This half term our topic is ‘Poles Apart’ based on the book by Jeanne Willis. 

We will think about different environments and countries and where different animals live. Within this we will look at similarities and differences between our country and others and different ways of life. 

We will become familiar with globes and maps, and get the holiday bug in our travel agents based on where we learn about and have already experienced with our families! 

Our learning journey starts with the North and South Poles, and lots of learning around penguins and polar bears, as these are the main characters in our story too. 

We will then move onto Africa, in particular the country of Kenya, China thinking about Chinese New Year and India.

When thinking about the country of China, we embarked on a food tasting session! 

Children thought about their 5 senses (see, hear, touch, smell, taste) and then tried the different foods using all of their senses! 

All children had a little try of everything, and really enjoyed it! 

We tasted egg fried rice, prawn crackers, noodles and vegetable spring rolls. Children talked about what they noticed, what they liked and didn't like, and were very good at giving reasons for these too! 

One of our countries we have 'visited' in poles apart is China. We have looked at the climate, and realised that China is a very big country! 

This week has also been Chinese new year, and so we have learnt about what that is and how it is celebrated amongst people in China, and all around the world! We found out what year we were born under, and that this year is the year of the snake! 

We read the story of 'The Great Race' and had lots of fun acting it out and reimagining this in small world! 

As part of our learning around Africa and the country of Kenya, we baked come traditional kwanzee benne cakes! 

Children followed instructions in a recipe, weighed out and mixed ingredients, and worked together to put the mixture onto trays. 

We LOVED our cakes and thought they were really tasty when we tried them!

We have listened to some traditional African drumming music, and then used Djembe drums and some other instruments from around the world to make our own percussion music!

We clapped a beat, and then played this on our instruments too (including monkey drums, man clacks, rain sticks and thunder drums!)

Children looked really carefully at Mrs Mills, and followed hand movements to play their instruments louder and quieter, faster and slower. 

We all explored and then practised playing a range of different percussion instruments and continued this into provision time too. 

Children really got involved in our safari role play that can with our new travels in poles apart to the continent of Africa! 

We looked at different parts of the landscape, such as savannahs, deserts and rainforests. 

We looked in particular details at savannahs and safaris, and Mrs Donnelly told us about the time she went on safari in Kenya which the children were very interested about, particularly the different animals. 

We explored colour and created sunset paintings before then cutting out silhouettes to create a sunset savannah picture.