We were watching the beans we grew after the holidays and started to discuss where the beans might grow to. This led to learning about Jack and the Beanstalk. Jack sent us a warning letter telling us what happened to his beanstalk. Thankfully we didn’t see any giants! What we did spot was the address on the top of the letter. After we wrote Jack a letter back we started to talk about where we lived and our addresses.
We loved looking at Google Maps and finding out school and some of our houses. We talked for a long time about what our streets were. Miss Parker found a map of Sheffield and we drew our houses and the routes we went on it.
Some children drew their own maps outside. We talked about our house numbers and collected them from our friends. We even learnt to count in twos for when the house numbers zig zag up the street.
We decided we were going to see if our addresses worked and send a letter to our homes. It was Father’s Day so some of our wrote letters to our Dads but we were allowed to chose who we wanted to write our letter to.
Everyone wrote their own letter and then we went to the post box to post our letter. Before we set off we checked on the map for how of get there. Everyone posted their letter. We wondered how long it would take for them to get to our homes.
On our way back to school we found the street sign which told us the address for our school.
We were very excited when we found our letters at home and our families were excited to see how good we had got at writing. We asked them what they thought. Here is what some of them had to say….
It made us think if there was a quicker way to send messages. We found out about email. First we emailed Mrs Briggs and she emailed us back. We found the message when we got to school the next day so we knew it was quick.
On Tuesday when Miss Parker is doing her teacher jobs we decided to email her. It made us wonder if we could move faster than an email. We sent an email and then headed upstairs to see what got their fastest- the email or the children?
The email won!
We had got really good at sending emails and using the keyboard to type so Miss Parker asked if we would like to email her friend Stephanie in America. We wondered how long it would take an email to get all the way to America.
We thought what we would like to know about America and typed some questions. There was a reply the very next day! We were amazed by how quickly the email travelled round the whole world. Stephanie emailed us back with some photos of America. We all wish we had a pool in our back garden.
We found lots of ways to make our messages in the provision. Some of use wrote secret messages using the special pens. Some of us made our own laptops and wrote emails of our own.
We also had a go at special secret message writing. We wrote the message in lemon juice and then used the heat from the candle to make it appear again. It took a while and we had to wait but when it worked it was like magic!
What have we been learning?
- Where we live and where other people live.
- What our local environment is like talking about our journey to school.
- About maps and our place in the world.
- About our address and how it helps us find our house.
- Writing for a purpose to send a letter to our home.
- About email and different ways of communicating.
How can you continue the learning?
- Allow your child to look at a map app, such as Google Maps, when out and about so children can see how it works. Talk about where places are in relation to others
- Make sure your your child knows their address but also knows to keep personal information safe and private.
- Write letters and postcards to other family members and post them in the post box.
- Send a letter back to your child in school.
