Castle Room News

Over the next two weeks in Castle we will be focusing on the key area of Physical Development as we take a deeper look at keeping our bodies healthy with healthy eating, exercise and healthy habits. We will also introduce the scientific concept of metamorphosis as we move towards our story The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and talk about the changes in the lifecycle of a frog.

In the Water Tray, we have created a pond scape with rocks, logs, lily pads and small world characters of the lifecycle of a frog. We will recall what we knew about frogspawn when we observed it at Forest School, and we will look at the changes that happened next with the frogspawn hatching into tadpoles, the tadpoles growing back legs, then front legs, and finally the tail disappearing as the frog grows, and the tail does not.

Within the Creative Area this week, we have changed the sensory sand tray to help recall our book of the week from last week; Oliver’s Vegetables. We have added soil, watering cans and trowels along with a range of vegetables in order to recap all we have learnt about vegetables and how they grow.

On the malleable table we will be introducing something new – plasticine!
This type of material will really challenge the children and bring in all the skills we have learnt over the last year. We will be encouraging the children to shape and manipulate the plasticine in order to create different fruits and vegetables.
We will be using potatoes to print shapes and patterns on strips of paper. We will encourage the children to use their mathematical brain to work out a pattern they wish to follow.

We will also be looking at the human skeleton and recalling the job it does for us. We will be using chalk on black paper to see if we can recreate some of the bones, whilst consolidating taught vocabulary from the previous weeks.

Lastly, over the next 2 weeks we will be creating our very own ‘fitness suite’. We will discuss the importance of moving our bodies, keeping active and, alongside this, having a healthy, balanced diet.

Our first book of the week is Troll Stinks, a reimagined version of the tale of the Three Billy Goats Gruff which is designed to introduce Internet Safety. The story introduces the idea of what not to do. For example, don't keep things from your adults, don't be unkind over the internet, and don't talk to people, or meet people, you don't know. The keywords for this story are: good guys, bad guys, troll, goats, safe/ not safe, be kind. https://www.nspcc.org.uk/advice-for-families/techosaurus/ 

The second book of the week is called Pantosaurus. This is the NSPCC story to introduce consent and safe touch. It is all about having the power to say no, and knowing that we shouldn't keep secrets from our adults. The story revolves around a character, Pantosaurus, who has new big boy pants that give him special powers. They give him the power to say no when people ask to see them. This is a very important topic and the children may come home talking about it. Our keywords are: good, bad, bad touch, safe, help, 'tell an adult we trust'https://www.nspcc.org.uk/advice-for-families/pants-underwear-rule/