All About Me
Our topic for our first half-term is All About Me. It is a perfect start as we get to know our new Bears, as they settle into school and make new friends. We are building our class community, and we are embracing our uniqueness and individuality too.
We started our topic with Wonderful Me and a wonderful gallery of self-portraits using different mediums - paint, playdough, transient art materials and 2D shapes.
Our role play started as a home kitchen to engage the Bears in role play activities, encouraging them to communicate and play with their new friends in a familiar setting. We have now extended our kitchen to include a laundry area. Top tip, parents, get the Bears to fold clothes. They are great at it!
Next, Our School with our story of the week, Starting School by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. Small world was a school scene, to play and act out school with our mini me blocks, and we took tours of our new school to visit different areas and meet staff.
We practised our cutting skills by sticking school uniform to our body outlines, and we made friendship bracelets to give to a new friend. Lots of mark making in different sensory trays and some swishing and twisting with dance, music and large movements. We manipulate playdough in Dough Disco and have a weekly fun pen disco. These activities help us to develop fine muscle control.
My Family week introduced us to the much-loved Large Family stories written by Jill Murphy. We created family portraits with pencils, play people and loose parts and built vehicles for a Playmobil family. We needed to think about how many people needed to fit inside and how they could travel safely (not fall out).
The Squash and a Squeeze story, written by Julia Donaldson, helped to theme our learning and experiences around My Home. We created homes from 2D shapes, lolly sticks, playdough, and painted and collaged patchwork cardboard homes. Our colourful cardboard homes make our classroom look bright and cheerful.
At Beckers Green Primary School we teach reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme that is taught daily. We also try to think of interesting ways for children to reinforce the sound they have learnt in phonics.
Next time, Funnybones as we learn about our bodies.