Category: Pioneers Class

We have been reading about wolves and listening to music with a wolf theme. We read Little Red, a version of the traditional tale where the wolf  has his coat removed at the end. The Pioneers made wonderful story maps and wrote lots of wonderful sentences.

This week we found some wolf evidence and we did a little bit of new learning about predators and their habits.

The wolf left behind fur and ear-wax, teeth and a little bit of his burnt tail. It got sizzled when he went down the chimney of the house to try to eat the three little pigs. Some of the evidence was stinky and some of it was a bit disgusting.

We read up on different types of teeth for different jobs and we found out that different animals have different poo. We set about making some wolf-poo adding bones and teeth and feathers. The Pioneers wrote lists of what may be in the poo and we measured the poo to ensure it was realistic in size. 

Watching play developed is amazing. The Pioneers work together to create amazing stories, structures and adventures. Over the year these have become so much more complex and the language used is specific and extensive.
The Pioneers share small spaces and lots of resources to create multi storey buildings and airport runways with moving tracks. They select from a range of loose parts,create fantastic uses for them while sharing this adventure with others. That sharing can be tricky at times and needs careful negotiation.
This week has been quite amazing and full of pretending and fun.
Go Pioneers!
I overheard all of these lines while observing the play.
Are we going on an adventure ?
This is the run way.
A gate needs to open to let us in.
You are alright to go
I landed on the runway
I’m not playing quite yet.

So much learning. Go Pioneers!

We continue to learn about the natural world, finding out about animals that hatch from an egg. We first found out about the features of birds and then explored the other animals making a huge list to discuss. The Pioneers were quick to spot that the nest and its spot were good for protection and to keep the precious eggs safe. we found out that nests are built in some odd spots, behind waterfalls and deep in the sand and high in trees. 

From reading, we found out some of the items birds use to make their nests. we wrote our own list and and then went foraging. We sat outside in the sunshine and made our own nests to cradle our eggs. Back in the classroom we made a label to say what would be hatching from each egg. This included snakes and owls and a brontosaurus and a couple of unicorns!

After reading the beautiful book,”Snail Trails”, the Pioneers were inspired to get up close and observe so wonderful snails. First we looked at them in the classroom and discussed the word “habitat”. We went outside and gathered the things we needed to construct a habitat. One Pioneer questioned whether nettles were a good addition and hypothesised that perhaps a snail has different skin to a human and the nettle would not prickle them.

We made habitat squared and observed the movements and preferences of our snails.  We left the snails and returned to find them under rocks and leaves. The Pioneers knew that they may be hiding from predators, perhaps The Big Bad Wolf. There is a starling living in the drain pipe and a crow who visits regularly so we talked about these being a real threat.

We then took our snails to the forest to release them into the wild. All of the Pioneers chose a suitable release spotted based on their observations of snail activity. 

Back in the classroom, we did some observational drawing and some absolutely wonderful writing.

And we rolled in the very long grass and collected dandelions and their seeds.

The Pioneers have spent the week learning more about the creatures who use our forest as their habitat The worms are vital to our soil and the bees are vital for pollination of future crops.

The Pioneers set some scientific questions and through observation they found the answers.

“Which end is the head end?”  The Pioneers quickly worked this out by watching direction of travel.

From further reading,they found out that worms cannot swim or live in water as they breath through their skin. They also learned how to tell the difference between an adult and a younger worm.

We measured our worms and labelled their features.

We had the delight of a visit from a real life bee keeper. She was able to build up our bank of knowledge on bees adding information about how bees communicate with each other. We got to model the process of pollination with big flowers and sticky bee legs.

To finish the session, we sang our wonderful bee song together.

So much learning!

The Pioneers worked together through a number of challenges, in the classroom and outside on the playground. To complete the challenges they had to work as a team and this can be pretty tricky.

They were given a selection of wooden pieces and told that they would be able to make a circle. They began by making their own piles and quickly realised that they couldn’t make a circle on their own. With a bit of help they managed to sort the pieces and some curves began to form. Eventually they got into a pattern and completed a circle. Without any support they were then able to do it again which was pretty impressive. 

On the playground we played relay games requiring concentration and communication. 

We finished with a complex team task of moving a ball using only the drainpipes and no hands allowed. They quickly got the hang of this and were able to move once the ball had passed their piece of pipe to extend the distance of transportation.

Everyone was very happy with themselves!

The Pioneers all love maths and this week’s selection of chances to explore number really hit the spot. Engagement was high and discussions were focussed. This led to lots of chat and subsequent recording. All of this was independent and happening in continuous provision with hoops and beanbags and skittles.  It was too good to disturb and continued across the week. 

They had some set tasks with Numinon to explore numbers beyond ten and they adapted and changed these to find out more.

Wonderful learning!

This  week, we read Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge, the story of a little boy who visits old people in a care home. He finds out that some of his friends have lost their memory. He asks questions to find out what a memory is. One of the ladies tells him stories from her past all linked to items. The Pioneers had access to the selection of items mentioned in the book-an egg, a medal from the war, shells, and additional linked items. She talked about boots with buttons so they tried out a button hook. Some were interested in the thimble. A puppet brought back happy memories for the old lady. Everyone was fascinated by a tiny, fragile New Testament from 1945 and a selection of letters from a soldier during the war. They looked closely at the selection of photographs and noted that things looked different and “old”
We looked at these alongside our own memory photographs-we will continue this work next week.
Happy Learning  

Way back in the Autumn, the Pioneers went to the forest and collected acorns and got to find out about our oak tree. We went through the process of selecting the best acorns and set them aside to rest over the winter in their little pots. Now that spring has sprung we have the most beautiful tiny oak trees. We took them to the forest to compare them to the big tree, spotting that the trunk is hard and lumpy and the branches and roots were much bigger too. we did a bit of bark rubbing which was very popular.

We planted the sunflower seeds that we harvested from last year’s sunflowers and searched in the soil to see what roots looked like.

We found plenty of juicy worms and a random head of garlic! Mrs McGill even managed to put up a birdbox.

When we returned to the classroom, we wrote about our adventures using the new vocabulary-bark, trunk, roots and wild garlic. We experimented with pastel pencils for our observational drawing and the results were wonderful and varied.

So much learning.

Next week we head to York on a very exciting trip. We took a look at an Ordnance Survey map to check out our route.  We took a look at Google Earth and found our location. We compared this with the map in front of us. The Pioneers noticed red lines and orange lines and questioned what these were. They were able to identify the land and the sea and areas of forest. The were able to identify beaches and rocky bits too. They were also using their phonics to read some of the place names finding York and Pickering and recognising Sleights. From previous work they spotted that this map has a grid too.

We are beyond excited about going on the bus to see the trains!