IIn Form 1, the week started with the children discovering an exciting letter and GIANT footprint in the classroom left by the Giant from Jack and the Beanstalk! In the letter, the Giant set the children the challenge to find things that were longer, shorter and the same length as his footprint. The children all loved estimating how many counters long the footprint might be and we recorded everyone's guesses. It was 74 counters long! This led to the children wondering how long their footprints might be. They all drew around their feet to create an outline and then used counters to measure. Then the children went off to find and record things that were longer and shorter and the same as the giant footprint. There was lots of discussion and great maths language being used to compare lengths. Later in the week children explored how to use rulers and everyone loved having a go at using a fun measuring game on our CTouch board. Then the children got to work measuring using rulers - very challenging but lots of fun!

The children are excitedly keeping track of how their beans are growing and this week they noticed that lots of changes had happened. Everyone's beans had started to grow and the children are continuing to update their diary, recording the little roots and shoots that are appearing. We are also tracking the changes on the calendar to see how many days it is taking the beans to grow. Everyone ensures they have watered their beans (but not too much) and are taking great care of them.

The children have been using their imaginations very well this week by imagining what sort of land they might like to discover at the top of their beanstalk, should it grow up into the clouds just like in the story. The children had some fantastic ideas; a land of chocolate with chocolate rivers and trees, a land of bunnies, a land of shimmering gold with a solid gold castle, and a land of cars and racing tracks! The children really demonstrated their amazing imaginations and creativity and their listening skills as they had to tell the group the land their partner had described rather than just their own. The children used lots of descriptive language when discussing this and then went on to draw and write about their imaginary place.

The children became storytellers and adapted the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. Together they wrote their own version called Jack and Jill and the Magic Carrots. Sitting in a circle, the children took it in turns to add their own little bit to the story and decide what would happen next. The story had a brave lead character called Jill, a rabbit that turned into a beanstalk because it ate some magic carrots, an evil enchanted talking and walking apple tree and even a giant squid! The children had so much fun and drew an illustration each to accompany the book, which is now typed up and taken pride of place in our book area.

The children have continued to learn more about plants this week and explored all the different parts of a plant and the vocabulary of root, stem, leaves, flower and seeds and the function of each. To demonstrate this great understanding, they all made their very own plant which had to include all the various parts. Children used an art straw for the stem, cut leaves out of card, used wool for the roots, a cake case for the flower and added real seeds to the centre to show where the plant would produce seeds. Everyone worked extremely hard and produced some great models!