Thomas Willingale School and Nursery
Summer Term
Homes and Habitats
Week 2
28.4.25-2.5.25
This week we have been learning all about the habitats of snails.
We found some snails and made a lovely home for them in a terrarium with compost, water, sticks, leaves, grass, apple and tomatoes.
Snails carry their homes on their backs and like damp, wet habitats. They like to eat leaves, fruit and vegetables. We looked after three snails and watched and observed them. They like to slide around the terrarium, munching on the leaves and fruit. They often hide in their shells upside down on the roof of the terrarium. We will look after them for a week and then carefully release them back onto the nursery garden in a safe , leafy and damp spot.
We have been reading lots of books about snails, including 'Norman the Slug with the Silly Shell' and 'Snail Trail'.
In the story, Snail Trail, we followed the silvery trail of the snail through a variety of famous artists paintings until the snail came to a piece of artwork by Henri Matisse, called 'The Snail'.
We learnt that Matisse created a collage of different materials to create his snail. Then we created our own snail collages in the style of Matisse.
We continued our work on snails with a challenge to make a snail with a pipe cleaner. Some of the children bent, rolled and twisted the pipe cleaner to make their snails and others wrapped the pipe cleaner around their finger to create the spiral shell.
We also used our fine motor scissor skills to try and cut around the outline of a snail and the spiral of a snail's shell. It was quite tricky, but we all had a go!
Next week, we will continue to learn about habitats including learning about birds and bird's nests. Our letter sound of the week will be 'u' for umbrella, up, and under.
In our mathematical lessons we will practise using size and positional language.
Summer 1
Habitats and Homes
Our topic this term is habitats and homes. We will be learning about minibeast's habitats, bird's nests and talking about our own homes.
Week 1 - Homes and Mini-Beasts
Welcome back everyone to our Summer term. This term we will be learning all about homes, buildings and different habitats. The children will enjoy making a range of different structures using different materials.
Literacy
This week in literacy the children have looked closely at our book You Choose and have chosen their favourite home/ building they would like to live in using the pictures provided.
During key worker time the children have enjoyed talking about their Easter holiday. The children spoke clearly about all the wonderful activities they did. They were very good at listening to their friends talking and waited for their turns patiently. During phonics the children have enjoyed learning about the letter sound k and naming objects beginning with k including key, king and kiwi.
Maths
During our maths lessons this week the children have really impressed us with their counting, sorting and sharing skills. Showing good problem solving skills to sort mini-beasts into three categories accurately counting their legs to place them in the correct groups.
The children have also been challenged to create their own ladybirds sharing the spots equally to make them the same on each side. Excellent work and effort from everyone! This is not an easy concept to understand.
Understanding the world
The children have enjoyed talking about different homes and structures this week we have introduced mini-beasts and different types of buildings we constructed a class mind map of different buildings including houses, caravans, restaurants, cinemas and flats that we will explore as our topic progresses.
Next week the children will explore mini-beasts with shells and different materials and textures linked to this. During our maths lessons we will continue to develop our problem solving skills. During our phonics lessons we will explore the letter sound e and practise our cutting skills to create spiral patterns.