This week we focused our learning around the story of Rapunzel. We read the story and became detectives, looking for vocabulary clues in the story and in the pictures to tell us how the characters were feeling and try to and understand why. We linked them to our ‘Zones of Regulation.’  

The children drew Rapunzel in the tower in their books and tried to hear and write the initial sound in ‘tower.’

We learnt more about hairdressers to help us engage in our role-play area. We acted out the different parts of their job, such as washing the hair, cutting it, dying it, giving a blow-dry, curling hair, having to sweep up the floor to keep it clean, work at the reception taking money and giving receipts, answering the phones to make appointments and deciding on hairstyles with customers.

The children used 3D shapes to make a tower just like Rapunzel’s. They were naming the shapes and using mathematical language to example why they had chosen that shape. For example, “that cube has a flat face so it balances. We can’t put the sphere, it has a curved face, so it rolls away.”

The children estimated the Rapunzel plaits that were longer and shorter and then used Unifix cubes to measure the different lengths. They then found and matched the numeral. We discussed that the bigger number showed the longest length.

We learnt the ‘i’ sound this week. We focused on recognising and saying the sound correctly and forming it using the Read Write Inc. formation rhymes. The children made ‘silly’ soup to help them identify the initial sounds in objects and were oral blending ‘i’ words.

We celebrated Crazy Hair Day, the children enjoyed having their crazy hair for the day, and looking at all of the different creative ways their friends had their hair. We became musicians and created our own Crazy Hair Day song by using adjectives to describe our hair, creating matching actions to those and then adding in body percussion.

In PSHE we were taking about keeping ourselves safe indoors and outdoors. We looked at photos of our trip to the Post Box at Christmas and identified the things outside to keep up safe. We talked about how the gate to the school and the office staff keep us safe. We sang our pedestrian training song:

‘Stop, Look, Listen, Hold Hands before you cross the street.

Stop, Look, Listen, Hold Hands before you cross the street.

Use your eyes, use your ears before you use your feet.

Stop, look, listen, hold hands before you cross the street.’

We spoke about how we can use this song to keep us safe when we are outside.

We also learnt about the things that are safe and unsafe to go into our bodies.  We had a selection of objects we had to identify and decide whether they were safe or unsafe for us. We talked about a first aid box and medication. We discussed that we should only take medication that has been prescribed to us by the doctor, that we should never take someone else’s, or take it without an adult. We identified things such as cleaning spray that should only be used by an adult too. We talked about how it safe to use things such as marker pens, paint and glue, but they are not safe for inside our bodies, on our skin or our hair. We talked about how it is safe to use soap, but only for our hands, not inside our bodies or in our eyes. We discussed that milk and water were safe for our bodies and are very healthy for us.