Sensory play and exploration

We enjoyed being pampered when Jan brought in her foot spa and massager. We felt the vibrations on our hands and feet.

We touched and tasted frozen flavoured ice blocks, we watched as it melted.

We got very messy with foam and paint, using our fine and gross motor skills, and our senses. We made prints from our marvellous messy play.

Look out for our art creations we made while having fun.

We travelled the globe, experiencing different foods and music from around the world.

Cleaning up: After all that food sampling we should brush our teeth, thankfully we do practice brushing our teeth everyday. A big thank you Layla for helping tidy up after all the mess we made this week.

🌞A BIG blog!🌞 Summer 2 – weeks 2,3,4

Apologies for the delay in our blog but we have been very, very busy bees 🐝🐝🐝

We have been doing lots of mark making with different media…

Including getting messy with foam…

We have been very creative with paints and made butterflies for our ‘Summer display

Every day we practice brushing our teeth… the songs really help us. During this activity we are also learning maths skills ‘postition and direction’: front, back, left, right, up, down, round, side.

Wednesdays we do PE in the hall; we have been practicing our balancing and throwing skills.

We also have lots of fun and exercise in the Rainbow Room soft play; the grown ups seem to like it too 😉😀

We have been engaging in early maths, building our understanding of colour, shape, size, pattern and sequence.

Its been fun to play and investigate in different outdoor areas around school.

… and keeping cool on hot days with ice and water.

⭐⭐⭐ Our recent ‘Stars’ are Layla, Renesmae and Oscar – well done! ⭐⭐⭐

Welcome back – Summer 2 week 1 😎🐝

It was warming to see our Bees buzzing happily back into the hive, lots of smiles and hugs, happy to return to school.

We are continuing our ‘Under the Sea’ topic, making sea creatures that appear in our story song. We engaged, and used our fine and gross motor skills, adding detail with paint and collage to our turtles and an octopus.

Wednesdays are Music with Bev – this week the children especially liked Bev’s drum with beads inside, they looked as the beads rolled around.

Thursday – A sensory story teller visited school, he told us two stories; ‘The Seaside’ and ‘At the Fair’. We got really involved and interacted as the stories were told. We had a go at ‘hook a duck’, we counted coins for the fair rides, drove the Dodgems and saw a ghost on the spooky train ride. It was lots of fun at the Fair!

We had a lovely first week back, enjoying our favourite activities and being with all our Bumblebee friends 🐝🐝🐝

Oliver is our Star of the Week⭐🤩⭐

Sports Showcase (22nd to 26th May)

We invited our parents into school this week to take part in our swimming session. The children have made a lot of progress in the water this year and it was lovely to share these achievements with parents and family members. We were really happy that so many parents took the opportunity to take part in this session and it was enjoyed by everyone involved.

We continued our ‘Under the sea’ theme this week and used our creative skills to begin to make paper plate turtles and to continue our papier-mâché octopus. The children showed good fine motor and engagement skills and focused well on what they were doing.

We took advantage of the sunny weather this week and spent lots of time outside. As well as developing our gross motor skills of running, jumping and climbing, we also practised our fine motor and problem solving skills.

We had a lovely music lesson this week. Bev brought a cello into class for us to look at and play. We were all very sensible and took care. Some of us enjoyed exploring the instrument and investigating the sounds that we could make and some of us preferred to watch Bev and listen to the sounds instead.

A busy week in Bumblebees (15th to 19th May)

We have had lots of sensory experiences this week in Bumblebees. As part of our ‘Under the Sea’ topic, we have begun making a papier-mâché octopus. This has involved us working together as a team and was a lovely sensory experience, glueing the paper onto the balloon. Some of the children really enjoyed getting their hands into the glue and others preferred to watch. We are now waiting for the papier-mâché to dry, ready to paint next week. We will keep you updated on our progress with this.

Our music lesson this week involved us exploring music associated with us feeling sad. This is linked to our Colour Monster feelings work. The children had the opportunity to explore some violins. They enjoyed touching them and listening to the sounds that they made.

Another sensory experience this week was mashed potato. Some of the children enjoyed using their senses of touch, smell and taste to explore the potato, where others preferred to watch. We are getting better at exploring different textures in Bumblebees, but the mashed potato was not not as successful as the jelly last week.

We have continued to work on our fine motor skills using activities such as threading, jigsaws and posting and have practised our mark making, using crayons and pens. We have been looking after our seeds and they have now started to grow. We have also been developing our physical skills in the soft play and outside. Our Bumblebees love being active and really enjoy any physical activities.
Bryan was our Superstar this week.

Under the Sea (9th to 12th May)

This week we continued with our Under the Sea theme. We have been very busy developing our creative skills, producing a sea horse and a jelly fish. We are learning to hold paint brushes and rollers correctly and to apply glue to create collage pictures.

We explored jelly this week as our sensory activity. Some of us enjoyed touching the jelly and liked the feeling of it in our fingers, but some of us weren’t sure. We also enjoyed tasting the jelly.

We have been practising our mark making skills and are learning to develop an effective pencil grip. We have also been using our fine motor skills to complete activities such as threading, posting and jigsaws.

Jackson was our superstar this week ⭐️

King’s Coronation (2nd to 5th May)

This week we have celebrated King Charles’ coronation. We started the week by joining in with some coronation themed activities and by making decorations for the classroom. We used our creative skills to paint some red and blue bunting. We enjoyed sensory activities with red, white and blue rice and spaghetti. We also practised our cutting skills by snipping the spaghetti.

We made paper chains to decorate the classroom. We needed some help, but enjoyed spreading the glue and threading the paper to make the chains. The classroom looked great when we had finished.

We had a coronation themed music lesson with Bev. We enjoyed playing the drums and listening to the different rhythms that were played on them.

We all joined in with decorating a cake for the school cake competition. We enjoyed spreading on the icing and sprinkling the sprinkles onto the cake.

We were very proud of our cake 😀

On Friday, we had our coronation party. We enjoyed eating our party food from home.

Eco Week (24th to 28th April)

This week was Eco Week. We have enjoyed spending a lot of time outside, enjoying the environment and developing our physical skills.

Our music lesson with Bev this week was a lot of fun. We went outside and joined in with playing on the junk percussion. We made lots of noise and listened to the different rhythms being played on the drums.

We planted some sunflower seeds this week and are looking forward to watching them grow. This will help us to learn how to look after seeds and what happens as they grow. We also enjoyed playing in the soil. We added some water to make it extra muddy and more fun to play with.

Layla was our Superstar of the week ⭐️

A busy start to the new term (17th to 22nd April)

The children settled back into school this week after the Easter break. We have had lots of fun and a very busy week.

This week we have celebrated Eid, creating pictures and artwork. We have started our new topic, ‘Under the Sea’ and have enjoyed developing our early play skills, including playing in sand and water. We have started to use our new choosing boards to help us to communicate which toys we would like to play with and which songs we would like to sing. We have also taken part in 1:1 work and intensive interactions to help us to develop our engagement and communication skills.

We have started to learn a new song linked to our topic.

During the holidays, a new soft play area was installed. Bumblebees have enjoyed exploring this new space. As well as being lots of fun, this area gives the children an opportunity to develop their gross motor skills of crawling, running, climbing and jumping. I’m sure we will be enjoying this space a lot during the coming weeks.

We have also enjoyed time outside this week. The children have enjoyed exploring the signs of Spring and developing their physical skills. The staff enjoyed it too.

We have continued to learn how to brush out teeth this week, developing our independence and self care skills.