Spring Term: Week 4
This week, the children have been focussing on using Super Andro’s ‘ambition’ Learning Power, for anything from perfect punctuation in Year 2 to holding a rolling pin carefully to roll out play-dough in the Sparrows Room.
Year 2 have been very ambitious and wrote their own ‘dragon’ plays this week. They thought hard about the characters they wanted to include; the plot, and the scenes. Each child worked creatively and independently and was very proud of sharing their work with each other. Multiplication and division have been looked at, and Florence Nightingale, habitats, and physical exercise have also been on the agenda.
Year 1 have been busy writing imaginative captions for the story of Three Little Pigs. They designed and created ‘Wanted’ posters about the Big Bad Wolf. For their creative afternoon, they made bird feeders, so important at this time of year, as they are taking part in the Big Garden Bird Watch. In Forest/Garden School, the children carried on making their dream catchers.
Reception has been also been very busy this week. In maths they revised ‘one more’ and have also started working with money; simple counting and laying out amounts in pennies. They teamed up with Year 1 to make bird feeders ready for the RSPB Garden Bird Watch starting on 29 January. They listened to the story Lost and Found, discussing how they would feel if they were lost and what they would need to take to the Arctic should they go! They continued making their dream catchers by adding beads which they threaded onto string.
There has been much excitement in the Chaffinch and Kingfisher classes this week, with the delivery of new pipes, crates, and tyres. Their outdoor classroom has been a hive of activity with the children using their new deliveries to make a house for the Three Little Pigs. ‘I’m going to London,’ said one child: ‘All aboard!’. Another set up an ice-cream van, ‘How much is your ice cream?’ asked Miss Richmond. Others were excited by the tyres and set up an assault course to balance on and had some great races.
The Nightingale children made their role playhouse into a Post Office. The children helped make post boxes and have been posting letters and parcels. In their cooking session, they made chocolate snowballs. They rolled the balls into the shredded coconut to make the snow effect.
The Robin children have continued to embrace the winter season and explored all different types of winter weather. As the ice play went down such a hit last time, they extended it by adding a winter-themed tuff tray. This gave the children an opportunity to talk about all kinds of animals that enjoy living in the cold. The children were also given tools to try and pick out the different objects that were frozen into the ice, such as animals, pine cones, and colourful pompoms. They have also been jumping in the puddles, running in the rain, and playing with the freezing ice that had formed in the playground.
The Sparrows have been engaged in sensory exploration with ice play, seashells, and pine cones. They had enormous fun exploring playdough by using rollers and their hands. Using different materials and textures is always very good practice for the development of their fine motor skills.
Armelle Wilkinson
Head of Pre-Prep and Nursery
