Acorns: Blog items
Date: 1st Dec 2023 @ 9:12am
A few times a week, we gather in a circle for 'Music Circle Time'. Sensory activities is of great importance to our children. Just as taste, textures and colours aid a child's sensory development, so does music. The children love using the maracas and drum tambourines as we encourage them to keep the beat to a particular piece of music. The children love to explore with the maracas, and get the cause and effect of shaking it softly or vigoursly.
Date: 1st Dec 2023 @ 9:04am
Each morning we spend a little bit of time warming up our hands and fingers and encouraging our fine motor skills in our Dough Disco sessions. 'Dough Disco' is a fun activity for the children which combines the use of play dough with a series of hand and finger exercises designed to improve fine muscle control. The movements develop children's fine and gross motor dexterity, hand-eye coordination and self-esteem. The children are really beginning to enjoy this session and are becoming more confident with the different actions used during these sessions.
Date: 1st Dec 2023 @ 9:00am
Today we welcomed Bailey and her owner Vincent to our classroom for the first time. Bailey's Book Club in Year 2 is such a huge success and we are lucky enough to have a little time with her every Wednesday. The children enjoy watching her owner, Vincent throwing the ball to Bailey outside our classroom. A few of the children gave Bailey a treat and even brushed her fur, which they got so excited about.
Date: 30th Nov 2023 @ 1:39pm
On Thursday 9th November and Friday 10th November, the children in Acorns have been looking at poppies and exploring the pictures and key words associated with Remembrance Day.
The children were very busy painting poppies and making poppy cookies. They also explored the different materials that were used, with adult supervision and support, to make a poppy ready to plant in our Remembrance Garden.
Finally, on Friday, the children went and planted the poppies in our Poppy Garden.
Date: 30th Nov 2023 @ 1:21pm
This week the children in Acorns have been exploring the celebration of Bonfire Night. We listened to the song of Guy Fawkes and looked at bonfires and fireworks. We created a 'bonfire' style tuff tray where the children pretended to toast marshmallows on the bonfire. The children enjoyed getting creative making their own bonfire night pictures and fireworks. We also looked at firework numbers and some of the children could order the numbers 1-10, which is a huge achievement for our children. We encouraged communcation through repeating the numbers aloud and pointing to them at the same time.
Date: 30th Nov 2023 @ 1:17pm
This week Acorns have been having a spooky time in class!
We listened to the story Room on the Broom, looked at spooky objects, which encouraged us to use our fine motor skills, did some pumpkin craft and made spooky potions. We also enjoyed exploring the inside of pumpkins and the different textures it has. We used widgit cards to encourage communication for the story 'Room on the Broom' and also for the key objects for Halloween.
Date: 30th Nov 2023 @ 11:31am
This week's theme was based on the story 'Handa's Surprise'. We enjoyed exploring new colours, texures and fruits. We had lots of fun painting with fruit and adding the different fruits to a basket just like in the story. We looked at using our fine motor skills by threading laces through different fruits and vegetables.
Date: 30th Nov 2023 @ 11:21am
This week we had our theme of 'Transport'. We had lots of creative fun: painting with cars, construction tuff tray, racing the cars around road numbers and messy play car wash. We encouraged communcation using makaton and widgits for: car, road, bus, plane, train, digger, right, left, forward and backward.
Date: 30th Nov 2023 @ 10:30am
We had some very exciting visitors - the owls!
We met Tike, Casper, Bugs and Twiglet. The owls were all very different. Tike was a burrowing owl who lives underground. Casper has huge brown eyes which can see for miles. We enjoyed watching the flying demonstrations and were amazed at how silent their wings were when they flew. We were lucky enough to hold Twiglet - the youngest of all the owls.His feathers look just like the bark of a tree so he can camouflage himself from predators. He had sharp talons to help him catch his food too.
We spent the afternoon painting owls, using pegs and pom poms.
Date: 30th Nov 2023 @ 10:20am
During our time exploring the outside area, we enjoyed looking at playing with the different resources and looking at the different areas. We do love the great outdoors and having a good play!
Date: 30th Nov 2023 @ 10:09am
This week our theme has been 'Dear Zoo'. We enjoyed looking at the different animals and looking at the book as well as listening to Mr Tumble's storytime version. We created some art work using our hands in the paint to create some of the animals from the story: puppy, lion and frog.
Date: 30th Nov 2023 @ 9:57am
Our favourite thing to engage with in our outdoor area, are the water tuff trays. We especially enjoyed it when we used the hose to spray it in the air and wash the windows and walls. Thank goodness for our waterproofs!
Date: 30th Nov 2023 @ 9:51am
During our PE session, we enjoyed jumping over the hurdles and crawling underneath them. We then explored with balls and rolled them underneath the hurdles too. We had such a fun time!
Date: 28th Nov 2023 @ 12:11pm
We love looking at and listening to the books in our room - especially the nursery rhyme ones. We sing the nursery rhymes alongside the musical books too. Some of the children are beginning to repeat key phrases from them too such as, 'Hickory Dickory Dock' and 'Tick Tock'.
Date: 28th Nov 2023 @ 11:19am
Sensory play is a huge part of the children's developmental needs to explore different textures. We enjoy spending this time as part of our morning routine as soon as we arrive to play with a range of different sensory toys and equipment.
Date: 28th Nov 2023 @ 11:07am
We had such a fun time exploring Reception's outside area for the first time! We spent most of our time enjoying the water tuff tray. 'Fill, pour and splash' was part of our main vocabulary during this session. We spent time looking at the outside and ensuring that the children become fimilar with their surroundings and enable them to feel safe.
Date: 28th Nov 2023 @ 10:50am
We had lots of fun in our 'Under The Sea' theme week where we played in the water tray and tuff tray, exploring different textures and sounds. We use wigits to encourage the children with their communication so they can begin to associate the words to pictures. We especially loved making BIG splashes with the sea creatures in the water tray.
