Autumn Term 2nd Half

 

Out topic 'sparkle and shine' got off to a real bang with some lovely glittery firework pictures. As part of our letter and sounds activities we talked about favourite sounds. It was interesting that some children liked the loud fireworks whilst others were scared. This activity helped children to understand their emotions and link events to feelings. One thing is for sure all the children loved working with glitter and produced some beautiful artwork. 

As part of our topic we also looked at other events and celebrations including Diwali, the festival of lights.  

We set our home learning challenge around fireworks and the night sky. It was lovely to see so many families take part. The children produced some wonderful rockets which we were able to display in our classroom. We received some fantastic photos sent in on dojo showing excellent collaboration between children and grown-ups. Home learning is a fantastic way to support your child's learning and we cannot wait to see what you produce next term.

To bring our topic to life our immersive learning area was set up as a fire station. This area helped the children learn about fire safety, what a blue flashing light means and how people can help us. As we approached December we changed this area into a Santa's grotto. The children loved dressing up and have really got into the spirit of Christmas. We have enjoyed the story of 'the nativity', learning about baby Jesus and singing our new Christmas songs. We were extremely proud of the children learning actions to new songs as part of our whole school virtual Christmas performance. 

One of our favourite stories this term has been 'The Gingerbread Man'. The smell of ginger always reminds me of Christmas. The children enjoyed repeating the repetitive phrase 'run, run, as fast as you can, you can't catch me I'm the gingerbread man'. The children also baked their own gingerbread men biscuits to take home.

Last term we encouraged our children to be more independent by taking off their own shoes to put their wellies on to go out to play. This is a skill that we will need on a daily basis as the weather changes. We love to be outside and explore in all weathers. What a treat it was on Friday 4th December when it started to snow! The children were in awe and wonder seeing the snow fall from the sky and settle to the ground. 

The children have also loved exploring our urban junk area outside and using their imagination to make some wonderful structures with large scale items. Your junk is our treasure and we have had so much fun exploring the different properties of the materials to hand. 

 

We are really looking forward to our next topic 'winter wonderland'. The ice is in the freezer ready for the arctic animals and we are hoping for more snow so we can sing our favourite song - do you wanna build a snowman?

Autumn Term 1st Half

 

We are very pleased with how well our new children have settled this term and adjusted to their new learning environment. We would like to say a big thankyou to all the group up's who have supported us in helping their children settling during this worrying period we all find ourselves in. It's been strange not having the close contact and communication with parents we are used to but I hope that you are finding the dojo app useful and informative?

 

We started off our learning this term by looking at the book 'The Colour Monster'. This really helped the children to understand different emotions and validate their feelings. Starting school can be both very exciting and very scary at the same time. The Colour Monster was a gentle way to introduce labeling our emotions and the children produced some fantastic artwork.

Our topic was 'If you go down to the woods' where we have been learning about all things Autumn.  We started off by exploring our community by taking a walk to Balker's Park. Here we went on a nature trail through the woods, collected conkers and used our listening ears to listen to the sounds of nature all around us.

This then led to the children producing some wonderful collages using the natural materials we found on our walk.

We also had a very special visitor in our outdoor play space. Harry the hedgehog came to visit us. We gently handled him to check he was ok before building him his own hedgehog house at the top of our garden near the hedges for him to keep safe.

To bring our topic to life our emersive learning area was set up as Goldilocks and the three bears cottage. This area helped the children learn the concept of big and little. We then moved on to naming the size of the pumkin's, not wanting to waste these we made bread and pumpkin soup. We talked about how the ingredients mix together and how the properties of the mixture changes when it goes into the hot oven.

 

As a school we all took part in 'The Flock' project. The children each painted their own wooden bird which was displayed on the east front lawn of Wentworth Woodhouse. Each small bird is a symbol of freedom and marks how people pulled together in the covid-19 crisis. 

Painting the birds inspired the children to look for birds in our school garden which sparked a discussion about what foods birds eat. We talked about how the weather affects birds and that they fly off to warmer countries at this time of year. As an activity we made a bird feeder for the children to take home to hang in their gardens so the birds do not go hungry and they have enough energy to make their long journey.

 

To encourage our children to be more independent we have been encouraging them to take off their own shoes and put their wellies on to go out to play, something that we will be doing lots over the next few months as we explore our outside area in all weathers.

 

We are really looking forward to our next topic 'sparkle and shine' as we take a look at the colours of the fireworks in the night sky and prepare for our Christmas festivities. The glitter is already out of the cupboard!