Early Years were lucky to have a visitor this week. Liz, our class governor, came to visit the children and talk to them about how to look after guinea pigs. The children helped her to clip the guinea pigs nails and they learnt a lot about what is good to feed guinea pigs and how we should stroke and handle them. They also weighed the guinea pigs to check they were a healthy weight.
The children are really enjoying their dance lessons. They are stretching their bodies and thinking of different ways they can move, as well as learning new dance moves from their teacher. In PE, Ash and Saplings are continuing to work on their ball skills. They have started working in partners, throwing and catching to each other and we can see a real improvement already with their hand-eye co-ordination. They have even been able to practise kicking the footballs to a target.
During choosing time, the children have had great fun in the newly refreshed digging pit (thank you Mr Trundle!), using spades and a wheelbarrow. This is a super activity to enhance gross motor skills, along with communication and speaking. Plus the children love getting muddy! We have been really impressed at the turn taking and sharing that has been going on with the new wheelbarrow!
In Forest school, Ash and Saplings have been learning to tie knots in string, around sticks and branches. They were very busy making swings, dens and homes incorporating this new skill they had learnt.
We are continuing to look at the story of So Much in Literacy, with a link to Black History Month. We discussed how the book is set in the Caribbean and the children looked at a map of the islands as well as images. We shared ideas about how different it is to Little Hadham. The children had some excellent suggestions of differences, including the types of trees, beaches and weather. We then listened to and sang a nursery rhyme from the Caribbean, called Tree Fell Down. It was great fun to sing along with and fall over to!
During our Maths sessions, we have been thinking about sizes. The children have been sorting objects into boxes, according to their size. They were able to put small objects in small boxes and larger objects into larger boxes. They could explain why an object couldn’t fit into a specific box, describing it as too big. We also tried out a few boxes to see if they could fit a child into, and we managed to find one! Although Mrs Webb was very disappointed as she was too tall to fit into the box. The children had great fun seeing if they could fit in the box, as well as playing inside it after the lesson had finished, as their learning continued into choosing time.
In Friday’s forest session with Connor he had a new hammock for us to try out. First the children helped him find somewhere suitable to put it and then after Connor had tested it out they wowed us yet again with their patience and turn taking without any fuss. The class really have been superstars this week!