helped us to learn what to do next time. The children had some lovely ideas of ways we could help our friends and we all learned that it's okay to make mistakes. We should just try and try again! Our story linked nicely to our assembly leaf this week, which was awarded to someone who has tried very hard with their writing, showing lots of resilience and perseverance as they correctly wrote all of the sounds in their name on their own!

Following on from our Harvest exploration last week, the children were eager to get into the different courgettes and squash Mrs Nelson had brought in for us from her garden. We loved cutting up the vegetables and feeling the slimy insides of our class pumpkin. The children worked as a team to scoop out all the pumpkin’s insides, noticing that the big pumpkin had bigger seeds than the smaller vegetables. We also enjoyed using golf tees and mallets to make patterns in the pumpkins, though it was quite tricky to get the golf tees to stay. We had to persevere and use our mallets to push them in so they wouldn’t fall out, but we did it!

We also had a very special treat on Tuesday morning with a Perform Drama Workshop. The children were so excited to join in with the show and there were certainly lots and lots of giggles to be had as they acted, jumped and danced their way around the hall following along with the various stories. 

What a busy half-term we have had in Transition, and how quickly it has flown by! I look forward to seeing you all next half-term, after a well-deserved rest, as we begin to explore Dinovember!