When we learnt about Matisse earlier in the term, we enjoyed reading the story 'Matisse's Magical Trail'. Today we were inspired by the book and took our chalks outside onto the playground to draw our own Matisse the snail and a very colourful trail!

This week we used our brilliant knowledge of the Galapagos Islands to write poems to describe things that can be found there for each colour of the rainbow. We wrote each verse on coloured templates which made a book shaped like an eye and carefully decorated the front cover. 

Today we finished our fantastic portholes by carefully drawing three animals that live on the Galapagos Islands. We used our knowledge of animals and their habitats to choose one that is found in the sky, one that is found on land and one that is found in the sea.

Today we started to make our portholes inspired by Charles Darwin's ship the HMS Beagle and the landscape and physical features of the Galapagos Islands.

​We carefully painted the outside of our portholes in silver paint, used sponges to create the effect of the sky and clouds, ripped tissue paper to create the waves of the sea and sandpaper to create the islands.

We can't wait to finish them by adding some of the animals that he discovered.

In Topic we have been learning about Charles Darwin and his discoveries. He discovered that different birds on the Galapagos Islands had different shaped beaks to help them to eat the food on their island. 

We had lots of fun pretending to be birds using tweezers, pegs, spoons and cocktail sticks as beaks to find out which food would be the easiest to eat with each one. Between us we 'ate' beetles (raisins), slugs (cooked macaroni), worms (cooked spaghetti), nectar (coloured water) and bird seed with the pretend beaks. 

This week in Maths we have been learning how to tell the time on an analogue clock. We had fun making our own clocks to help us to practise this skill.

In Year 1, the children learn how to tell the time to the hour (o'clock) and half hour. It would be great if the children could continue to practise telling the time at home too.

Today we were scientists! We used our knowledge of minibeasts and the micro-habitats that they live in to make predictions and carry out an investigation to see which colour of surface they preferred.  
After we had finished our investigation, we carefully returned our minibeasts to their natural habitat.

Today we looked at Andy Goldworthy's art and sculptures. We noticed that he used natural materials like leaves, sticks and rocks to make his art.

We then did a fantastic job of collecting natural materials to make our own Andy Goldsworthy inspired minibeasts.