Spring Term Week 3

We have been learning about our world this week with lots of wonderful circle times! The children have developed their skills and are now able to focus on some good ideas and vocabulary and as I type this I have just heard a child say “I am doing aboriginal art”! How fantastic!

We had a visit from Tiny Travels this week with some beautiful treasures from around the world, Nadia was born in Jamaica and led three lovely sessions for the groups, exploring and talking about differences between us such as how we look, speak and sound and our languages.

In the sun room we have been using junk modelling to test our skills at coming up with ideas, using the tools and tape and glue to join things and talking over what we have made. There have been some lovely individual moments and some collaborative work to make some great creations and this has also fed into some other construction work as well.

Next steps are due out on Friday 23rd Jan which will be covered and planned for in sessions here for the children and these also have some ideas for you at home so do log onto your Tapestry over the weekend for the home learning ideas.

Circle times for sun and moon and stars have had the theme of “our world” – we have used our EAD skills to make a big map of the world and draw our families on it and animals on land and the sea, create aboriginal art, learnt about Australia, and we have used our communication skills to talk about what we know and our social skills to take turns to listen to our friends and take turns. We have also made flags, played with musical instruments from around the world, listened to music from around the world and build landmarks using our maths knowledge of space and shape.

Mindful Thursday was very special again this week – all of the sun and moon children take part just before lunch, creating a quiet time with mindful breathing, and using bubbles and lavender for a sensory experience.

Forest School sessions have been amazing fun, lots of very muddy children with huge smiles!

We have had a focus on gross and fine motor skills as well to assess where children are and what they need to learn next – finger gym activities have been available and we have had a shop as role play outside, buying heavy tins and filling bags up to support growing strength.

Next week we will be hoping the rain eases a bit to allow us to continue to build strength up on obstacle courses, with balancing on beams and carrying heavy items. We will also play with small worlds outside with an adult to support and inside we will be building on an idea of train role play. The children made a brilliant train using the junk modelling items and loved adding the tyres onto it!

We will also start to learn more about maths and numbers, building confidence so that all of the children enjoy maths and know they are good at it.