Reception has been invaded by colonies of penguins this week, as the children explored the world of ‘Lost and Found’ by Oliver Jeffers. The children have been engrossed watching National Geographic clips of penguins swimming underwater, waddling to their breeding grounds, and cheekily stealing stones from each others’ nests. We have looked at different types of penguins and created life-size Emperor penguins (almost as tall as the children!), Galapagos penguins and tiny Fairy penguins. The children made their own beautiful Rockhopper penguins using paint and colourful feathers.
We have explored icy habitats and discovered which animals live in the Arctic and which in the Antarctic and found the North and South poles on our globe. The children had great fun investigating the properties of ice, discussing how water can change from a solid to a liquid (and back again); and ways in which we can encourage ice to melt. They sprinkled sea salt crystals on ‘ice eggs’ and watched the ice crack; and then used child-friendly pipettes to suck up food dye and drop it carefully on the eggs, watching it run into the cracks and fissures. They predicted how quickly the colourful ice eggs would melt if left in strategic positions around our environment and we left some under the radiator, some in the classroom and some outside.
Penguins even found their way into our maths play, with games of penguin skittles and ‘Lost and Found’ snakes and ladders. In IT, they decided to make a penguin ‘movie’, filming penguin models.
What a super icy week!
Mrs Harris
