A Christmas story

This week we explored 'A Christmas story'. It is a book based on the nativity and it's told through a donkey's point of view. We looked at the front cover and had a discussion about what we could see and what we thought it would be about. We also explored the original nativity story and enjoyed learning about why we have Christmas and speaking about the key characters Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

 

During handwriting this week, we practised our scissor skills. We had to cut along the lines made on the paper. We also explored the story 'Cave baby' and looked closely at the marks being made by the baby in the story. We then used our fine motor skills and brilliant control to draw some of the marks.

    

    

In phonics this week, we enjoyed using our bodies and furniture around the classroom to create sounds. We did this by doing things like, patting our heads, patting our knees, clapping, stomping, banging the table, knocking on the window and tapping the whiteboard.

    

    

During maths this week we explored A and B patterns. The children chose two different coloured animals and were able to create a pattern. We also loved exploring dice. We rolled the dice and then used our counting skills to count the amount of dots it landed on.

    

    

In PE this week, we practised our ball control skills using hockey sticks. We also had hoops out to jump into them and to roll them. We really enjoyed some Christmas-themed dancing to our favourites were Santa freeze and gingerbread man.

    

    

    

We also got to enjoy a Christmas craft day. We made snowmen, penguin and reindeer-looking Christmas cards for our families, then we decorated a wooden Christmas tree decoration with paint, glitter and sequins to take home and hang on our trees. We finished off by getting messy and creating a wreath with paper plates, PVA glue, paint and pom poms.

    

    

    

We loved being able to visit the Christmas shop. We had some year 6 helpers to take us round and pick out presents for our families!

  

The children performed their Christmas song to their families brilliantly! After singing our song, we were then able to take our adults to explore all the Christmas-themed activities around the classroom.

    

    

    

 

 

 

 

How to catch a star

This week we continued to look at the story How to catch a star. We used our fine motor skills to knead and flatten salt dough to cut out our own stars. We then cooked them and painted them, and added some glitter. We also used cotton buds to create dots on a star with yellow paint.

    

    

      

We enjoyed using a range of art resources like sequins, stickers, glue and glitter to create our Christmas headbands for our Christmas performance.

    

During handwriting this week, we used our pencil control skills to trace circles. We also ventured out on to the KS1 playground to use spray bottles and paint and created marks on large pieces of paper.

    

    

In phonics this week, we enjoyed hiding instruments from a friend and then encouraging our friends to look for them. We also looked at different animal noises. Miss Wilkinson had a box of animals. One of the children at a time would then choose from the box we would listen to the sound the animal makes and then use our own voices to re-create the sounds.

    

  

During maths this week we explored the story The Three Billy Goats Gruff. We were then able to use wooden blocks to create simple bridges for our goats to walk across. We also enjoyed moving our bodies into simple positions by playing the bean game.

    

    

    

In PE this week, we looked at dinner times, we spoke about what our favourite dinners are. We then practised our ball control by playing the pea game. We had to get into partners and roll the pea (ball) to each other, making sure our pea didn't come off our plate.

    

    

We had an amazing time taking part in a Christmas-themed treasure hunt around the school. We had to complete simple tasks like prancing like a reindeer, snowflake dancing, Santa says, penguin waddle and marching to reveal the pictures we needed to mark off on our sheets. Once we completed all the tasks and found all the pictures, we then all had a prize each.

    

We had lots of amazing learning happening during child-initiated time this week, such as, investigating globes and stargazing books, star making with play-dough and glitter, sticking collage pieces on to star templates, mud pie making in the garden, lots of water play and practising our fine motor skills by wrapping animals with wool.

    

         

How to catch a star

This week we explored the story 'How to catch a star'. It is about a young boy who loves stars so much that he decides to catch one. We started the week by creating our own stars using a range of art resources like highlighters, glitter, glue, tissue paper, colouring pencils and pens. We also were able to sort different sized stars into the correct groups of big and small. We all demonstrated fantastic size recognition during this activity!

    

    

    

    

We also extended our knowledge of stars by looking at the solar system. We explored the planets within the solar system and how they look. We then used paint to create our own planets.

    

    

During our handwriting this week, we used our fine motor skills to trace rocket ship lines. We also went out on to the KS1 playground with some chalk and created different marks, as well as using paintbrushes and water to go over the alphabet on the ground. We loved getting messy by mark making in flower and gloop.

    

    

    

In phonics this week we explored our phonics puppet Jo. We were able to colour him in using the correct colors and the right places. We then loved a musical instrument hunt. Our friend Jo hid some instruments around the classroom. We then had to work together to find them.

    

    

During maths this week, we looked at shapes we were able to name them and then use our imaginations to create something out of them. We also explored creating and labelling groups. We labelled hoops 1–3, then we had to place the correct amount of bean bags in the hoops to match the numbers.

    

    

    

In PE, we focused on following a path and taking turns as well as some balancing. We had some hoops layed down on the floor and, taking turns in our groups, we jumped from hoop to hoop then balanced along the rope at the end. We really enjoyed PE this week!

    

    

    

We had some fantastic learning happening this week. We enjoyed creating different prints on tin foil using sponges and paint, building dinosaur museums and water play in the garden. We explored different shapes in the water tray, mark making on the chalk board, lots of amazing building and using our fine motor skills to place the conkers and pine cones along the lines made on the table.

    

    

    

    

    

Good Little Wolf

During Week 4 we explored the story 'Good Little Wolf'. It is a story about a wolf called Rolf who lives with Mrs Boggins, who tells him he is a good little wolf. He likes baking cakes and is very kind to his friends, but he then meets a large and ferocious wolf who tells him he is not a real wolf. We enjoyed using pencils and colouring pencils of our choice to draw our own wolves, as well as trapping our own animals by wrapping them in wool.

    

We also enjoyed looking at the story 'Three little pigs' to link to 'Good little Wolf'. We used puppets to      re-anact the story with our peers as well as painting a moon on tinfoil with white paint for our wolves to howl at.

    

    

       

During handwriting this week, we practised our pencil control skills by tracing a wolf as well as wavy lines. We also enjoyed some play dough disco. We had to roll, splat, pinch and pull the play dough using our hands and fingers.

    

     

During phonics this week, we explored creating fast and slow sounds with musical instruments. We then practised using our own voices to create sounds, we looked at different pictures of things and used our voice to create a sound to suit the picture. We then ended the week off by looking at some interactive immersive warm-ups.

    

    

   

During maths this week we explored showing 1–5 with our fingers. We looked at familiar nursery rhymes like 5 little speckled frogs, 5 little ducks and 5 monkeys jumping on the bed. All the children then had to show the correct number of fingers every time they saw or heard a number.

    

   

During PE, we explored following instructions and playing safely in a group. We started off by playing a game. All the children had to stand at one side of the hall whilst Miss Wilkinson was in the middle with another child. The children then had to get to the other side of the hall without being tapped by the ones in the middle. We then finished off by practising our turn taking by all standing in a line and taking it in turns to throw some beanbags into a hoop.

   

   

    

We had lots of lovely learning happening inside and outside our environments this week. We enjoyed creating different prints in play-dough using natural resources, lots of building with soft and wooden blocks. We liked creating different marks using colouring pens on lasagne sheets of pasta. We also made our own cakes for Rolf the Wolf using play-dough, cases and sprinkles, pushing our friends on swings and creating marks in washing up liquid using different paint rollers.

    

    

    

    

    

We're going on a bear hunt

During week three we explored the story we're going on a bear hunt. It is a story about a family's adventurous and repetitive journey to find a bear which involves overcoming obstacles like long wavy grass, a river, mud and a snowstorm. We used a range of art resources, like paper plates, paint, glue to create a bear face.

    

    

We were then able to use story sequencing cards to independently order the story from beginning to end. The children had amazing memory of the story!

    

We enjoyed exploring remembrance day. We spoke lots about it and the soldiers. The children took interest in talking about poppies and why we wear them. We then used a range of art resources like tissue paper, glue, colouring pens and pencils to create our own poppies.

    

    

    

During handwriting this week, we focused on curved lines and used our pencil control skills to trace them. Phonics was a lot of fun this week! We started the week off by recapping the different musical instruments' sounds and names. We then enjoyed a listening game. Miss Wilkinson stood behind the board and played an instrument. The children then had to guess what one it was that was played. Finally, to enhance our listening skills, we played the sleepy bear game. A child would lie in the middle whilst one of their peers would shout 'wake up sleepy bear' then the bear would guess who it was that said it.

    

    

    

    

During maths this week, we focused on numbers 0-10. We enjoyed a bear paw print hunt around the school to find and recognise these numbers. We then also looked at big and small groups. Using bears, we could correctly identify whether it was a big bear and belonged in the large hoop or whether it was a small bear and belonged in the small bowl.

    

    

    

   

In PE this week, we looked at different types of homes we lived in. We then used our bodies to create shapes for these homes. For example, a house was stretched out wide, a flat was standing tall on our tip toes and then finally, a bungalow was crouching down into a small ball. We then finished the lesson off by practising some ball control. We had to throw and bounce the ball and then catch it with two hands.

    

    

We had lots of fun learning happening during child-initiated this week. The children enjoyed recreating their own poppies on tinfoil with paint as well as exploring a very wet sandpit making squishy sandcastles. We loved taking part in some bear hunt yoga, dressing up in the home corner, creating different flower prints in play-dough. We also used white paint and cling film to create our own snowstorm and jumping and walking in mud and puddles. We also used pictures and the bear puppet to re-enact the bear hunt story.

    

    

    

    

To enhance our knowledge on the we're going on a bear hunt story we visited Cobtree Manor park. We had so much fun and the children were all so well-behaved with fantastic listening skills whilst we were out. We enjoyed a nice long walk around the park where we explored the leaves. The children were able to link our maths to our trip by finding us 5 leaves each. We also went on our own bear hunt where we worked as a team to build our own bear den out of sticks. We sat and listened to the story, and we even managed to find the bear sitting up in a tree! We finished the trip off by having a lovely run around the park. We loved the slides.

    

    

    

    

The best Diwali ever

During week one and two we explored the story 'The best Diwali ever'. It is a story about a young girl named Arianna who plans to make Diwali the most special celebration ever, but her plans are constantly disrupted by her mischievous younger brother Rafi. We used a range of art resources to create lanterns and enjoyed using our fine motor skills to mould a Diya lamp out of salt dough. We then decorated them with paint, glitter and gem stickers.

    

    

    

    

    

We enjoyed looking at other types of celebrations that happen throughout the year, such as Bonfire/fireworks night and Halloween. Using salt and PVA glue, we created a fireworks mark. We then used a paintbrush to drip coloured water onto the salt and watched it dissolve. This was a lot of fun! Using our fine motor skills, we were able to create different firework-inspired marks in flour on the tables. We loved getting messy in the gooey Halloween-themed tuff tray and tipping and pouring different gems such as witches' hats, pumpkins, bats and spiders in the water tray as well as dressing up as skeletons and princesses.

    

    

    

During handwriting and phonics this week, we focused on using our pencil control skills to trace wavy and straight lines. We then enjoyed exploring different musical instruments and creating loud and quiet sounds with them.

    

    

During maths, we focused on numbers 0–5. They were able to line them up into the correct order using number flashcards, then we were able to use our counting skills to count the Halloween objects, then find the correct wooden number to match. We ended the week by playing a memory game with our number flashcards. This was good practise for our number memory!

    

    

    

In PE, we enjoyed speaking about our family and friends. After this conversation, we then used our social skills to create our very own friendship train we listened very well and were able to stop our train when the music stopped. We also joined year R and loved experiencing some Diwali-themed dancing. We used different musical instruments and coloured scarfs.

    

    

   

    

We had loads of very lovely learning happening during child-initiated. The children enjoyed creating their own rangoli in tuff trays using a variety of different coloured rice. We used toilet roll tubes, black paint and googly eyes to create our own spiders. As well as sand castle making in the sand tray, the children also loved using the puppets to recreate the 'Rama and Sita' story. In the garden, we loved making obstacle courses and pushing our friends on the swings and exploring the musical area.

    

    

    

    

    

Pumpkin soup

This week we looked at the book Pumpkin Soup. It is about a simple daily routine between three animal friends – a cat, a squirrel and a duck who make the best pumpkin soup in the woods. Their routine is disrupted when the duck wants to stir the soup, leading to a squabble and the duck storming off. The cat and the squirrel then had to go on a journey to find their friends. We started off by using different coloured water paints to add colour onto our pumpkins. We then opened the pumpkins up and the children enjoyed exploring the inside of them using spoons to scoop out the seeds. Then, to finish the week off, we made our own pumpkin iced biscuits.

    

    

    

We used our fine motor skills to practise our pencil control during handwriting this week. We had to trace the lines to complete our pumpkins.

    

This week during our child initiated learning, we had pumpkin soup making in the sand trays. The children loved the Conker run in the construction area. we enjoyed exploring pumpkin seeds and adding them into our play-dough, as well as lots of fun activities in the garden! And lastly, we used a range of art resources and leaves to create a squirrel.

    

    

    

We had a lovely visit from two very kind dentists. They taught us all about our teeth and how we should be brushing them and how long for. The children then loved getting stuck into practising what they had told us on a set of teeth. We wore masks and gloves like a dentist would. It was a fantastic experience!

    

    

                                          

Funny bones

For week five and week six we looked at the story Funny bones. It is a story about a family of skeletons: a big one, a little one, and a dog who live in a dark dark house on a dark dark hill. One night, they go out to find someone to scare, but everyone is already in bed, so they end up scaring each other instead. We started the week by exploring a human skeleton. We then worked in small groups and drew around a friend on some wallpaper. We then attempted to use our fine motor skills to draw the bones on the body drawn on the wallpaper.

    

We then enjoyed using PVA glue, black card, skeleton head and cotton buds to create our own skeletons as well as some bone printing in play dough. We had to use our fingers to push the bones into the play dough to create a mark.

    

    During their child-initiated learning this week, we had pasta in the home corner and the children enjoyed cooking each other dinner with it, brilliant teamwork whilst attempting to build the house the skeletons from our story live in, dinosaur bone finding in the sand trays. They had to use paintbrushes to uncover the bones buried in the sand. We also used paint and paper plates to create our own foxes. In the garden, the children enjoyed painting natural resources and making their own music using different sized pots and pans.

    

    

    

During phonics, we attempted some alphabet yoga, we used our bodies to create different letters. We then enjoyed getting messy! We used our fine motor skills to create different marks on the table with shaving foam.

    

    

In maths this week, we looked at different shapes. The children were able to identify all the different shape names, then we used them to create small and colourful houses. We also used our number skills by matching skeleton faces to the correct number rock.

    

    

The children enjoyed our stay and play this term it was a Autumn walk. The children and their parents went on a walk around the school outside areas to collect Autumn objects such as conkers, sticks, pine cones, leaves, and acorns to add to our classroom and to use during our learning. We had so much fun!

    

    Meesha makes friends

This week we looked at the book Meesha makes friends. It is a book about a young girl who loves making things but struggles to make friends because she finds social situations difficult. She creates her own friends out of art supplies, but then learns to connect with real people when a boy named Josh shows interest in her creations. We used our own art and craft supplies such as junk modelling, feathers, glitter, paint, scissors, glue, crayons, pens and pencils to create our own friends.

    

    

Throughout the story, Meesha experiences a range of different emotions so we explored a few, such as happy, sad, angry, scared and excited. We then worked with a partner to practise these different emotions using our facial expressions in the mirrors. We also spoke about our own friends and used our fine motor skills to draw who our friends are on a sheet of paper.

    

                                          

During Phonics and handwriting this week, we focused on using our fine motor skills to create different marks. We used whiteboards and pens and then extended this by going out on the playground to use chalk on the floor. We made different marks, such as horizontal and vertical lines, wavy lines, straight lines and some of the children were even able to draw different shapes.

    

    

There was lots of lovely learning going on during child-initiated this week, such as working as a team to build towers, tipping and pouring in the sand trays with different flowers for the children to explore, painting and oil pastels on the table covered in tin foil, as well as creating hedgehogs using paint, paper plates and stickers for the eyes and Play-dough with some cinnamon and cutters.

    

    

    

During maths this week, we focused on looking at bigger and smaller groups as well as matching numbers 1-10. The children used pegs with numbers on to attempt to match them to the correct hedgehog. As a class, we used two types of resources to create bigger and smaller groups. The children then had to identify all together which was bigger and which was smaller.

    

One Family

During week two and three we looked at the book 'One Family'. This is a children's book that celebrates diverse families by using a simple counting concept to show how a family can be big or small and made of people of different backgrounds. We were able to use our fine motor skills to draw our own families, we then used wooden blocks from the construction area to build a house for our families to live in.

    

    

We also explored different artists and many ways we could create art, such as painting with food colouring and shaving foam and creating our own Autumn leaves using tissue paper, pens, pencils and glue. We really enjoyed this activity!

    

    

We had lots of amazing learning going on during child-initiated, we explored sea animals in the water and listened to the sounds of them splashing and recreated them using our own voices. The children also had fun balancing on their obstacle course that they built together using crates and different wooden planks, as well as jumping from hoop to hoop and practising landing on two feet. 

    

    

During maths this week we focused on looking at numbers 1–5 and putting them into groups. The children chose to use multi-link cubes. They could then identify a group of 5 whilst counting them out loud. They all had amazing focus during this activity and did really well!

    

Each Peach Pear and Plum 

This week we enjoyed settling into our new classroom, meeting new friends and learning new things! The book we looked at this week was each peach, pear and plum. It is a story filled with traditional nursery rhymes and encourages the children to find them within the illustrations. We even Created our own pear pictures using tissue paper, glue, pens, and highlighters.

     

 

During some phonics this week, we attempted some play dough disco to help with the children's fine motor skills. We had to splat, pinch, roll and stretch out play dough to familiar nursery rhymes.

    

There was lots of lovely learning happening during child initiated this week. We had pizza making with play dough and different herbs and spices. We used cars to follow lines made on the tables to help improve our gross motor skills, as well as lots of fun learning in our new outdoor space which the children loved exploring!

    

    

We had an amazing visit from the lovely Nina from Boogie tots, which was lots of fun! We used a parachute to re-enact five little monkeys jumping on the bed and the grand old Duke of York, as well as lots of dancing to some of our other favourite songs.

    

We finished the week off reading Cinderella together as a class and spoke about seeing her in our story of the week each peach, pear and plum.