By Joy Heels
For the first half of this term our topic was ‘mini-beasts’; the children always love this topic as they can watch living creatures change before their eyes, more so than in a normal environment.
The first week our caterpillars arrived. They were only half a centimetre long, but they quickly grew over the next two weeks until they were four centimetres in length, then they wound the silver threads around themselves and turned into chrysalides.
Much to our surprise they turned into butterflies after only a week (it was in a warm spell of weather) and all five hatched into beautiful painted lady butterflies. We kept them for a few days, feeding them on sugared water and honey on flowers and then they were released into the big wide world.
The tadpoles didn’t do so well this year, producing only one baby frog. The children liked the wiggly worms and the snails with their houses on their backs and even a cockroach was brought in for them to see. Egg box caterpillars, symmetrical butterflies, paperweight ladybirds and wool spiders are the crafts that the children made.
We enjoyed the Maypole danced for us by Lee Common School pupils. If you have never seen us walking the children from the Parish Hall to the School, we look like a long snake; the children walk between two ropes with adults at the back and front and others watching out for cars. This seems to work well and is a safe way to enable us to take advantage of Lee Common School’s kind invitations.
This half term our topic is farm animals. We have a farm visit in June and our sports day is in July; we are hoping for nice weather for both of these days.