We had lots of fun drawing around one of the children and labelling the parts of the body that we could think of. The children then used their knowledge of initial sounds from our phonics lessons to stick post-it note labels onto their partner’s body! I was very impressed with how independently Transition were able to complete this task.

We had a very exciting morning on Wednesday visiting the Science Lab. The children walked around with clipboards to see if they could spot key parts of the lab including the gas taps, the fire extinguisher and a periodic table! We were very lucky to be able to try on some of Mrs Carn’s lab coats and to watch the Bunsen burner being turned on. We definitely have some future scientists in Transition.

During play, we have been exploring in the shadows den, using torches to create shadows and retell stories using puppets. The children have been conducting experiments in the water tray to see which objects float and which sink and have been using magnets to find out which materials are magnetic. We also had lots of fun exploring bubbles which got very wet and messy, but the children also managed to have lots of fun helping to clear away the soapy mess! On Friday, we conducted an experiment to observe the changes in our bodies when we exercise. The children did as many star jumps as they could in one minute and noticed that they were out of breath, they felt hot and they were starting to sweat!

Our letter sound this week is b. The children thought of some brilliant b words such as ball, back, bridge, basket, bear and beans. We also played a fun game where the children had to follow instructions that were spoken in segmented robot speak. Such as /h/o/p/ and s/ay h/e/ll/o. This game was tricky at first, but the children did really well at blending the sounds to understand the instructions.

It is the month of the Muslim celebrations of Ramadan and Eid. The children watched a very interesting video about a Muslim family. We thought that it would be quite a challenge to fast from sunrise until sunset and a lot of the children really liked the Mehndi designs that we saw the women painting in the video of the Eid festival. I was blown away by some of the children’s concentration to create their own Mehndi designs during our free play after we had learnt about Ramadan and Eid.

You’ll be pleased to know that our pea plants are growing well! The children have been excited to see little shoots peeping through the soil and they are growing taller every day. Mrs Nelson is an expert gardener and thinks that by next week, we will need to transfer them to a bigger pot to continue to grow.

The children have also been showing some brilliant teamwork this week, building a Mobilo train that was almost as long as the whole classroom and working together to colour our new collaborative colouring rolls. We are also just one or two marbles away from filling the good choices jar and so the children and I had a discussion about what they would like as their class treat, if they manage to fill it to the top. Some ideas included doing some baking, a treasure hunt and playing in the paddock. Almost all ideas involved chocolate and sweets in some way. It sounds like I will have to get planning for an exciting treat that the class will hopefully achieve before the Easter break.