We have discovered that butterflies are symmetrical. We have drawn, decorated and made our own butterflies using collage materials and shapes. Some of us even made our butterflies symmetrical.

We have read the story ‘The very hungry caterpillar.’ We tried really hard to write the story in our own words and we made our own story books. We used the talking pegs to help us segment words.

We have looked at minibeast body parts under the microscope and we have used magnifying glasses to examine minibeast pictures. We then painted our own butterflies and caterpillars.

In our Outdoor Classroom we found an enormous spider under the shed. We caught it and we had a close look at it using the magnifying glass lid! It certainly looked a bit scary but nobody in the Swans shouted ‘Aaaaaaargh, Spider!’

We have also been learning about the life cycle of a butterfly. We are very excited about looking after our own caterpillars. We hope they grow into beautiful Painted Lady butterflies. Look out for photos on our next blog!

This week the children went on a minibeast hunt in the forest and they learnt how to pick up minibeasts using a Pooter. It was fun sucking up creatures but we had to be careful to remember to suck the right tube!

This week we have been learning about Spiders. We have sung and wrote the Nursery Rhymes ‘Incy Wincy Spider’ and ‘Little Miss Muffet.’ We have made spiders, string webs and glittery webs and we have also looked at spiders in a magnifying glass and painted them!

We have been adding and subtracting spiders as well as learning how to share and how to halve numbers.

We have learnt lots of information about Spiders. Do you know that a spider is not an insect? Do you know what the spinneret does? Do you know where the pedipalps are? Do you know why a spider has them? Why does a spider have hairy legs?

Some people are scared of spiders but the Swans know that spiders are not scary. We have been spider spotting around school and we have learnt not shout ‘Aaaaaaaaaaaagh’ when we see one. We know that spiders are very clever creatures and that they only tickle!

On Monday the children were very excited as we hunted in the forest for minibeasts. We found earwigs, worms, slugs, snails, centipedes, millipedes and beetles. We were very brave because we picked up the minibeasts in our hands!