What a fantastic start to the week, a visit to Hitchin Fire Station. The children had watched an interesting dvd last Friday in preparation for their visit. This was all part of their ‘understanding of the world’ work on people who help us. The fireman in charge of the watch told us about the jobs that were all part of a fire fighter’s day. He talked about the importance of smoke alarms and he made his friend put on his working uniform so that the children could see what they wore. Ruby was even allowed to stamp on his toe as hard as she could to show how reinforced the toe caps of his boots are. Then the children were taken in two groups to look at the fire engines. The children were shown what the fire engine carries, and how the hoses worked and all of the children had a go at using the smallest hose which they thoroughly enjoyed. They were all allowed to sit in the cab and a few children pretended to be the driver sitting in the front of the fire engine. On the way back to school the children played ‘spot the fire hydrant’. They found seven altogether. Back at school in the afternoon there were thank you letters to be written and pictures to draw.
On Tuesday the children were split into two groups and had three literacy lessons for each group as the teachers applying for the reception teacher job for September taught their lessons.
On Wednesday the children did their ‘Show and Tell’ sharing their favourite books. We did a tally chart to start with and found out from this that 5 children had a non-fiction book, 1 child had information about pretend characters so he was in the middle group, 5 children had forgotten their book, 1 was absent and 18 had a fiction book, a story. The children wrote an explanation as to why they had chosen their book as a favourite and they drew the front cover ready for display.
On the coldest, windiest afternoon of the week we battled against the elements down to Hitchin station and caught the train to Letchworth so that we could attend story time at Letchworth library. The children were told some stories and shown how the books were arranged on the shelves. They were encouraged to choose books from the different sections and talked about them with the adults or read quietly on the chairs in the children’s library. It was a really good afternoon and everyone enjoyed the train journey.
Thursday was ‘World book Day’ and we had a fantastic group of witches and wizards. The children read the witches spell from Macbeth and in groups wrote some spells as ‘shared writing’. After morning play the children heard the story of ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ which they wrote about and illustrated. The afternoon was a time for making magic. From dancing raisins, to magic writing and frothing potions: an exciting afternoon. Music at the end of the day was about ‘The Magic Porridge pot’
Friday morning was less frantic, with spellings and completing off all the unfinished bits. The afternoon was a book quiz where the children were in ‘House Groups’ and competed to help answer questions.
Our house topic made no progress this week, but next week the children will use their house illustrations to make a ‘clay slab house’ and trace their house with fabric crayons ready to make a wall hanging. They will learn more about different sorts of houses and by using story of the three pigs we can move forward with our topic learning.
‘Show and Tell’ on Wednesday is about being able to talk about the houses they live in. They should be able to say their address and tell us things like what sort of house it is, how many rooms it has, who lives in their house etc. It would be really good if everyone has given this some thought at home and discussed what could be shared with us all.
After a busy week, have a peaceful weekend.