During our carpet time, we discussed why we need to wash our hands and the children taught me all about the germs on my hands that could make me poorly. We decided to carry out an experiment, adding glitter to our hands to see how easily we could pass it on, just like germs. We then had a go at washing the germs off our hands, but we realised it was trickier than we thought. We couldn’t just run them under the tap.

We watched a video to help us learn how to wash them properly and we all practised the different moves. Later that day, we worked together as a team to strengthen our finger muscles and pass some pesky germs around the circle, to the bin, using a peg! Although this was quite hard, the children showed brilliant resilience and managed to get rid of all the germs in no time. During their play, some children also helped to wash the germs off of the dirty hands using sponges and others helped to give the dolls a lovely warm bath to keep them nice and clean.

On Tuesday, Transition used all of their knowledge about healthy eating to make a delicious fruit salad. After watching carefully, everyone had a go at chopping either apple, orange, banana, grapes, strawberries, watermelon, pineapple or mango, to add to our salad. When it was all finished, we washed our hands carefully and gave it a try. Although we didn't all like every fruit, I was very impressed as everyone gave it a good try and I was intrigued to learn that grapes and strawberries were the most popular. Some children even asked for seconds and we finished the entire bowl! Great work Transition.

On Thursday, we had lots of fun with the toothpaste as we explored how to brush our teeth. During carpet time, we worked together on the C-Touch board to brush the teeth of the Sesame Street monsters. The children took it in turns to come up and brush some of the teeth until they were sparkly white. To get the points, we had to make sure that we brushed the front, the back and the bottom of the teeth and the tongue! The children then helped me to clean a giant mouth made of plastic bottles, using toothbrushes, toothpaste and water to make them pearly white. Transition are now experts at keeping clean!

In maths this week, we explored how to find one less. Once again, I needed the children’s help as I kept getting the numbers muddled in my number line. They were superb at helping me find the right numeral and put them in the correct order. Then we used our number line to help us find one less teddy bear. To work it out, some children used the bears to count how many were left, some children jumped back on the number line and some children just knew! All in all, Mrs Nelson and I were very impressed with everyone!

In phonics this week, we had an exciting game of rhyming snap. The children took it in turns to turn over a card and find the picture that rhymed with their own. Then, we all explored our new sound d, thinking of lots of different things beginning with d, including a dinosaur, a dog and a digger.

We have also had lots of fun building volcanoes out of rice, escaping the lava in the outdoor provision, visiting Australia in our mini-bus and playing families in the home-corner. I can’t wait for another busy week as we begin to explore the life-cycle of a seed.