Self-care is an important part of settling back into school life. Now, more than ever, it is important that we learn to look after ourselves, keep ourselves safe and healthy and to use what we know to care for the needs of others around us. Therefore this week’s focus for our ‘Here we are’ project has been learning about ourselves, how to care for ourselves and for others.

The children began the week by discussing our bodies, our body parts and their functions. They drew upon the explanations given in the text and they talked about those body parts that are external and those that are internal. Following this lots of children chose to draw or paint their own bodies and label the different external parts.

However some children chose to work co-operatively together to label our body parts on a larger scale.

Whilst some children preferred to draw and label skeleton pictures using technology as a medium.

Some children chose to re-create our skeleton using playdough and they wrote a label for their play dough skeletons using their phonic knowledge.

Lots of children chose to be creative and independently make their own skeletons on the workshop table. They selected their own resources to represent the different bones in the body and they decided themselves upon the positioning of each bone within their skeletons. The children also talked enthusiastically about the bones in their skeletons.

Other children decided to learn about our skeletons through co-operative and discussion work whilst building a large scale skeleton using different bone jigsaw pieces.

The children have also been busy this week measuring bones using non-standard units and they have been number whizzes ordering bones from 1-20.

The children have also understood how they must look after their bodies “as most bits don’t grow back. The most important things for people to remember are to eat, drink and stay warm.” They have discussed in depth how we can keep ourselves safe and healthy. They have discussed what would happen if we didn’t eat or drink and why these things are so important. They also discussed more widely other things that they thought were important for keeping ourselves and each other safe and healthy. In particular the children have discussed the public health messages that have been given to support us in minimising the spread of viruses. We have used this as an opportunity to review existing and new routines with the children and we have stressed the importance of washing our hands, hand sanitising, socially distancing and mask wearing in light of the coronavirus outbreak. Below is an activity the children participated in to remind themselves how to wash their hands properly in order to minimise spreading germs and nasties.

This week the children have really enjoyed continuing their learning around the ‘Here we are’ project. Last week the focus was coming together as a class community and understanding our place in the wider universe. This week the children have been focusing upon engaging with our environment physically, learning to interact with the elements around them and gaining an understanding of the world we live in.

On Tuesday the children spent a lovely day exploring the forest. Minibeast hunting was the favourite activity of the day! The children explored the forest floor and found lots of interesting minibeasts. They very carefully collected and examined the minibeasts and they were very observant. They were able to look at the similarities and differences between the minibeasts as well. We found spiders, beetles, centipedes, millipedes, slugs, snails, woodlice and ants. All of the children demonstrated great care for living creatures and their habitats.

The children also thought it would be a good idea to look after our local wildlife so they set to work making bird feeders. It was hard work but lots of messy fun! They also enjoyed placing our bird feeders around the forest and we even remembered to put some bird feeders on their side for the Robins, as Robins can’t feed upside down!

This week the children have also discussed how we live in such a wonderful world. They listened to the song ‘What a Wonderful World’ by Louie Armstrong and then they wrote an alternative class version!

After gaining inspiration from a picture book that was made using the text of the song lyrics by Tim Hopgood the children also enjoyed decorating their version of the song ‘What a Wonderful World.’

And of course the children enjoyed singing their version of ‘What a wonderful World.’ We hope you enjoy it.

This week the children have returned to school with enthusiasm and they have immersed themselves in our ‘Here we are’ project. The focus for this week has been coming together as a class community and understanding our place in the wider universe.

The children have learnt a lot of information about Earth. They have discussed how the Earth rotates on its axis, how it orbits the sun, how it is the third planet in our solar system, how the Earth is made up of land and water, that Earth has an atmosphere and how Earth is the only planet to sustain life. The children know that we live on Earth and that Earth is a beautiful planet.

The children then decided to make our planet Earth in different ways. Some children chose to paint the Earth.

Some children chose to draw the Earth. They drew the Earth using coloured chalks and then they wrote a sentence about Earth using their phonic knowledge.

Some children decided to collage the Earth.

Whilst other children decided to make the Earth out of play dough. These children also wrote a sentence about Earth using their phonic knowledge.

Lots of children also used their phonic knowledge to write their own sentences about what they have learnt about Earth.