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.
Next, Our School with the 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.
On arrival each morning, we go to our colour team tables to engage with fine motor activities. Fine motor activities help develop our small hand and wrist muscles to build strength. This will help us to hold a pencil, draw, use tools like scissors, and with daily tasks like dressing. This week, we had an autumn focus - picking shiny, colourful autumn leaves from sticky paper, colouring and weaving leaves for our class Tell Me Tree, and placing wooden loose parts and buttons on autumn leaves.
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. We displayed our pencil family portraits in wooden lolly stick houses.
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 homes make our classroom look bright and cheerful.
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!
The Bears have lots of opportunities to play indoors and outdoors. Our outdoor provision encourages language development, communication and interaction, physical development and lots more.
Each week the Bears venture into the copse for their outdoor learning experiences. They explore the different areas of the copse and have been shown how to play safely in the environment. Busy afternoons full of outdoor fun, making potions in the mud kitchen, building dens and looking out from the tree house. Our copse area is so much fun!
Next time, the Funnybones story to help us learn about our bodies.