This week has been our last week in Beavers before we break up for the Summer and then all go on to new classes. We enjoyed the sunshine and spent lots of time outside. We had fun playing in the sand and water and enjoyed exploring the outside environment.

We also had a visit from the ice cream man this week.

We have had a wonderful year in Beavers. The children have made so much progress. All of the staff in Beavers wish everyone a lovely Summer 😀

This week we all enjoyed the Oakwood Festival. It was lovely to see so many families coming into school to join in with the fun.

Oh no, it’s a Gruffalo!
The Gruffalo joined us at the festival. We all enjoyed meeting him.

We enjoyed joining it with lots of activities. The bubble man joined us and a group of pupils from Rushall Primary entertained us with their drumming. It was a wonderful day.

Today we visited Burntwood Alpaca and Animal Farm. We travelled on the school minibus and arrived at the farm with the Sun shining. There was lots of animals for us to look at and we were very lucky as many of the animals were brought out of the enclosures for us to look at and touch. We learnt about being very careful when we are touching animals to ensure that we don’t hurt them.

Spice, the Alpaca, was very soft and gentle, and we enjoyed stroking her. The ponies were also very gentle and enjoyed being stroked and brushed. Some of us enjoyed feeding the goats and some of us just preferred to watch. We met a very large tortoise and were able to touch her. Her shell was very hard and heavy. We were also lucky enough to see, and be able to touch, a snake and a bearded dragon.

There were two cockatoos who were very noise and answered us when we said, ‘Hello’. There were chickens and other birds walking around the farm and we had the opportunity to collect an egg from the henhouse. We also found out what happens if we dropped the egg on the floor, oops. Some of us watched the pigs being fed. They were very greedy and ate lots of fruit and vegetables. We also saw meercats, marmoset monkeys, emus, rabbits, guinea pigs and owls.

We all enjoyed the playground. There was a large bouncing pillow which was a favourite for many of us (adults and children), a large sandpit and climbing frames with slides and swings.

When it was time to go back to school, we were all tired after a very busy and enjoyable day.

We love spending time outside, especially when the Sun is shining. This half term we are visiting the forest at the Pelsall Lane site every Thursday. We really enjoy this as we have the opportunity to explore somewhere different and have lots of space to run around. We are all happy when we are here and we all explore in different ways.

We enjoy lots of activities when we are outside on the playground. Some of us like the swings and the slide and some of use just like to explore. One of our favourite activities is the large bikes. These are a great way to help us with our regulation and sensory needs and some of us are learning to pedal the bikes for ourselves. Pedalling the bikes is a lovely way of increasing independence as well as helping to develop our gross motor skills.

We also enjoy sensory play outside, including bubbles, water play and sand play. These activities also help us to develop our communication skills as we show our enjoyment and ask for ‘more’.

This week, we enjoyed exploring the clay. We used our fine motor skills to press, squeeze and roll the clay, watching how it changed shape and enjoying the feel of it in our hands. Some of us were more reluctant to touch the clay as we didn’t like the feel of it.

Our PE lessons are very important in helping us to develop our gross motor skills, co-ordination and balance. Each week we are supported to engage with activities such as walking along a bench, climbing, jumping and moving in different ways. Some of us are more confident than others, but are adults are there to support us if we need it. This year, we have all improved and we have more confidence to try different activities. We are now attempting activities with more independence.

We always enjoy our weekly music lessons with Bev. This week we particularly enjoyed an activity using the parachute. We all joined in and showed anticipation when the parachute was lowered onto us.

This week’s star of the week was Christopher.

This week we invited parents/carers into school for our swimming session. All of Beavers have made fantastic progress this year in swimming and we wanted to showcase this for our parents. We showed lots of skills during this session including movin around in the water, water confidence and floating on our backs/fronts. Thank you to all the parents who attended, we enjoyed sharing our progress with you.

As always, we took part in lots of activities this week to help us to develop our fine motor skills. These activities included cutting with the Easi Grip scissors, mark making and play dough. We are always working to strengthen our hands and develop our coordination. This not only helps us to make marks and write but also helps us with skills such as holding a fork to eat or fastening the zips on our coats.

We had lots of creative fun this week creating lions for our African Safari topic. We enjoyed using a range of media including straw, glue, paint and fabric. These lions made a lovely addition to our African animals display.

This week we have made the best of the weather and have been enjoying the sunshine. In Beavers, we love being outside and have enjoyed exploring our environment and developing our physical skills. Running, climbing and going on the swings all help us to develop our gross motor skills of balance and coordination. We are constantly developing our PSED skills and playing outside is no exception. We have been learning to share the swings and the bikes, waiting to take our turn and have been playing alongside each other.

This week’s African safari animal was a giraffe. We completed 2 different creative activities linked to this animal. Firstly, we made a collaged giraffe, spreading the glue and pressing on tissue paper. We then painted a paper plate giraffe, continuing to develop our creative skills and using our communication skills to choose between a roller and a sponge.

As always, we have taken part in lots of activities with adults linked to communication and language and problem solving. We have daily number rhyme sessions, which we all enjoy, and are getting better at looking at the objects when an adult is counting them. Communication is being developed in everything we do and we are getting better at making choices and communicating out needs. We also have regular work station sessions with an adult where we complete activities to help us develop in all areas of learning.

We enjoyed the sunny weather this week, taking advantage of being outside as much as we could. One afternoon, we had our snack outside and enjoyed exploring nature and our environment. Rolling down the hill was fun as well.

We are practising and developing our communication and language skills constantly throughout the day. We enjoy looking at the books in the book corner, turning the pages and looking at the pictures. We are encouraged to use our communication skills to make choices and to request when we want something.

This week our topic animal was an elephant. We used our creative skills to paint a picture of an elephant. We made a choice between 2 colours of paint and also chose between a sponge and a brush. We enjoyed water play again this week and also enjoyed playing in the sand. We are beginning to learn how to fill a sand mould and tip it out. We need lots of support with this but enjoy tipping the sand into the tray .

Our swimming skills are improving every week. Some of us are now able to float in the water and are beginning to move in the water using our arms and legs. Being in the pool also helps us to develop our early play skills of filling and pouring using the buckets and watering cans.

This week our focus animal for our topic was a cheetah. Following on from last week’s stripy pictures, this week we painted spots. We used our communication skills to choose between using a sponge or a brush and our mark making skills to create a spotty picture.

Beavers had an exciting visitor this week. One of our TA’s brought her tortoise into school for us to meet. Although some of us did not want to touch her and some of us enjoyed touching her shell and were very gentle. We all enjoyed watching the tortoise.

For the last few months, we have been working hard to develop our concentration and participation with 1:1 activities at the work station. These activities cover skills in all four areas of learning. Many of the activities involve problem solving, such as shape sorters, ring stackers and jigsaw puzzles. In PSED, we are trying to build up our independence when completing tasks and are learning to persevere with new or more difficult activities. We are learning to make choices between activities and to communicate when we have finished a task or when we want more. Our physical skills are important in these activities as we need to use our fine motor skills to manipulate objects.

This week’s music lesson was linked to St George’s Day. We enjoyed using the drum and were all encouraged to participate.

This week we started our new topic ‘An African Safari’. Each week, we will focus on an animal. This week we focused on Zebras and based our creative and mark making activities around this. We created a whole group collaborative stripy painting and individual stripy zebra pictures. We are working to develop our grip and coordination when using mark making equipment such as crayons and paint brushes.

We enjoyed water play this week. As well as helping us to develop our engagement and concentration, water play helps us to develop early play and messy skills. We are working on filling/emptying, pouring and squeezing. These activities also help us to develop our problem solving skills.

We all enjoyed our music lesson this week. We are learning to use the instruments correctly to make sounds. This again helps us to improve our engagement and participation. We are getting better at joining in with music.