Summer 2nd Half

We started off our Wonderful World topic by changing our immersive learning area into a jungle. Here the children had the opportunity to dress up as jungle animals, make the sounds of the animals and re-create stories they had heard using props. Our talk for write text was 'Dear Zoo' where the children were able to become story tellers, recalling the story either verbally and/ or joining in with the actions using our story map. In the water tray we set up an ocean scene where we introduced some of our vocabulary cat words such as deep, big and under.

In our carpet sessions we have been practising singing familiar songs and rhymes, finishing a rhyme and counting numbers in order. One of our favourite songs is '5 little Monkeys swinging in a tree'. The children enjoyed taking it in turns being the crocodile using the puppet to 'snap' the Monkey from the tree. We have also introduced subitising, asking the children 'what can you see?'. This question gives the children the opportunity to share their ideas and express their thoughts in a safe environment as there is no 'wrong answer' and that we can all see something different even in the same situation. A skill not only valuable in subatising but in real life aswell. 

Continuing our wonderful world celebrations, we looked at what made US special by looking at the features of our faces, noticing differences between people and describing our family and what make us, who we are. We talked about emotions, labelling our feelings and talking about what makes us happy, sad, scared, excited. 

We also recently contributed to the 'Picture This' project. The theme was movement. The children used their body to move in different ways with our coloured ribbons. We then painted pictures of the ribbons moving through the sky. 

We have also been practising our gross motor physical skills, taking part in sporting activities and team games, peddling a bike or riding a scooter and den building. 

To consolidate our learning of the wonderful world, children, parents and staff visited the butterfly house at Anston. It was lovely to all get together and share this fantastic experience, especially with the restrictions of the last couple of years. For many of our children, they have been restricted of exploring our wonderful world so it was lovely to see everyone learn, laugh and love the experience it provided. 

We have had another wonderful half term with lots of action packed, exciting and engaging activities. The older children have taken part in transitions, visiting their new classroom and meeting their new teacher. The younger children will be joined by a new group of friends in September ready for the fun to start all over again!

Summer 1st Half

Our topic for summer 1 was 'It's a Bugs Life'.  Our main focus in Maths was looking at patterns. We noticed that a Ladybird has a spotty pattern and a Bee has a stripy pattern. We also looked at patterns within our home, on our clothes and in our environment. This led on to making repeating patterns with the compare bears as well as looking at the concepts of big and small. To help consolidate the meaning of words, vocabulary cat introduces us to a new concept each week. The children love singing the word rap and it is lovely to hear them use new vocabulary not only in context but in their play as well.

In literacy our text for Talk for Writing was 'The Bad Tempered Ladybird' . We really challenged the children with this story as it was a longer text than we have previously covered but the children did amazing.  Here is our story map which we gradually built up each day, going through the sequence of events both verbally and with gestures.     

The children enjoyed learning the actions to the pictures especially of the different animals that the bad-tempered ladybird encountered along the way. It was amazing to see every child become a story teller in their own way. An EAL child could recite all the actions, a 2yr old joined in with the names of the main character and all the animals, whilst some 3yr olds could retell the whole story just by 'reading' the story map. I am amazed at the difference this scheme is making not only to children's communication, language and literacy skills but also to their self-confidence and self-belief.

In phonics we have been trying really hard with rhythm and rhyme. One of our favourite activities is silly soup and we are getting really good at listening and finding words that rhyme. We have started doing this with our name and also clapping the syllables in our name. Nursery rhymes still feature as one of our main phonic activities and the children have enjoyed 'Incy, Wincy Spider', singing along, joining in with the actions and completing the rhyming string filling in the missing word.

Oral health is an important part of our curriculum and the children have enjoyed being re-introduced to our tooth brushing scheme following the lifting of all covid restrictions. Each day the children brush their teeth in session and get that important extra bit of fluoride on their tiny teeth that helps protect them from tooth decay. 

To celebrate the end of our topic we hosted our annual 'Ugly Bug Ball'. The children looked fantastic in their outfits,  dressed up as minibeasts. We sang and danced to the ugly bug parade and had a creepy crawly time drinking beetle juice (black-current) and eating 'caterpillars' (wotsit's) yum, yum!