Blog 15.12.23
This week we have continued to think about Christmas. Our story this week has been ‘The Christmas Pine’ by Julia Donaldson. The story tells us of The Christmas Pine which is a gift from faraway Norway to the people of Britain for its support during WWII. Every year one perfect pine tree is chosen to travel from forests aboard a boat to stand proudly in Trafalgar Square. In the story the tree recalls its start as a tiny seed within a cone, surrounded by its brothers and sisters. Thereafter, it remembers the whispering wind suggesting it would grow so tall and strong as to be chosen to be the tree to be gifted. Once in place in Trafalgar Square, the tree watches the passers by, takes comfort from Nelson’s Column and the lions, and remembers as the carollers sing of times and places and events from long ago.
Our Rainbow Challenges this week have been related to this story:
Writing – Write about the story
Maths – Count the dots on the presents and match them to the numbers on the tree
Funky Fingers – Use the tweezers to pick up pom-poms baubles and put on the tree
Creative – Make a lolly stick and pipe cleaner Christmas tree
Playdough– Make a playdough Christmas tree
Drawing – Draw a Christmas tree
Outside – Make a stick tree
In maths this week the Reception children have continued to learn about making five, six, and seven using two pieces of Numicon and record as a number sentence. The Nursery children have continued to identify different pieces of Numicon and have been learning about different coins.
In Read, Write Inc. this week the Reception children have continued to practise writing cvc words and writing sentences. The nursery children have been learning the story ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and have been listening and identifying the sounds at the beginning of words. They used instruments to make the noise for the giant stomping, Jack tiptoeing and Jack running away. We also played a Christmas listening game to identify different sounds associated with Christmas.
This week we did our school Christmas performance of ‘Hey Ewe’. Everybody was amazing and all of Starfish were shining stars. We were so proud of them all. We have also been recording different parts of our own Starfish nativity story which we will finish next week. We have made some Christmas cards and made some triangle Christmas tree pictures.
We had a visit from the firefighters who told us how to stay safe in winter and we got to look at the fire engine and all got a turn to go inside. On Thursday it was Christmas jumper day and we wore some very colourful jumpers. We ate our yummy Christmas lunch that Mandy had made wearing our Christmas jumpers.
This week as part of our RE theme ‘Why do Christians perform a nativity play at Christmas?’ we looked at our nativity display that we have been making over the last few weeks. This week we made Mary, Joseph and Jesus. We spoke about how Mary and Joseph might have been feeling having to travel a long way and then not be able to find anywhere to stay except a stable.
This week our Starfish star of the week was Fedir for doing some great maths and completing lots of levels on Numbots. Well done Fedir!
Our story next week will be ‘The First Christmas’.