F1 — Making Sense of the World!

In F1 we like to make our learning real and make links between different experiences so that our children can make sense of their world.

We have real caterpillars in the Unit and they are growing fatter by the day. The children know that they will soon form a cocoon and then a butterfly will emerge. Miss Frisby found a lovely activity on the internet where children could experience this by actually being the caterpillar, then wrapping themselves in a blanket to make a cocoon and finally breaking free and becoming a butterfly using scarves as wings. First though, we had to get Mrs P to model the activity... Oh my goodness! She was munching away at the children, much to their delight,  and she did indeed emerge into a beautiful butterfly that flapped around the Unit! The children were soon eager to try the metamorphosis process themselves. Can F1 get any better?

Another Tuesday and another day of fabulous experiences. We went on a mini beast hunt with our magnifying glasses to see what we could find. We lifted up logs to see which insects were hiding underneath. Kaiden W saw an ant and said, 'That's a mini beast!' Ava spotted a spider, Poppy had a ladybird crawling in her hair and lots of our friends picked up worms. But they were very gentle and after they had said hello, they placed them carefully back in their home in the soil. Jayden was shouting at the top of his voice, 'I found it! I found it!', as a worm wiggled away beneath his feet. Alaina found a slug and picked it up for a closer look. Would you be so brave?! Gracie-Mai spied a huge bumble bee that was happily sitting on a flower and she waved goodbye to it as we walked past. We are reading the story of 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' this week and as all our friends settled down to a biscuit and a drink on our lovely new picnic mat, that Mrs Bacon has kindly bought us, Mrs Fenton read us the story. But we weren't  allowed to be lazy. No! We had to help Mrs Fenton count all the food that The Very Hungry Caterpillar had eaten. No wonder she had a tummy ache!

On our Tree-mendous Tuesday adventure we walked along the path, to where the fallen down tree blocks our path, and our friends are getting so good at finding ways to go over or under it. They don't need any help anymore and assess all the possibilities and then choose the way that suites them best. Miss Frisby, Mrs Bacon and Mrs Fenton commented on how good all our friends are at problem solving. What a fabulous skill you have learnt in F1 to help you all the way through school and in your grown up life too.  What another exciting Tree-mendous Tuesday!