This term Year 1 have been exploring the wonderful world of plants, growing and minibeasts. Our journey started when an exciting letter arrived from Jack of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. He sent us some magic beans and asked us to plant them. Once planted, we watched in anticipation and excitement each week to see their progress. We recorded our observations in a bean diary. After a few weeks, the plants were ready to be taken home to plant in the garden. The children were so excited and hopeful that a magic beanstalk might grow overnight!
We read the story of ‘Jack and the Jelly Bean Stalk’ by Rachael Mortimer and used this as inspiration to write our own magical beanstalk stories. The children created a beanstalk world, and used pastels to illustrate their ideas including castles, giants, unicorns and even clouds raining jellybeans. The children let their imaginations run wild, with some fabulous results.
The children have learnt about the life cycle of the sunflower and also know all the conditions needed for a plant to grow successfully. We drew our own majestic sunflower designs and then shaded and coloured them in using chalk pastels. They have formed part of the ‘stunning sunflowers’ display in the Pre-Prep hall.
We will continue to explore this topic after half term and are really looking forward to our trip to Arundel Wetland Centre the first week back. I wonder what else we will find in the tall, tall grass…
