Monthly Archives: July 2023

Arts Week

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The Swans have really enjoyed Arts Week!

Miss Coghlan told us all about the artist Van Gogh and showed us lots of his beautiful paintings. We have focused on two of his most famous pieces of art ‘Starry Night’ and ‘The Sunflowers’.

Miss Coghlan also introduced all the Swans to an online drawing session, where the children followed step by step instructions on how to complete both ‘The Sunflowers’ and ‘Starry Night’ paintings. The teachers also took part and everyone did a fantastic job!
At the end of the session we all had a chance to share our work with each other. Each piece was different and each child’s own interpretation of the instructions. The children were totally absorbed with their work and so were the teachers!
We all discovered how calming and relaxing an Art class really is. The children sat quietly, carefully producing their art work which of course they were very proud of and rightly so!
Every piece of work was amazing. Well done Swans!

During Discovery time our activities have followed an Art theme and have included observation drawings of a vase of real Sunflowers, painting a picture of Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ using paints on tin foil, and recreating ‘Starry Night’ on the Tuff Tray using a picture frame and a variety of resources.

Each piece of art work the children have completed this week is unique to them, and the children have appreciated the value of this! All parents will get a chance to see our fantastic art work at the whole school exhibition on Friday.

Marvellous Music

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This week in Music the Swans have come to the end of their Chranaga unit Reflect, Rewind and Play. Today they have been using all of their taught skills to hear the variety of instruments played in Flying Theme by John Williams (E.T. theme music).
‘I can hear a violin; it sounds really creepy’ Maya
‘ The drums are really loud’ Andy
‘ I like this music; the pulse is different all the time’ Anaya
The children have learnt loads about the different tempos of music and explored the different emotions and feelings the music invokes.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

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This Week the Swans have continued learning about the Fairy Tale Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
In our ‘Talk for Writing ‘lesson on Monday the children sat in their family groups and looked at a picture of each character in the story and thought about what each of them might be saying. The children came up with some fantastic ideas which they then put into practice in their writing task during Discovery Time.
On Monday afternoon the Swans tasted three bowls of porridge and had to decide if it was Daddy Bear’s, Mummy Bear’s or Baby Bear’s. The children didn’t know which one they would be tasting, so they were very brave to just ‘have a go’.  They decided one bowl tasted sweet, one salty and the last one just right! Well done Swans!
 In our maths Lessons this week we have been working on Positional Language such as on, under, above, behind, between, in front of and next to. Firstly the children needed to work with their Talk Partners to position their soft toy correctly. They then played a barrier game to make a tower using a variety of different resources using their amazing listening skills and ability to follow instructions. Finally they individually had to draw pictures using Positional Language. This is a difficult concept and you completed this task brilliantly !!!
 
Our Discovery Activity tables had a Goldilocks and the Three Bears theme once again.
The children made maps, bowls and spoons for the three bears with the play dough, wrote speech bubbles for the different characters in the story, counted pictures from the story and consolidated their adding and subtracting skills on the maths table.
 
Once again a very busy week and you have worked really hard!
Well done Swans!

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

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The Swans have been very busy this week learning all about the story of the Three Bears. Lots of the children already knew this story and they enjoyed retelling it during ‘Talk for Writing’. They learnt the song ‘When Goldilocks went to the house of the Bears’ using actions to go with it.
Swans enjoyed completing the activities on the tables with our Fairy Tale theme. We expect the children to complete two activities before they earn a silver card and four before they earn a gold card. The activities are also more challenging as we prepare the children for Year One but they have amazed us once again this week with their levels of knowledge ad using all their ‘behaviours for learning ‘ to successfully complete each task.
Our activities this week have been: writing a sorry letter to Baby Bear, using the ‘Compare Bears’ to play a game using a dice,  sequencing and comparing the weight between them and dry porridge, using a variety of resources to make a bear’s face, making play dough bears and decorating them and a ‘cut and stick’ activity adding toppings to three bowls of porridge and writing a sentence underneath.
In maths the children have been exploring the concept of sharing a number of objects into groups so that each group is equal. This is quite a difficult concept but Swans have taken it in their stride, not only using counters, whiteboards and pens to show this with their talk partners but also using themselves as the counters and the hoops as the groups .
Well done Swans!
Happy Eid to all Swans celebrating this important festival this week. The children took a bag of sweets home with them from one of our families and we remembered to say ‘Thank you’.
Our Strawberry Patch has produced lots of fruit this week! The children have enjoyed picking and eating the fruits of their labours!
Keep up all the hard work Swans and see you next week!