SummerTerm: Week 5
This week marks Mental Health Awareness Week and the children spent time discussing how to look after our mental health, as well as our physical health. Our curriculum lends itself well to this year’s theme, Nature. We talked about how they all love going over to Forest School and Beach School and using our outdoor classrooms, and then thought about why they loved it so much. They all agreed that spending time outside made them feel really happy and excited to learn. The children then came up with ideas of how to look after our mental health and how to help our friends too.
Year 2 have had a wonderful week learning about the very talented author and illustrator Anthony Browne. The children read many of his books and loved looking at the detailed pictures of gorillas. They wrote book reviews and invented new blurbs for their favourite book. The children made the most of the good weather and had many lessons outside. This brings a whole new dimension to the interaction between the children, creativity and awe and wonder. As it has been Mental Health Awareness Week, the children have been thinking of ways they can look after themselves, as well as each other.
Year 1 have enjoyed reading a variety of under the sea stories which inspired them to make up their own stories. In this, Mental Health Awareness Week, they talked about their feelings, both good and bad. They have been very caring and have shown such empathy. Maths has been all about sharing equally and they were involved in many practical activities and games. In art, the children have created different Andy Goldsworthy-style sculptures, using a variety of man-made and natural materials. They also used watercolours to paint their observational drawings from Forest School.
The Reception children have been using their imaginations within the theme of space. They made play dough aliens, which are currently hiding in the classroom. In maths they learned all about positional language, using the stories Rosie’s Walk and We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. In the outdoor classroom and the playground they re-enacted the stories, practising the positional language. In the forest they looked for the alien-patterned underpants after reading the Aliens Love Underpants and in their cooking session, the children made delicious cheesy muffins which made the classroom smell wonderful! The children have continued to develop their independent writing with Forest School diaries and story maps. It’s been a busy week! Well done Reception.
This week the Chaffinch and Kingfisher classes have been busy exploring lots of different aspects connected to their topics. The Kingfisher children explored the mini-beasts theme and talked about the names of the different body parts of insects; they also painted their chosen mini-beast onto stones. The Chaffinch children started to explore the theme of dinosaurs and created some dinosaur footprint paintings of all different shapes and sizes. Whilst doing these they could be heard exclaiming, ‘This is a massive one!’ as they picked up a large Stegosaurus. Another child said, ‘My dinosaur is going to Eastbourne, stomp, stomp, stomp!’ The children have all continued working on The Very Hungry Caterpillar and made caterpillar fruit kebabs. They looked very colourful and delicious, complete with caterpillar eyes. ‘I like blueberries best because they are yummy!’ one said.
In Forest School, the Nightingale children talked about the colours of flowers and leaves that have now appeared. They went on an adventure to spot as many different colours as they could find. They could be heard saying, ‘Wow, a big yellow leaf.’ ‘Look Miss Dadswell, lots of bluebells here.’ An activity was then set out to see if children could match the safari animals to the correct laminated picture of the different animal furs.
This week the Robin children have enjoyed the sunshine. They explored transporting water and sand using pipes and shovels in the garden. They also enjoyed a big walk on the school field where they practised using the walking hoops. The teachers were very impressed.
The children in the Sparrow class had enormous fun mixing paint and foam. They explored the texture and created some beautiful paintings, using pastel coloured foam-paint. These will be displayed on the seasons tree.
Armelle Wilkinson
Head of Pre-Prep and Nursery
