This week in Form 1, the children have loved learning all about pumpkins! On Monday we found out all about the lifecycle of a pumpkin by watching a time-lapse video of a pumpkin growing. The children found it really interesting seeing a plant grow from a seed to a vine with pumpkins on so quickly! The children then drew each stage of the lifecycle, remembering the sequence really well and using the correct colours for the flowers and stages of the pumpkins development. 

On Tuesday, the children explored pumpkins further and they were set the challenge of finding out how many seeds were inside a pumpkin. The children enjoyed scooping out the seeds and placing them on a 100 square. We discovered there were more than 100! They also had lots of fun with pumpkin soup in the water tray, scooping and filling bowls and containers using ladles and spoons. This soon became a Pumpkin Soup Shop which offered more opportunities for writing and counting.

In maths, the children have continued to learn about numbers to 20 and beyond. They are becoming more familiar with the number pattern and are noticing how to represent not only teen numbers but numbers beyond 20. On the carpet, the children made a number line and played a simple track game, rolling the large dice and then counting on that many. We discussed which numbers were bigger or smaller than others, how many they needed to win and which number would be one more or one less. The children then made their own board games by filling in a blank number track. The number track games could be themed in any way the children wished, but many children chose to make theirs a dinosaur game! The children also made hopscotches using the number tiles or by chalking on the ground outside and had lots of fun hopping along, counting as they went.

Linking with our pumpkin theme, we have been reading the story Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper. After hearing this story, the children were excited to make their very own pumpkin soup! We talked about the different parts of a pumpkin and the children learnt it had a skin, just like us. The children chopped pumpkin, onions, celery and carrots to put in their soup. Some children found the onions made their eyes water. We enjoyed the soup the next day and everyone tried it.

On Thursday, we celebrated Modern Foreign Languages Day at Russell House. Everyone came dressed in the theme of a country. Form 1 looked wonderful and we had outfits from all over the world! We shared which country we were dressed as and the language that is spoken in each of them. After discussing if the children spoke any other languages at home, Lochlain taught us how to count to 10 in Chinese and Mark taught us how to count to 3 in Romanian. In the classroom, the children made flags, coloured globes and maps and completed a world map puzzle. The children were very interested in the animals that might be found in different parts of the world. We also watched a video that taught us how to say hello in ten languages.

The children have been getting creative this week and learning how to use oil pastels and paint together to create beautiful pumpkin pictures! Firstly, the children looked closely at a pumpkin. Using a black oil pastel, they drew the shape carefully and added any details they noticed. They then mixed paint to create the perfect pumpkin shade - we wanted it to be as close to our class pumpkin as possible. They then drew pumpkin leaves, again looking carefully at the shape of them in the photograph. Once their pumpkin and leaves were dry, we mounted them on black card. Using a white pastel, the children added twinkly stars and a harvest moon. They even added highlights to the pumpkin and a twirly, twisty green vine for the leaves to grow from. They look great!