We started our week by reading Jack and the Beanstalk as we are finding out about traditional tales. After reading the story, we learnt how beans really grow and the things they need to survive. The children loved watching a time-lapse video of a bean growing and seeing all the roots appear - it was amazing!

The children then planted their own beans and even added a castle in the clouds to their pot. Everyone has been looking after them very carefully all week (if not over enthusiastically watering them!) and watching out for any changes. We started our own Beanstalk Diaries and made a class calendar to keep track of the days and when we notice any changes.

On Tuesday, we had a visit from the author Gareth P Jones. He read his stories to us, explained how he creates characters and answered lots of questions about his books and what it is like to be an author. The children loved singing along with Gareth as he played the piano and made up funny songs to accompany each of his stories. Gareth then visited Pre-Prep to sign the children's books and chat more to them about his stories.

On World Book Day, the children loved coming in dressed up as their favourite book character. They all looked so brilliant and everyone enjoyed explaining who they were and a little bit about the story they were from. We shared a favourite page from each child's book and had so much fun being all dressed up for the day. Children drew pictures of their characters and wrote sentences about what their character is like. We became story tellers for the afternoon and wrote a class story all of our own, inventing fun characters and imagining the adventures they might have.

In maths, we have been exploring number bonds and how to represent these in a part, part, whole model. There has been lots of super maths thinking about how we can make different groups using ten and children have even had a go at recording their findings.

In art, we have looked at beautiful spring flowers and created some lovely observational drawings. The children explored how to use chalk pastels, smudging and blending them to create different effects. We have also learnt about colour mixing this week and how we can make lots of different colours using primary colours. Children created colour wheels and worked very carefully indeed!