Hello and welcome back to our class blog. This week we have had a wonderful time learning all about Chinese New Year. Let's have a little look through this weeks exciting activities.

We started the week off listening to the story The Great Race. A story all about how the animals in the Chinese folklore came about. Ask your child to tell you about the Emperor organising a race for all the 12 animals. Can they remember who won? who came last?

We have set up some lovely enhancements and learning opportunities in class this week for the children to explore. They have absolutely loved learning, exploring, finding out information and sharing it with their friends. The chopsticks in our restaurant have also been a firm favourite. Here we are exploring how to use them 

It was tricky but we never give up and have been learning to persevere. 

As always, we think about what the children already know and use that as the building block on how we plan and deliver learning. prior to starting Chinese New Year we looked at and recorded all of the things children already knew. We then thought about what we wanted to learn about, what questions did we want to find out the answers to. We created a huge piece of work that is now proudly displayed on the wall with all of our findings. Amazing work. I am so very proud of each and everyone of them 

Even the snow did not stop us exploring outdoors. This is such an important part of our learning. We looked at the different patterns on shoes, we explored how to use the snow to make marks, we talked about textures, hot and cold, where snow comes from and what makes it melt. All of this language and learning from just a few minutes outside in the fresh air. priceless. Here we are exploring and learning.  

And speaking of new friends. Here is Peter. We made Peter outside and added his features. We then popped him into the freezer and after lunch we timed how long it would take for him to melt in our lovely hot classroom. Ask your child about what happened

And finally we ended the week off with some lion dancing. We watched various clips on the Internet about how they moved. Here we are creating our own dances. 

Next week we will pick up our learning about Traditional Tales. Have a wonderful weekend. Reception staff and children