The children have loved retelling this familiar tale and have enjoyed learning about the ingredients needed to make a great story. The children were able to identify the characters, the setting, the problem and the solution within the story. Using our large A3 story maps the children drew the different elements of the story and were able to retell the story with confidence.

In maths this week, the children have been learning all about measuring length and found a rather exciting note in the classroom on Tuesday morning!

Fee, fie, foe fun!
There is a lot of measuring to be done!
Can you find out how long my footprint is?
Can you find things that are longer or shorter than my footprint?
From the Giant x

The children found some large footprints on the carpet and used their knowledge of measuring height from last week to help them find the length of the footprints. We measured the footprints using cubes and also started to learn about how to use centimetres. The children enjoyed estimating how many cubes long the footprint might be and seeing who was closest! Later, the children explored measuring their own footprint by using cubes to find the length of their shoes. We made a class bar chart to show each person's shoe length and compared this to the height chart to see if the tallest children also had the longest feet.

Although we did not have any magic beans (that we know of!) we thought we might plant some runner beans of our own. The children were confident that the beans would need soil, water and sunshine to grow. We discussed the conditions the beans would need and read the story The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle to learn more about this and how seeds can be transported from place to place by the wind or animals.

The children each carefully filled their cup with soil, planted their bean and gave it a little water. They also made their own name labels so we know whose bean is whose and they even added their own fairytale castle (complete with clouds) on a stick for their bean to climb towards. The children were interested in watching a time-lapse video of a plant growing to see clearly the stages of this process. We will be looking after our beans as the weeks go on and watching carefully for any changes.

In preparation for our Coffee Morning, the children have been painting animals to share during our part of the presentation. The children each chose an animal from the story of The Great Race and tried really hard to make their painting nice and big so that everyone would be able to see it. They look brilliant and the children cannot wait to share them with you all! We have also been practising singing our Chinese New Year song and saying animal names in Mandarin.

The children have been using their imaginations and created their own magic beans this week. They used glitter, paint, tissue paper, feathers and anything else they could think of to decorate their beans. We then had a discussion about what they would like their magic bean to do if it was planted… What might happen?! Some children said their bean would grow a rainbow, some said it would grow chocolate coins and some said it would grow up into the clouds, just like the one in Jack and the Beanstalk. We have displayed the beans and the children's excellent ideas in the classroom.

The children have really enjoyed making dens this week and I have been very impressed with the structures they have managed to create. They have been battling some pretty strong winds whilst making their dens and they have shown great persistence and team work to keep going.

Another wonderful week in Form 1!