Squirrels News - 1st March 2024

Our books for this week were Somebody Swallowed Stanley and Someone Crunched Colin by Sarah Roberts. Both of these books are all about the impact littering has on the environment around us. The children were very concerned for the turtle in Somebody Swallowed Stanley as Stanley is the name of the plastic bag which had been dumped in the sea and the turtle had got him stuck in his throat, thinking he was food. Luckily a child managed to rescue the turtle and repurpose Stanley as a kite.

Both of these books inspired our Outdoor Learning Day as we went litter picking around the streets of Balham. It could sometimes be a little tricky to keep hold of the rubbish we had picked up as the button on the litter picker had to be held tight, but everyone was determined to get the pieces of rubbish into the bin. Our books of the week also had children thinking about what other items of plastic could be recycled as. One child commented that the carpet spots we sit on could be turned into a ball “as they are already round.” Continuing with our environmental theme we watched a little of Blue Planet II commentated by our person of interest David Attenborough as he discussed the detrimental effect pollution and plastic is having on our world.

Back in the classroom we have been focusing on the concept of heavy and light as we explored measuring scales. Everyone had lots of fun loading the counting bears and frogs into either side of the scales, making a prediction as to which side would be heavier. In Art the children have started on some rather special cards in preparation for Mother’s Day next week and have been learning about positional language in our Outdoor Learning Environment.