Terrific trains

The book Terrific Trains, is written in a very clever rhythmic way, so that the text almost replicates the sound that a train makes.  We have used this as a basis for our learning this week, with the children attempting to clap the rhythm of the 'Down at the Station' song and the noise that a train makes as it passes over the rails.

Our new role play train has proved very popular, with children pretending to go on holiday, go to school and also to deliver the post.  In phonics, they have been concentrating on sound discrimination, listening to 2 sounds made by 2 different instruments and then they have played them back. We have also continued work on phonic clapping, with all the children being able to clap out the syllables of different types of transport.

In maths, we have been working on number recognition.  We made a giant 'train' out of our trikes, and the children had to number which 'carriage to go in'.  We also made a smaller version, which also had to be numbered.  We then had great fun making a large train track to carry it on.

We have also been looking at a variety of train photos, where we needed to compare old and new, town and countryside, this country or not this country.  The children shared some very interesting observations and were often able to qualify their decisions with some interesting vocabulary.

We finished the week by playing with the Beebots.  The children were very good at programming the creatures and making them move.