Happy Halloween

Ohhh... Caution - beware all who dare to enter J-Block. 

 Check out our Halloween Discovery session.

We made plastic bag ghosts (cut the handles off a plastic bag, stuff it with newsprint, and tie the handles to make arms, and draw on a ghost face).

 Cut out skull masks...

...then we made mini-mummies with paper towels...

.... and folding bat cards to give to someone we are 'batty' about.

We blew up jack-o-lantern balloons....

.... made haunted houses.... 

.... then snacked on monster biscuits ....

....and jack-o-lantern oranges....

 

Yum - fractions!
 

A Very Special Letter

Look what arrived in the mail for us yesterday!

 Can you guess who it's from? 

We looked closely at the envelope to work it out.

We finally received a reply on behalf of The Queen in response to the letter we sent telling her about our Queen's Birthday celebrations for Discovery earlier this year. A special Diamond Jubilee card was included too.

The children were very impressed with our letter from Buckingham Palace (signed by a Lady-in-Waiting on Her Majesty's behalf).

If you want to send The Queen a letter check out this website for details how.

Discover About Colour!

 This week we were busy discovering about colour.

 

We started with these paper rainbows, they were great measuring and size comparison practice....

..... We used the electronic magnifying microscope to closely observe different pieces of material on the electronic whiteboard.....

..... Then we looked through prisms to observe the different colours the light made.....

 .... We mixed paint to make new colours.....

 .... And we practiced writing colour words....

 .... We dropped dye on paper towels to mix new colours....

 .... Then made spinning colour wheels.....

 ..... And blew bubbles to observe their colours, one giant bubble floated over the roof and towards the field....

 .... We made masquerade masks, you can shut one eye at a time and look through to see different colours....

 

.... Then blew blob monsters. (I love these monsters!)

Swimming Self-Portraits

Our pastel and dye swimming portraits look amazing! I used this blog post for inspiration.

The children had a great time at swimming last term and made fantastic progress during their lessons. Here we are in our togs floating in the water. My thanks go to a lovely parent who came in and helped  with the finishing touches, it was worth the extra effort.

 We have also been writing about swimming -

I like to swim. I like to put my head under water.

I learnt about diving under the water. I go “one, two, three” and when I get to three, we have to dive under.

I liked jumping into the pool. I am learning to put my head under the water.

 I enjoy swimming because I like to float in the water.

I can swim in the big pool. I swim by myself.

Mini Beasts and Creepy Creatures

 We were very busy today exploring and discovering about the amazing world of mini beasts.

  We had lots of magnifying glasses available for the children to use as they got up close and personal to several dead and alive insects and spiders.

 We discovered that the snails leave a slimy trail and stick to glass and each other!

 We matched toy mini insects to line drawings using this Insect Match Up activity. (I got the idea for this activity from another blog but sadly I can't remember which one.)

We cut out praying mantis masks and practised snapping our arms out to catch a delicious fly for our morning tea. Yum!

We played 'Bugs and Buttons' on the ipads. (I love this app.)

We made butterflies using a butterfly stencil, old greeting cards, and bamboo skewers.

We looked carefully at pictures of real spiders, then coloured and cut out our own spiders for this giant web.

I was really impressed with the observation skills and very precise colouring shown during this activity. The children who choose it settled down and worked for at least 20 minutes; looking at the spider illustrations, colouring the spider almost exactly like the picture, and then cutting it out before folding the legs accordion-style. A great achievement for 5 year olds to complete with minimal teacher support.

"I am Co-Operative!"

After talking about cooperation earlier today during Circle Time and how we can be co-operative to achieve more as a group. I was pleased to see a small bunch of boys working together to make this marble run as tall as they are.

They were taking turns to hold the marble run, discussing which piece to use next, sharing the marbles fairly, and comparing together what or who was taller - the marble run or themselves.

By the time it was clean-up time they were all very proud of what they had achieved together. 

(And I was proud to have observed it!)