Owls Spring 1. What a busy half term!
Date: 20th Feb 2023 @ 12:58pm
What an exciting half term we have all had. The Owls, EYFS team and the whole school actually have been super excited by our brand new EYFS 'Outdoor learning environment.' It has been a lot of hard work by the EYFS team designing and equipping the area but it has been very much worth it. The children now have a completely new area which will allow all 7 areas of the curriculum can be catered for. The children have a brand new huge water wall, mud kitchen with pulley system, a quiet/reading area, a planter and bug garden, large sand pit and small world area, massive climbing blocks and mark making chalk boards as well as a rainbow coloured xylophone. We had a grand reveal on Friday 10th February with Councillor Parry as a special guest, who kindly helped fund this project through the council. Mr Ings was also in attendance as he is a talented joiner, creating most of the wooden equipment in the area and Mr Phillips also helped the project by completing some groundworks prior to the start of the renovation. The children were so excited and cannot wait to begin to use this area in the future. A big thank you to all involved.
This half term our topic was ‘Around the World.’ We used a book called ‘Granny goes to Market,’ as a starting point to all of our work. The children loved listening to the story and getting involved in the different countries that she visited. We created repeating pattern large magic carpets to fly us around the World with Granny. We also used different construction toys and big blocks to design our own vehicles that Granny may have used. Using a large sheet and different resources, the children were able to design their own patterned magic carpet too. To develop fine motor skills the children cut out the different characters and created puppets, they then developed their communication and language skills by retelling the story using their puppet through making a show. In the playdough area, the children used natural resources to create Granny face and to also create mini magic carpets as well. In our junk modelling area, the children were very content using a wide range of resources to make different transportation and explaining what they had made and how to the staff. Free painting was also available, so that the children could paint anything that they wanted to, some children requested pictures to paint linked to the story. We also explored ‘Handa’s surprise,’ and created fruit kebabs. We explored maps, looking at where Africa was as well as all of the countries that Granny visited. The children used a beebot to get across to the different countries and we used a range of activities such as matching, phonic and drawing tools on our interactive whiteboard linked to our learning.
We looked at where China was on the map and celebrated Chinese New Year, the children took part in a range of activities such as pouring and mixing different coloured rice, making chinese lanterns, creating fireworks in sand, exploring the animal zodiac, writing different numbers in chinese and cutting sticking rabbits as it was the year of the rabbit. The children began their learning on this day by experiencing real live rabbits brought in. This acted as a great stimulus to their learning and helped them retain the purpose of their learning that day.
In Phonics, we continued to develop our phase 3 sounds and to segment and blend to help us read and write. We continue to link our phonics learning to our topic where possible to ensure purpose and to consolidate their learning through a cross curricular approach. The children have made fantastic progress in their phonics and in their reading and writing. We have used our text of ‘Granny goes to market,’ and ‘Handa’s surprise,’ to create lists, label pictures, write simple sentences, order the story, identify the characters and retell the story. We have expired where the stories are set and to write captions to our work.
In Maths, we have been learning and consolidating our knowledge of the numbers 5, 6, 7, 8. We have looked at subitising numbers by looking at how numbers are made up and linking this adding. The children have used different groups of items and used this to add. We have used the correct vocabulary add, more, equals, altogether, subitise, groups. This has led into looking at whether numbers are odd and even and pair work. The children have also explored capacity, looking at which holds more or less and ordering/comparing different containers based on which holds the most or least. This continued into developing understanding of length and height. The children compared each other's height and measuring snake lengths. We measured using big blocks the height of a child in class, Mrs Young and Mrs Ings and talked about who was taller and shorter. The class then ordered themselves with support into tallest to shortest and this led to a discussion on height in connection to age. The children began to see that the oldest isn’t always the tallest.Finally, we began to explore the composition of 9 and 10 using a range of different activities.
Additionally this half term we have enjoyed weekly sessions in the hall with the large construction bricks. The children have worked well as a team to plan structures, negotiate ideas and build some amazing creations including boats, swimming pools, houses, beds, flying carpets, rescue rafts and much much more!
We have enjoyed our music sessions this term. We learned a song for Chinese New Year and matched appropriately sounding instruments to each verse. We have learned actions and moves to a range of well known songs e.g. Wind the Bobbin up and If You’re Happy and You Know it. We have also used the glockenspiels and xylophones to add tuned accompaniment to our favourite of this term's tunes.
The children have enjoyed developing their characteristics of effective learning during our Plan, Do, Tell sessions and they are becoming more competent and independent problem solvers and are exploring a wider range of resources within our classroom environment.
Finally, we took part in 'Children's Mental Health Week,' by taking part in a range of activities across the week and finishing with 'Wear a rainbow day,' to celebrate who we are and to make positive connections with others. There were activities and music each morning in the playground to start our mornings fresh, bright and positive and we also had the privilege of having a bubble workshop come into school, to explore different sensory experiences with the children. The children absolutely loved it, please see the separate blog on these sessions.
Wow, what a busy half term! You are all superstars Owls and have done so well. Keep up that hard work and that love of learning you all have. Great job everybody and thank you to the parents and carers for their support.
