Week commencing March 9th - Westmeston

This week we have been thinking about focusing our attention and using our ears to listen carefully to the sounds in the world around us. Outside we have heard all sorts of sounds: wind, robins, great tits and even a woodpecker tapping away on a tree.

In the hall we closed our eyes so that we could focus our attention on some instrumental music. We tried hard to identify the instruments:

"I can hear drums."

"I can hear bagpipes!"

Next we all gathered round some paper and drew to the rhythm of the music. We moved our pens quickly or slowly to make different patterns.

"The music is happy."

"The music is fast."

After our drawing, some of us were keen to cut out our artwork. Luckily, we found it easier to cut the paper as it was taped down to the floor.

This week we have been reading 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt.' It was great fun to act out the story and join in with the parts we all knew:

"We can't go over it. We can't go under it. We'll have to go through it!'

Mrs Tubb told us that she had seen some bears out in the garden, so we went on a bear hunt of our own. We splish-sploshed through puddles, swish-swashed through grass and stumble-tripped through the woods but eventually found our first bear sitting in a tree.

We then had to work as a team to figure out how to get him down. We tried using a long stick, but it didn't quite reach. So we found a stool in the shed and,used it make us taller. With a bit of effort, we managed to rescue our first bear.

There were more bears to find. One was in a tree which we were able to climb, one was in a bush and the final bear was hiding in the daffodils.

We spent the rest of the morning playing with our family of bears, finding and building places for them to live and feeding them leaves.

This week we have made two different types of necklaces. The first type was made using beads and pendants. We chose our designs carefully and had to concentrate hard on threading the small beads onto the chains. We were very proud of the results.

Our second type of necklace was made using wooden discs and a wood engraving pen. The pen used heat to mark the wood, so we had to use it very carefully with an adult. We chose different designs such as letters, dots and faces to decorate our necklaces.

We then used a palm drill to make a hole in the wooden disc so that we could thread string through it. Some of us chose to decorate our wooden disc using coloured paint pens on a black background. We think our designs look lovely. What do you think?

Thursday's weather was very interesting. We were happily playing outside in the sunshine when we got caught in a sudden hail storm. We watched the hail bouncing off the path from the safety of the porch. We enjoyed picking up the hail stones to look at them more carefully and some even got caught up in our hair!

Luckily the sun came back out again and we were able to continue playing in the garden, writing on the chalkboard and collecting pink poplar catkins which had fallen to the ground - we though they looked like worms!

The sun also shone for our Friday walk to the woods.

The big puddle wasn't quite as large this week, but it was still very deep so we had to keep to the edge. We tested how deep it was with our sticks and pretended to fish.

Our afternoon in the garden was spent playing hide and seek with animal figures. We took it in turns to hide them somewhere in the garden for our friends to find. The ducks were hard to spot amongst the daffodils!

We also worked brilliantly as a team to build a tepee from sticks we had collected. We thought carefully about how to make a stable base and then added smaller sticks to make the tepee stronger. Great teamwork!

What another fun week. We so appreciate the space and fresh air we are surrounded by at Westmeston and it's wonderful to see the garden changing as spring arrives.

We hope you have all had a happy, healthy weekend. We are looking forward to another week in the woods.