We went to see our friends at Paxton Pits who organised the best possible day for us. A coach ride, water boatmen, centipedes and cormorants as well as a picnic lunch with our friends followed by pond building and nature crowns. Now the children will take another look at our pond and spinney to see what they can find. We do love our frogs but they get hungry and eat a lot of different creatures! 

In early years we have loved ‘going on a bear hunt’. The children have learnt so much new vocabulary and explored using it in different ways throughout their play. The reception children learnt about different types of bears and made a book of their own to share their research. The children have been packing picnic baskets worthy of any explorer, designing and making binoculars and plotting their own expeditions through the spinney, over the grass and onto the big field. Where they gathered dandelions to make delicious dandelion and honey cookies! 

Our beanstalks have grown and now we must protect them from…..the snail. This past week the children have learnt about the life cycle of the snail, how they live and what they eat. They have come up with all sorts of questions and enjoyed finding the answers through conversation, reading and investigation. 

Our beans are growing well! We know that the leaves capture the sun to make food and the roots suck up the food and water. We didn’t know why it had to be ‘just water’. To find out we planted cress this week and investigated whether it grew better with salt water, sugar water or tap water. We found out that Jack was strong as we tried to climb a tree and learnt that there was a lot of thinking involved. After sharing so many versions of Jack and the beanstalk we changed the story a little and imagined what could have been up in the clouds. Thinking about the stringed instrument that Jack brought down from the Giant’s castle. We have listened to, played and explored a variety of stringed instruments before making our own.

We celebrated the coronation by making crowns and flags using red, white and blue. We had royal tea parties in the role play kitchens where we made sandwiches and biscuits. Then we had our real tea parties with cake! We often have special snack and love chatting at the table for the different reasons.

It’s only the beginning and we have already shared beans on toast and bean salsa at snack time. We have compared six different versions of Jack and the beanstalk and started growing our own broad bean plants. We have done some beautiful observational paintings and explored lots of different herbs with magnifying glasses and pestle mortars. The children have decided that Jack makes a lot of bad choices and needs to learn some manners!

We are so excited to welcome more friends and begin our topic of 'Journeys'. We will start the term with the journey of the broad bean and Jack's adventure up the giant beanstalk. We will extend our bug hunts and bird watching to the larger field and explore some picnic foods ready for later in the term. We have our fingers crossed for lots of frogs; the spinney is usually teaming with them by late spring. Last year there was one for every child to hold! 

Look out for your upcoming milestones...forewarned is forearmed as they say