The final theme of the year the Juniors have been learning about is Minibeasts. The Juniors already have a great background knowledge about minibeasts and were able to apply this knowledge to their new learning. In S.E.S.E. the children learned about a soil environment and explored the soil at school for minibeasts. The children went on a minibeast hunt and investigated places they found minibeasts including in the soil, the grass, under rocks and in trees. The children also learned about the life cycle of a frog during science, as well as the parts of a butterfly and man facts about bees. We read many stories about minibeasts, including, ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’, ‘What the Ladybird Heard’, ‘Spinderella’, ‘Superworm’ and many more. During Music lessons, the children sang songs about ants, ladybirds, butterflies and bumblebees and explored the sounds they make when they move. The children tried and tested various musical instruments to imitate the movements of the minibeasts.
We explored the theme through play time and we started with playdough. The children used some prompt mats to give them ideas of what to make. Some were adding wings onto bees and giving earwigs legs. Other children made caterpillars and a habitat for them to live in. For Small World, our Aistear tray was transformed into a habitat for minibeasts, filled with grass, leaves, wooden pieces, pine cones and rocks and there were minibeasts hidden in the habitat. The children were busy examining minibeasts they found, counting their legs, looking at their wings and they created small habitats for them using the materials in the tray. In Construction, the children were tasked with building a bug hotel for the minibeasts. They used the large wooden blocks, small wooden blocks and Lego. They build large walls for the outer part of their building and lined the walls with minibeasts. There was even a slide built for the minibeasts to have fun! The Juniors also enjoyed a sensory play activity using rice. The tray was filled with rice and minibeast picture cards. They had to collect the picture cards and organise the information and present the data in a graph. There were also puzzle pieces of various minibeast body parts which the children had to find and put together to make a minibeast. On another day, the children completed jigsaw puzzles of various minibeast pictures. The Roleplay area was transformed into a minibeast investigation lab, filled with minibeasts, magnifying glasses, information sheets, tweezers, petri dishes, microscopes and more. The children went into role as worm farmers, senior researchers and snail experts. They were busy examining the minibeasts’ body parts under the microscopes, and conducting tests on the what they eat and how they survive. They even explored how the minibeasts moved.
The Juniors created some fantastic Art work this month too! They followed a step-by-step YouTube video of how to draw a ladybird, used crayon to colour it in and watercolour paints to paint a zoomed-up flower background. They also explored collage to create a frog sitting on a toadstool in another art activity and again used colourful watercolours to finish the background. The Juniors have had a very busy month and they have enjoyed their final theme for the year.
