This week, we’ve been enjoying the story The Bug Collector by Alex Griffiths.
In the book, George visits a wildlife museum and becomes fascinated by bugs. Inspired by his visit, he collects minibeasts from his garden and keeps them in jars—but soon notices they don’t seem very happy.
We had a thoughtful discussions about why:
The jars are closed, so the bugs can’t breathe.
The butterfly doesn’t have space to spread its wings.
They have no food or water.
They are not in the beautiful natural world.
They don’t have any room to move around.
This led us to explore the idea of habitats and why they are so important for living things.
Help at home: Can your child remember which habitats these minibeasts live in?
Thank you for sharing photos of your child’s home learning minibeast hunts—they’ve been a fantastic link to our story discussions!
Provision
Our construction areas have been especially popular this week, with children creating a range of fantastic models. Once they’ve finished building, we encourage them to photograph their creations using an iPad and add the pictures to the design books.
Here’s a selection of some of their amazing models—and their brilliant photography skills too!
Caterpillar Update
Our caterpillars are growing nicely—some of us think they’re getting fatter, just like The Very Hungry Caterpillar! We’re really looking forward to seeing stage 3 of the life cycle happen next.
Maths
This week, the children consolidated their understanding of the composition of 5, using their fingers to explore different ways of making 5 and recognising parts when some were hidden. We linked this to a familiar rhyme about monkeys/kittens jumping down from the bed, helping children visualise numbers decreasing.
We used this stem sentence to explain our thinking:
5 is made of ____ and ____; ____ and ____ make 5.
They also practised subitising (quickly recognising amounts) and explored how numbers 6 to 9 can be made as ‘5 and a bit’, using a range of practical resources and representations.
Help at home: Re-enact the rhyme about monkeys/kittens jumping off the bed using soft toys and a simple ‘bed’ (e.g. a shoebox). Encourage your child to join in and use their fingers to show how many are on and off the bed.