Spring Term Week 3

We have loved the sunshine this week and exploring the ice that we discover on the grass and in the trays we leave out! Our planning has been based on proprioception work outside – this is the sense of our body in space and self-movement, this will help with body posture and movement skills. We have some new equipment that was bought from the £1200 book sales money from Tesco and the children love a new piece of equipment!! Lots of challenge and climbing and obstacle courses which are brilliant for exercise and co-ordination.

We have also had a visitor this week – Robot Reg! He is back and will be visiting for 6 sessions over this term – he is coming on a Thursday at the moment and we hope to book him again with his helper Rebecca for the Friday group in the summer term. It is great to hear the music and the laughter as the children learn letter sounds with them.

Thank you to everyone who donated compost, raspberry canes and seeds and pots for us, we have been enjoying making pots of cress to make cress heads and we will be having a tidy up in the garden ready for Spring too. Our bulbs that we planted in the Autumn are starting to come through now which is exciting.

The free flow time has been a lovely busy week and the children have loved mixing and baking and scrubbing the veggies and the fried egg tray and the pretend pancake tray too! We certainly have some contenders for Junior Bake Off in the future!!

Circles have been brilliant, lots of happy children competing to take the most steps and compare their pedometer scores! Shape work, exercise with stretchy bands to explore our arm muscles and learning to throw and catch tennis balls, working together and giving each other lots of praise and encouragement. The Sun and Moons have also worked on their literacy skills – enjoying a story sack and then re-telling the story, learnt letter sounds in their names and welcomed Robot Reg!

The Star group have built towers, enjoyed large scale painting, learnt about feelings, played hide and seek in the back garden and explored instruments too.

The Forest School groups enjoyed some chilly sunshine in the back garden, lighting the fire, having hot chocolate, making their own “walk the plank” games and the photos are wonderful on the blog. The children had an assault course as well with a sea saw and a badger tunnel and they have made a giant bug hotel together too.

Next week we will carry on with exercise in the garden to keep warm and get strong! Our new monkey bars are here which will provide a great challenge and will be used under supervision only. We will be mark making inside and learning about colour – linking that to our overall theme of nature and we look forward to another fun and busy week!