Our topic for this half term is People Who Help Us. This week we have been focusing on Doctors and Nurses. We have enjoyed lots of activities based on this during discovery time.

During ‘Language for Thinking’, the children have been learning about famous nurses from the past, such as Florence Nightingale, and they also learnt about sorting hospital equipment and uniforms into past and present.

The Swans have had a great week completing lots of Christmas based activities! They have been very busy counting baubles, writing Christmas cards and lists to Santa and doing Christmas themed art work.

At the end of the week the children enjoyed a disco in the hall and party food and music back in class. It was a fabulous time had by all!

Wow! What a fantastic start to the festive season! Swans had a fantastic time creating lots of sparkly Christmas craft with their parents… we think the parents enjoyed it too! A huge thank you to everyone who attended and making it special.

As part of our Celebrations topic the Swans this week have been focusing on birthdays. During Language for Thinking, they have discussed their birthdays and how their parents from different countries and cultures celebrate birthdays. They have learned how different countries around the world celebrate birthday and even developing their inference skills (reading the picture) based on different birthday scenarios.

During Discovery Time the children wrote beautiful cards to Kipper, created cakes with the playdoh and candles, used their fine motor skills to cut and create birthday cakes and lots of counting to match the correct number of balloons.

The Swans did some amazing work within their Talk for Writing based on Kipper’s Birthday. They learnt the story with actions, sequenced the story, acted it out in groups and even wrote a fantastic shopping list for party things. Because of their hard work, they were all invited to Kipper’s Birthday party on Friday. They all got to experience a party with music and dancing, pass the parcel, games, singing happy birthday to Kipper and we even shared a cake!

This week the children have been focusing on understanding what bullying is and how to reach out to people who can help. We kicked off our week with Odd Socks Day. Everyone showed off their individuality by wearing odd socks. Throughout the week our continuous provision was all based on Anti-Bullying Week. We had lots of different activities including creating our own drawings of odd socks, making friendship bracelets, the roleplay house to build our good communication with our friends and group games to encourage turn taking and winning and losing with kindness.

During our Language for Thinking sessions, we learned about what a bully is and who we can speak to if we are being bullied. Also, we did a circle time where we gave each other compliments, discussing and re-enacting different scenarios.

It was also important for the children to understand that bullying can occur online too, so we watched a video from the National Online Safety website about who to talk to if we are being bullied online or something we don’t like or understand is happening online.

For Muddy Monday the children were given a variety of maths challenges such as creating shapes and collecting a given number of objects from the forest school area.

Swans have been very busy this week completing all their work and enjoying their discovery time.

For Muddy Monday this week, Swans went on a hunt for bugs. They found lots of different ones, especially as the rainy weather made it perfect for exploring.

We have also started our Healthy Me topic. This week we have focused on which different foods are good for us. In discovery time the children were able to pack a healthy lunchbox, weigh and compare different vegetables, explore and compare the different outsides and insides of fruit and vegetables and lots more.

The children have especially enjoyed this week’s ERIC challenge of finding a funny book and recommending it to a friend.

This week the Swans have been amazing at starting their letter sounds: s, a, t, p and practising them within continuous provision.

Swans have also been learning and developing a great understanding of the numbers 1, 2 and 3.

During Muddy Monday we looked at how the season is changing and how we can see this in the trees. The children used their previous weekly learning to make repeated pattern leaf kebabs.

The Swans are continuing to settle in well to Reception class. They have been busy learning the Funnybones story for our Talk for Writing and learning all about the different parts of the bones and how they work.

In maths we have been focusing on sorting and repeated patterns.

We have also enjoyed exploring the forest in our first Muddy Monday.

Wow! Our newest Swans have settled in amazingly. We have been very busy getting to know each other and starting our topic of Marvellous Me. In language for thinking, the children have been discussing who is in their families and people who are special to them.

We have also focused on the great story ‘The Colour Monster’ for our Talk for Writing. The children learnt lots about emotions and ways in which they can deal with them. The children expanded their emotional vocabulary by learning alternative words for sad, happy, angry etc.

The children have been so good at completing all the activities with their new friends during discovery time and have already become happy members of Swans class.

This week the Swans have immersed themselves in the artwork of Andy Goldsworthy. They have created their own interpretations of his art works using similar natural materials to Goldsworthy.

During discovery time the child also used lots of natural materials they collected from the forest school and field to use to create shapes and numbers. The Swans are looking forward to their parents visiting their art exhibition to see all their hard work.