Term 4- Shrove Tuesday and World Book Day

Spring had most definitely sprung this week, as the sun started to shine that bit brighter all day long we were all enjoying the warmth that came with it, although we did have to still wrap up warm in the mornings! The sun put an extra spring in our step this week, which was also helped by the fact that it was of course the week we had been waiting for..........pancake day and World Book Day both in the same week!!!!!

But before we could settle down for some pancake fun we had Monday to complete and in Robins own words "that was a quick day", it flew by! We enjoyed starting our week by reciting the story of The Three Little Pigs, our new Talk for Writing story, which links very well to our Christian Value 'Trust' . 

We loved deciding which house we wanted to draw, would it be the straw, brick or stick house? We even had a rainbow house....I don't remember that one in the story, but it certainly sounds like a great house!

We had a Monday mix up this week when Mrs Brown announced we were doing PE!! This was of course to make way for all those pancakes we were going to make on Shrove Tuesday so Robins allowed the Monday mix up just this once!

They also weren't disappointed because this week in dance we practiced dancing to 8 beats, whether this be tapping our knees, walking to the left, walking to the right or clapping our hands. We then used this and put it together with one of our favourite songs....Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes and selected different parts of our bodies to move for 8 beats at a time! 

Working in groups we selected 4 different movements and then practiced these movements, making sure we did them for 8 beats before moving onto the next movement....

We then performed in our groups in front of each other! It was very impressive watching Robins show such great teamwork as they performed dance routines for the first time...what great work!

In Maths this week we were singing 5 Little Men in a Flying Saucer, with a focus on exploring ways to represent numbers using the dice pattern.

We looked at number 5 - it's composition, pairs that make number 5 and also it's relationship with other numbers, later exploring numbers 6 and 7!

The children enjoyed exploring ways to make both 6 and 7, showing a good understanding of number composition for all of these numbers, great number work Robins!

The time had finally come to learn all about why we eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday! In Robins many of us hadn't really thought about it before, we'd just enjoyed diving into the pancakes but today was the day we were going to explore the story behind these delicious treats. 

Mrs Brown explained that today was also known as Shrove Tuesday (which is the day before Lent starts for Christians). We learnt that Christians traditionally gave up food that came from animals like eggs and milk, which we need to make pancakes!

Christians would eat pancakes on the last day before Lent begins, to use up things in the cupboard like flour, eggs and milk that they wouldn't be eating for Lent.

It meant they could remove any temptation!

Once we had learnt the meaning behind pancake day it was time for us to start making our batter mix! We had 2 recipes to follow, one which used dairy recipe and one dairy free, which we studied carefully before beginning... 

Once we'd carefully weighed out our ingredients it was time to start mixing up a storm or a pancake in our case......Ready steady cook!

Once our batter mix was ready for cooking, Mrs Langford kept us entertained by reading one of our favourite pancake themed stories....

Meanwhile Mrs Brown took on the role of Mr Wolf and busily cooked a total of 13 pancakes! As more and more pancakes were placed onto the plates there were cheers for Mrs Brown to flip a pancake into the air, could she do it? We were going to find out.....

YES- Mrs Langford managed to get an action shot of the pancake toss!

It was now time to settle down to enjoy our pancakes and as we did the children recalled their favourite toppings from "honey" to "sprinkles and ice cream" to the firm favourite "chocolate spread"! but for today we simply enjoyed a pancake with a little sprinkle of sugar.

So far this week, Monday had been exciting (PE), Tuesday had been exciting (Pancake Day) and Wednesday was about to offer something exciting too (Robins are still only 4 and 5 years old but they can find excitement in anything and everything......even split pins) yes, last week we were using hole punches and treasury tags in our DT lesson and this week we were using SPLIT PINS to enhance our creations!!!!! We have gone through a lot of split pins this week - they were fascinated by them!

Then it was Thursday and that brought a whole new level of excitement - it was World Book Day!

We welcomed into Robins - a beautiful yellow butterfly, a police officer, the Little Mermaid, Kittycorn, Buzz Lightyear, the Pink Crayon, the Singing Mermaid, a beatiful multi coloured butterfly, a princess, Pikachu, Paddington, an astronaut and The Highway Rat! Everyone brought their favourite book in to show and share and even got to make a minature version of their character to take home as a keepsake of the day.

We were also presented with a box full of brand new books to share - we are looking forward to using these books as part of our library sessions on a Monday - we love books and can't wait to dive into these starting next week!

We also started our Mystery Reader sessions - Thank you to Mrs Liddiard who fully embraced the theme of World Book Day and came in fancy dress to read the story 'The Scarecrow's Wedding'. The children sat and listened so well, they were engrossed in the story and had lots of things to say and questions to ask at the end. Huge thank you to Mrs Liddiard. We already have next week's Mystery Reader lined up and again thank you to all who have replied so far - don't forget we welcome grandparents too so feel free to rope them in!

And finally we finished the week in what probably now seems really boring (but used to be exciting) - with a good old welly walk.

 Have a great weekend - see you all on Monday and keep going with the reading (some of you have taken home the Phase 4 green tricky words just to give you an extra reading challenge)