This week in English we started reading ‘The Colour Monster’, our words of the week were “ecstatic” and “downhearted”. We read the story and talked about what makes us happy. Rudi said “snow, Santa, birthday and Halloween” and Marwa said “my brother”. We also discussed about what makes us feel calm, Robyn said “I feel calm when I hug my Mummy” and Noah said “seeing Mummy” made him feel calm. We worked together to make a story map. Emily and Theo remembered that we started the book with a “confused Rainbow Colour Monster” and Sophie added that it ended with a Colour Monster which was “pink with hearts”. This week Theo, Rosie and Daisy brought in books exploring the animal world and Christmas! Thank you for sharing, we learnt lots of new facts!

In Phonics we sang Baa Baa Black Sheep. The children used the puppets in provision to recreate the song, and we had fun starting to blend sounds together to make words.

In Maths we continued learning about matching. At the start of the week we looked at matching numbers. We looked at the number of spots ladybirds had on their back and created a matching dot pattern using number frames. Later in the week we explored matching handprints, using our knowledge of colour and size to find matching pairs.

In RE we learnt about how God created our world and that we should look after it. We talked about how God made lots of different animals. Daisy said God made “a hungry caterpillar”, Sophie said, “a big pig” and Theo “all the creatures in the world”. We also discussed why we should be careful with animals. Hayden said, “so they are not afraid” and Jacob added “because we don’t want to hurt them”. In provision we had a go at making our own creations, there were some fantastic minibeasts!

In Learning Means the World we explored emotions through the Colour Monsters. The Colour Monsters escaped the book on Tuesday and started to hide around the classroom and make a mess! To protect the classroom the children have been using their fine motor skills to make special Colour Monster bracelets which keep the Colour Monsters back in their book. We have also drawn and painted Colour Monsters, looking at the colour and the emotion they are. For our Spa Bear circle time the Colour Monsters left us a note and a pumpkin, they had cut it open and wondered if we wanted to have a look inside! We took it in turns to predict what could be inside, Sophie said “a caterpillar” and Theo thought “some seeds”. We also spoke about what we could do with it once we had opened it, Zaid said we “could turn it into a Gruffalo House” and Jacob thought “we should plant the seeds so they grow!”. Everyone was very good at being patient and turn taking, Spa Bear was very impressed!

Next week we will be continuing The Colour Monsters. Please could you send your child in with a plastic bottle which we can turn into Joy Jars, thank you!