Welcome to our first Blog of 2020, we hope our families all had a relaxing break?
One of our focus stories this term is the book, 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt'. Many of our children are already familiar with this story and will join in with repetitive phrases. To extend our learning, we decided to retell the story from memory, drawing a story map of the main characters and events. Our children did really well, remembering all of the things the family faced on their search for the bear; grass, mud, a river and so on! Some of the children even suggested new ideas; leaves, twigs and snow - imagining what sounds these might make as we have to go through them!
One thought the children often have after reading this story is how the bear is feeling - the final page shows him walking away along a beach. This led us to discuss how the family might have felt during their bear hunt, when they found the bear, and how the bear felt when the family ran away. Children suggested feelings such as excited, happy, sad and scared. This led us to a carpet-time discussion about how our actions can make others feel. The children brainstormed ideas such as; cuddling, sharing and saying sorry to make our friends happy, and pinching, hitting, scratching and telling tales to make our friends sad. This is a wonderful way for children to talk about feelings, and realise how their actions can impinge on others.
The bear hunting continued into the garden with children deciding to build a 'cave' using the wooden bricks and waffle bricks to build a footpath to their cave.
New this term, we have created a sensory area. This area has a range of colours and textures for children to explore. As children were introduced to these new resources, many chose to remove their shoes and walk across the textured tiles. This led to lots of lovely adjectives, such as spikey, 'spike'er'ly', soft, smooth and liney!
Another new addition this term has been our 'old-school' dressing up area. We've removed many of our character costumes, and replaced them with a mix of generic fabrics, materials and accessories. Whereas an Elsa dress is lovely for a child to be Elsa - a collection of material can be used to be a princess, a superhero or maybe a sari - our intention is to help inspire imagination and creativity in this area.
The children have enjoyed plenty of time in the garden this week. The mini trampoline has provided an excellent opportunity to count jumps, with children counting their own jumps and their friends'. This was then extended, with some children asking for chalk boards to enable them to record how many jumps they'd done.
Other popular activities this week have included; the train set, washing station, lego, home corner and playdough.
Ideas to continue the learning at home
We've really enjoyed our focus story 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt'. You can watch the author telling this story using the following link...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iou5LV9dRP0
Can your child join in with key words? Maybe they can come up with their own ideas for hurdles to overcome?
One of our focus stories this term is the book, 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt'. Many of our children are already familiar with this story and will join in with repetitive phrases. To extend our learning, we decided to retell the story from memory, drawing a story map of the main characters and events. Our children did really well, remembering all of the things the family faced on their search for the bear; grass, mud, a river and so on! Some of the children even suggested new ideas; leaves, twigs and snow - imagining what sounds these might make as we have to go through them!
One thought the children often have after reading this story is how the bear is feeling - the final page shows him walking away along a beach. This led us to discuss how the family might have felt during their bear hunt, when they found the bear, and how the bear felt when the family ran away. Children suggested feelings such as excited, happy, sad and scared. This led us to a carpet-time discussion about how our actions can make others feel. The children brainstormed ideas such as; cuddling, sharing and saying sorry to make our friends happy, and pinching, hitting, scratching and telling tales to make our friends sad. This is a wonderful way for children to talk about feelings, and realise how their actions can impinge on others.
The bear hunting continued into the garden with children deciding to build a 'cave' using the wooden bricks and waffle bricks to build a footpath to their cave.
New this term, we have created a sensory area. This area has a range of colours and textures for children to explore. As children were introduced to these new resources, many chose to remove their shoes and walk across the textured tiles. This led to lots of lovely adjectives, such as spikey, 'spike'er'ly', soft, smooth and liney!
Another new addition this term has been our 'old-school' dressing up area. We've removed many of our character costumes, and replaced them with a mix of generic fabrics, materials and accessories. Whereas an Elsa dress is lovely for a child to be Elsa - a collection of material can be used to be a princess, a superhero or maybe a sari - our intention is to help inspire imagination and creativity in this area.
The children have enjoyed plenty of time in the garden this week. The mini trampoline has provided an excellent opportunity to count jumps, with children counting their own jumps and their friends'. This was then extended, with some children asking for chalk boards to enable them to record how many jumps they'd done.
Other popular activities this week have included; the train set, washing station, lego, home corner and playdough.
Ideas to continue the learning at home
We've really enjoyed our focus story 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt'. You can watch the author telling this story using the following link...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iou5LV9dRP0
Can your child join in with key words? Maybe they can come up with their own ideas for hurdles to overcome?
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