Autumn 2- Having fun and Christmas!

Date: 21st Feb 2023 @ 11:30am

This half term our topic has been ‘Autumn in the woods,’ and we have been using the Percy the Park keeper stories to support the children’s learning. They have thoroughly enjoyed using these stories and have become super familiar with Percy and his friends. We have had Percy’s shed in our role play area so that the children can re-enact the stories, role play the characters or make their own up. We have also had small world tables set up with the characters and natural objects such as logs and stones to create the park that Percy lives in. 

Using these stories as starting points, we have made different animals using the playdough and natural resources, drew hedgehogs and coloured them using different media, used the construction equipment to create homes for different animals, used the k-nex to create different style trees, created course using the big blocks to get our Beebot along to meet all of the different animal friends that Percy has. We have developed fine motor control by threading leaves onto string, using tweezers to pinch buttons onto leaves, spooned conkers into containers and hole punched leaves. The children also thoroughly enjoyed looking at the different seasons and using broccoli to print leaves of different colours to make autumn trees. 

We went on various welly walks to explore the different signs of Autumn, we looked at the different colours on the trees, explored the sounds, sights, smells and feelings of Autumn in our field and used different vocabulary to explain or describe our findings and opinions. We discussed what happens to the trees, bugs and plants in Autumn and what weather we usually experience and we then went and splashed in huge muddy puddles and played in our very muddy mud kitchen in the forest school area. 

In Phonics and English, we continued with our phase 2 sounds and tricky words. The children have engaged in a range of purposeful activities linked to Percy the Park Keeper to develop their phonic skills and in turn their reading. They have made excellent progress in blending and segmenting to read and write and have been able to write simple words or short phrases to accompany their work. They have labelled pictures, added captions, wrote their name, ordered the story, explored and described the characters and setting. We then focused on non-fiction texts and explored what the differences and similarities are between fiction and non-fiction. We looked at the use of photos and true information and the children helped to write their own information on woodland animals. Additionally, we explored the life cycle of some of the animals.

In Maths, we have explored pattern, the children have used a range of different resources to create their own repeating patterns such as natural objects, coloured buttons, compare bears. They have explored different basic shapes and used these within their patterns also. They discussed the properties of shape such as how many corners and edges they have. We have begun to develop subitising by teaching the children to say what they see when looking at a quantity such as three. The children have been brilliant at recognising amounts and saying how many there are without the need to count, they have used their understanding of composition to develop this. The children have had a range of activities where they have to look at how numbers have been made up. They have used 10 frames, numicon, natural resources, counters, drawings and webpages on the interactive whiteboard. Incorporated into this, we have looked at more than and less than and the number 0. The children have been using a wide range of vocabulary to support their mathematical knowledge and understanding.

This half term we have enjoyed our forest school sessions. The children have hunted for minibeasts, made dens, used tools to make Christmas trees and finished the half term with a chocolate fondue!

Now that the children are becoming more familiar with and independent within our learning environment we have started our ‘Plan, Do, Tell’ sessions where the children plan, carry out and review their own learning. These sessions give the children the opportunity to develop their characteristics of effective learning.  They focus on planning their own ideas and gathering resources, problem solving, persevering, developing resilience and critical thinking. The children have thoroughly enjoyed taking control of their learning and further developing their own interests within the classroom. 

Finally we celebrated Bonfire Night, Halloween, Rememberance Day, Children in Need, Christmas Jumper Day and Christmas and we had a visit from the local Fire Brigade! The children loved taking part in themed activities linked to these events and were absolutely fantastic in their Christmas Play. They worked hard with Key Stage 1 children to sing a range of learnt songs to accompany the play and performed their roles brilliantly. The Play was a huge success and all involved had such a great time. 

We have had a very busy but wonderful half term finishing with lots of Christmassy activities!

Well done to all of the Owls for their amazing attitude to learning and a big thank you to the parents for their support.