Building our creative thinking

The children have been having lots of fun in Early Years, getting creative and making links with their directed and chosen learning! In literacy, we continued to use Handa’s Surprise as a stimulus for building vocabulary. Ash class looked at the word ‘see’ and were introduced to synonyms to help grow their brains! As a result, the children had a go at replacing the word ‘see’ in their spoken sentences and sentence writing, with words such as ‘glimpse’ and phrases such as ‘catch sight of’. Ash have been working so hard on structuring their written  sentences, using fingers spaces and punctuation. Saplings have also been loving exploring writing lots more lately, and enjoyed making marks and drawing pictures to indicate the animals that Handa couldn’t see in the story! We also enjoyed looking at the world map to find where Handa’s village is in Kenya, Africa.

We enjoyed spotting the signs of growth in the forest on Tuesday and made nature bracelets to celebrate the discoveries we made. We found fallen petals, seed pods, leaves and even little snail shells! Whilst the children were in the forest, after adorning their bracelets with all sorts of findings, they demonstrated fantastic teamwork, problem solving and cooperation. From sharing the rope swing to building narratives around a shipwrecked raft, the children had a lot of fun getting creative with one another.

Creativity didn’t stop there, as we enjoyed a very messy afternoon creating butterflies inspired by the artist Kusama and the story ‘The Dot’ by Peter Reynolds! In the story, a little girl called Vashti didn’t really think of herself as an artist until she started with a single dot on paper. We then looked at Yayoi Kusama’s beautiful butterflies, all starting with a single dot! This gave us all the courage to try out a new painting technique, using pipettes to create our dots. Upon folding, patting and smoothing our card once our initial dots had been placed, the joy on the children’s faces was clear to see when they opened their card to reveal their butterflies!

During PE, the children continued to build on their athletic development. They focused on both the standing long jump and running long jump, practicing their technique, coordination, and control.

The children have thoroughly enjoyed exploring the pirate ship from Lime Class’s performance, which has sparked a wave of imaginative, swashbuckling adventures. Their excitement carried over into Forest School, where they discovered a series of mysterious pirate clues hidden around the area. The children delighted in reading and interpreting the clues, eagerly following the trail of adventure. They also had great fun singing lively pirate songs with Connor and his guitar, adding to the atmosphere of the week.

It’s been a wonderfully creative and engaging week for everyone!