Welcome to Hedgehog Class Blog

This is the page that you can visit to keep updated on the children's learning. Make sure you come back each week to see the learning opportunities that the children have been taking part in.

Easter Cakes

This week the children have been busy making Easter Nest Cakes. They were keen to share their knowledge of making these simple cakes and couldn't wait for their turn. They were able to check we had all the equipment we needed and, of course, the ingredients. They followed the picture recipe and could explain what we needed to do next. We talked about how the chocolate needed to melt so it could cover the cereal and then solidify again to make the cakes stick together. They showed great turn taking skills within their small group, and most were able to resist the urge to lick their chocolatey fingers. 

Forest School in Spring

Our first visit to Forest School was great fun today. The children were challenged to look for signs of spring and draw what they found. They were great at spotting the signs and sharing them with each other and the adults who joined us. They then explored the woods, which resulted in a lot of tree climbing.

A big thank you to all of the volunteers that joined us this week for both the church and Forest School visits.

Cress Sandwiches

The cress that they planted last week had also grown tall enough to eat so on Tuesday afternoon, the children made their own sandwiches. They showed off their skills with a knife to spread some cheese or plant based spread (some of them chose to have both!) and sprinkled the cress on top. Most of them loved their sandwich and even asked for more.

A Visit to Church

This week the children have been learning about the Christian celebration of Easter. On Tuesday we visited the church where Reverend Colin told them the Easter Story. We also sang some songs and explored the church. The children were all very excited and have recalled lots of the facts about the story and their visit.

British Science Week

The children have really enjoyed the different aspects of Science Week.

First, they planted cress seeds, which grow quickly, and corn lily and iris bulbs which take longer to grow. We watched time lapse films and talked about which parts of the cress they could see each day as they grew. They are looking forward to making cress sandwiches next week.

On Tuesday, they investigated melting. The children predicted what would work the best to make an ice cube melt the quickest: heat, cold, salt, sugar or water. They each chose what to use and we checked on the ice throughout the afternoon. One child chose to hold his ice for a while and the rest of the children were surprised when his ice cube melted before those that were wrapped in Mrs Leviton's scarf. They were also amazed at how the salt and sugar made the surface of the ice go bumpy as it melted.

At the Animal Encounter, the children met a bearded dragon called Hagrid, a millipede called Tsunami, a small python called Miso and a rabbit.

Mrs Keseru came in to talk to the children about her career as a vet. The children asked lots of questions and watched how to tie a bandage on a (toy) dogs leg. They enjoyed taking on the role for themselves later in the Vet's role play area.

Mothers' Day

This week the children have been working hard to make cards to celebrate Mothering Sunday. 

Busy Builders

The children have been very busy this week constructing small world lands, castles and other buildings to support their role playing games. They have also been building on their counting on skills by playing more board games. They were also busy with a new jigsaw challenge... of 100 pieces!

Lunar New Year

This week the children have been finding out about The Lunar or Chinese New Year. They have enjoyed finding out how this celebration is similar to some of those that they have celebrated themselves by watching short films and listening to the information in non-fiction books. They also found out why each year is named for a different animal and were surprised to find that they were either born in the Year of the Pig, like me, or the Year of the Dog. They enjoyed acting out the story and having lots of races of their own using small world animals and toys. They used their cutting skills to make lanterns which they decorated with glitter and they had a go at writing good luck messages using chinese characters. 

P-P-P-Penguins!

This week the children have been finding out about penguins. They found out lots of facts from non-fiction books and a short film. They all wrote their favourite facts and drew penguins. We are going to put these altogether to make a class book. They also made 3D penguins using recycled materials. 

The role play area was transformed into a Penguin Rescue Centre where the children took on the roles of vets and nurses to care for the rescued penguins. 

They also developed their cutting skills to make snowflakes and in music learnt a new song which they accompanied on glocks. 

The polar animals jigsaw was very popular as the children worked together to complete it. It had 72 pieces!

The children even used penguins in their maths learning: making repeating patterns, making steps of 'one more' and even problem solving - how many penguins can stand on the bridge? How many penguins can fit in the bus?

Crazy Constructions

The children have enjoyed constructing with straws this week. Some challenged themselves to make the objects on the sheets whilst others experimented to make different shapes or find the best way to make a larger creation stay solid. Umbrellas, witches brooms and hats were the most popular creations. 

Marvellous Maths

This week the children have been developing their counting skills, by matching numerals to quantities and learning to count on to play simple board games. They enjoyed showing ways to make four and five by painting dot patterns and sorting dominoes. 

Sing-a-long-a- Hedgehog Class!

Today the children decided to build a stage so that they could perform to their friends. They set up a separate area for the audience and were thrilled when two microphones appeared! They took turns to sing and clapped at the end of each performance, carrying on all through lunchtime!

Magical Maths

This week the children became Math-Magicians as they used their magical powers to change flat 2D shapes into solid 3D shapes. They counted carefully to see how many faces and corners each new shape had and investigated which shapes would stack and which would roll. They learnt some new shape names too, such as cube, cuboid, cylinder, square-based pyramid and triangular prism. 

Making Five

This week the children have been consolidating their understanding of ways to make five by making shapes with five bricks. They then described what they made/ E.g. "Two at the top, one in the middle and two at the bottom." "Four in a line and one more at the side." We made a whole class display to show their ideas.

Christmas Sing-A-Long

This week the children performed our Christmas Sing-A-Long to their parents and to the residents of Takeley Park. They even had a surprise visit from a special person who heard them singing as he passed by!

Baking Gingerbread

This week the children baked Gingerbread Men of their own. They followed the recipe carefully and counted out the quantities together before mixing, kneading, cutting out and baking the dough. 

The Gingerbread Man

This week the children learned to retell the story 'The Gingerbread Man' using actions and voices for the characters. They enjoyed making up musical patterns to match the characters and created many different Gingerbread Men of their own, in dough, loose parts and by drawing. 

Investigation Station

This week the children have been exploring light and shadow, reflection, magnetism and magnification in the Investigation Station. The found out which materials were attracted to the magnets and which were repelled, and enjoyed using this force to make paperclips magically move around a map. Many enjoyed using the torches to make shadow patterns and ghostly faces using the colour paddles, taking care not to shine the light in their eyes or their friends. I wonder what else they will find out next week...

Children in Need

Five Fat Peas

This week the children have been learning to identify different representations of five. We started the week by reciting the rhyme Five Fat Peas in a Pea Pod Pressed, using our fingers to show the peas. This led to discussions about the numbers that were heard and how the children knew that they had shown five. The children went on to make sets of five objects with different criteria: exactly the same, different but the same size, different sizes, random objects. They used the hand frame to check that they had five each time. 

They also explored other rhymes with five objects - like five currant buns. 

Diwali

This week the children have been finding out about the Hindu festival of Diwali - the festival of lights.The children enjoyed watching a short film about how a family prepare and celebrate this festival. We talked about the different things the family did and compared them to what the children have experienced themselves when celebrating events that are important to them. They were amazed at how many similarities there were.

Later in the week, they made Coconut Barfi sweets. They followed the recipe and counted as they added the ingredients, checking that the measure was full each time. They took their sweets home to share with their families. We hope they enjoyed them!

Teddy Bear Run

Today the children enjoyed joining in a Teddy Bear Run with our Sports Coach, Nick. They listened really well to all of the different instructions Nick gave on how to move around the space: walking on toes, on heels, sideways like a crab, backwards and jogging. They enjoyed the lap challenge, giving their cuddly toy a high five each time they passed them. They all loved racing with their cuddly friends using all the different movements that they had practiced. A brilliant time was had by all. 

Witches and Wizards

The children were excited to be back and were in a spooky mood this week with much of our provision themed around Hallowe’en. The children were surprised to see that the kitchen had magically transformed into a witch’s kitchen and they enjoyed making spells and acting out their ideas. They have also been practising their reading and writing skills as they matched words to pictures.

Monster Ahoy!

We continued our theme of Pirates this week by sharing an animation in Drawing Club. The children enjoyed the new story and became very imaginative as they created sea monsters of their own. In music, they learnt how to clap the syllables in words and used this skill to make up short tunes using Pirate themed pictures. 

Pirates!

This week Drawing Club followed the children's interests and we went on a PIrate Adventure. The children listened to the story 'The Night Pirates' by Peter Harris and learnt some amazing words such as 'courageous', 'murky' and 'hoist'. They enjoyed drawing their own ideas in Adventure Time and made up stories of their own as they built pirate ships outside and played with the small world pirates. The children got creative making telescopes and flags using collage materials. They also learnt some pirate themed board games and developed their social and counting skills as they took turns and counted on the numbers on the dice. 

Keeping Count

In Maths this week, we have been helping our puppet Dave the Dinosaur count accurately. The children thought carefully about ways to make counting objects easier e.g. by lining them up. They also made their own ‘counting wands’ to help them to count objects that were out of reach.

The children also took on the challenge to make pictures and patterns with one, two or three objects. 

The Colour Monster

This week we read the story ‘The Colour Monster’ and talked about the different feelings that he had throughout the story. The children collaged and drew their own monsters and talked about how they were feeling and why. We also thought about what made us feel happy and how we could help others who were feeling sad or worried.

Scrub... Scrub... Scrub!

The children have been enjoyng sweeping and scrubbing in the garden this week. Little did they know that they were actually having an upper body workout! Sweeping, scrubbing and painting fences with water all strengthen the muscles in the shoulder and upper arm, and support children on their journey to use tools, such as pencils and scissors, proficiently. 

Shape Hunt

In maths, the children have been looking at basic 2D shapes. They talked about what they knew about each shape, counted the sides and corners, and took care when identifying squares to check that all the sides were the same length. They were challenged each day to find different shapes in the environment and amazed us with how many they found.

Settling In

The children have been having lots of fun over the last couple of weeks, getting to know each other, the adults in class, and the classroom and garden. They have been listening well to our songs and rhymes to help them follow the rules e.g. to stop and listen, line up and wash their hands. 
They have all made a great start!