I would like to say a huge thank you to all the children, parents and staff for a fabulous year in Caterpillar Class, and I wish you all well in your new classes next year.⭐️
Here, we can reflect over the past year and revisit some of the activities we have enjoyed. Just look how we have grown!!!!😊
September
October
November
December
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
The ice cream man popped by too! Yum 😋
Have a wonderful holiday! Anne, April, Claire, Dani and Kelly.
We wish Kelly every success in her new career- we will miss her!⭐️
On Tuesday we went to the swimming pool at the Walsall Wood site, and had lots of fun exploring the raft and other water toys in the pool.
Number rhyme toys
We would like to thank Lynn Baker for knitting Caterpillar Class 5 Little ducks and 5 currant buns to play with while we sing our rhymes.
The Oakwood Festival
We had lots of fun at our class picnic and down on the field at the festival. We would like to thank all our parents for joining in with Gruffalo Trail, The African drums, bubbles , circus skills, connect four and hook a duck -we had such fun! 🤩
On Thursday, as part of of the festival, we were very excited to have have a rocket ice lolly – Stan thought it was the best day ever🤭
Look how we have grown! We are all very proud of the progress the children have made this year. Here are some “then (from September) and now” photographs for us to share.
Hello, Caterpillar Class have had another exciting week at school.
Swimming 🏊
On Tuesday, Caterpillars had a fabulous time in the swimming pool at the Walsall Wood site. We all sit beautifully on the mini bus and are very keen to get into the pool. We are all very confident in the water, and thoroughly enjoy the pool activities.
Bear Masks🐻
We played with our Bear masks which made us chuckle 🤭
Continuous Provision
Here are some of the activities we have been exploring during continuous provision this week. We have lots of fun discovering different activities every morning.
Music with Bev
We are always very excited to join in with Bev’s music lesson. First, we had fun with the parachute, then we played lots of percussion instruments.
Bear cakes 🧁 🐻
Caterpillars thought this was the best ever activity. We used our fine motor skills to place chocolate buttons into a chocolate cake to make ears and a nose. Of course eating the little bear cakes was the best part.🤭
Runner bean update 🌱
We repotted our runner beans in compost and they are growing beautifully!
All the Caterpillars are star of the week as they continue to work really hard in class ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Caterpillars have had another hectic week at school!
Goldilocks and the Three Bears.👧🐻🐻🐻
As part of our bear topic, we have been mixing porridge for Goldilocks and the Three Bears in the role play area. First, we sprinkled the oats into a big shiny bowl and then we used our fine motor skills to mix the porridge up with a tiny wooden spoon.
Bear Masks 🐻
We had lots of fun using our fine motor skills to make a bear mask. We used a paint dabber to paint a paper plate brown. Watch this space for our bear mask photographs next week😊🐻
Swimming 🏊
On Tuesday, after the photographer had taken our photograph, we set off to the Walsall Wood Site to go swimming. Caterpillar Class really enjoy swimming, we are all keen to get into the water and we are very confident in the water.
Remote controlled cars 🚗
We had such fun with the remote controlled cars, pressing the buttons to make the cars zoom forwards and backwards.
Runner bean update🌱
Some of our runner beans have roots and a green stem with leaves now!
Cue music 🎵
Here are some links to our cue songs that help the children to develop their independence during the school day.
Star of the week.⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
We are all super stars for being golden at the swimming pool on Tuesday.⭐️
This half term our topic is growing. Paula came to help us plant a runner bean seed in a plastic cup so that we observe the seed germinate and begin to grow. 🫘
Here we are investigating the seed and using the little watering can to give them a drink!
On Friday the runner beans had germinated! How exciting😊
Swimming and The Sensory room 🏊
On Tuesday we had another fun morning at the Walsall Wood Site swimming pool. Everyone loved getting into the water and playing with toys – there was lots of splashing too🤣
While some children were in the pool, the other children independently explored the sensory room. It was exciting to see the bubble tubes, soft play, light boxes and mirrors.
We’re going on a Bear Hunt 🐻
This week, during continuous provision we have been making a story map for “We’re going on a Bear Hunt” We used the sensory bottles and trays to follow the story along through the long grass, river, mud, snowstorm and forest to the cave. We built a cave out of a cardboard box and hid a brown bear inside it – he was very popular with all the children as they wanted a cuddle.🐻
Music 🎵
On Wednesday, Bev popped in to class with the scraper instruments and her fabulous parachute. We counted to four very fast and then very slowly as we played along with the instruments.
Euro 2024⚽️🥅
All the Caterpillars have been football crazy this week. We have had great fun rolling, throwing and kicking the football⚽️🥅
Sunflowers 🌻
Our sunflowers have grown so tall that we are sending them home today (Friday) – please enjoy watching them continue to grow and flower.🌻
Star of the week ⭐️
All the Caterpillars are star of the week for working very hard all week⭐️
Caterpillar class have had a very busy week at school.
Swimming 🏊
This week was very exciting as we went swimming at the Walsall Wood site for the first time. We travelled on the minibus beautifully, and the pool was lovely and warm plus we had lots of toys to play with too.
Sunflowers 🌻
We were amazed to see how quickly our sunflower seeds had germinated, and how much the seedlings had grown in just one week.
Teddy Bear’s Picnic 🐻
When Esther came to Caterpillar Class she helped us to make jam sandwiches for our Teddy Bear’s picnic. We used our fine motor skills to hold a knife (under supervision ) to spread the jam on a slice of bread.
Outside Bear Hunt 🐻
Here we are exploring our outdoor environment looking for bears with our friends. Such fun!
Music with Bev 🎵
Bev bought her parachute to our music lesson and we had lots of fun counting very fast and very slowly. Then we tapped on the drums as we counted along with Bev 😀
Daddysaurus 🦕
We would like to wish all the Daddies a very Happy Father’s Day, and say a huge thank you for all that you do. We hope you like the Daddysaurus handprint cards! 🥰
Star of the week ⭐️
Bogdan is Star of the week⭐️ for enjoying swimming on Tuesday.
Welcome back! Our new class story is We’re Going on Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury. Please share the story at home too.
Growing sunflower seeds 🌻
This week, we have been busy planting sunflower seeds in compost. We used our fine motor skills to scoop the compost into a flower pot. As part of the “Knowledge and Understanding of the World” area of learning, we will be investigating how seeds germinate and grow.
Continuous provision
We are all very happy to be back at school, investigating all the areas of the curriculum during continuous provision time. We had lots of fun with all our little friends.😊
The Sensory Train🚂
We climbed aboard the sensory train and set off on our adventures in Bubble Land, Water Land, Material Land and Foam Land. It made us giggle as we travelled along!😊
Star of the week ⭐️
Bonnie is Star of the week for joining in with the “We’re going on a hunt” story. Well done!⭐️
Week 6 of our life-cycle of a butterfly investigation 🦋
On Monday we released the butterflies from the net habitat, 2 flew away immediately but three settled on the Astro tuff for a few minutes before flying off for their new adventures.
Butterfly Art Work 🦋
Caterpillar Class really enjoy exploring with paint this week. Here we are rolling balls through paint and using sponge dabbers to make a beautiful pattern on a butterfly we had drawn on a tuff tray 🦋
Butterfly handprints 🦋
On Tuesday, we had to choose a colour, then a familiar adult painted our hands and with support we made two handprints to make butterfly wings. 🦋 The paint tickled our hands which made us giggle 🤭
Code – a – pillar 🐛
The Code -a-pillar is one of our favourite activities. We are good at using our fine motor skills to click the segments together and then pressing the start button to make it travel around the classroom.
National Numeracy Day
National Numeracy Day was great fun! Some of the children came dressed in number/shape related clothing too. We explored number and shapes during continuous provision and joined in with number songs in music with Bev.
Sports Showcase
On Thursday, we invited all our parents to our Sports Showcase. We started off in the classroom playing parachute games and then we transitioned to the Small Hall to play games such as football and tennis. It was such fun to have our parents in school for our PE lesson.❤️ A huge thank you to everyone who came along.😊
Swimming
After half term we are going swimming on Tuesday mornings. Please don’t forget that your child will require a special swimming nappy to go in the pool.
Star of the Week⭐️
Stanley is our Star of the week ⭐️ for enthusiastically joining in with our parachute games 😊
A huge thank you for all you support❤️- have a lovely half term holiday,
Week 5 of our lifecycle of a butterfly investigation 🦋
When we arrived at school on Monday, we were amazed to see that all 5 butterflies had hatched! We soaked a sponge in sugar water, chopped up some fruit, and put some flowers in the net for the butterflies to feed from.
Here we are investigating our beautiful butterflies – we are wonderful little scientists!🦋
Waffle and blueberry butterflies🦋
In the role play area we set up a little fine motor activity. We cut the waffles in half and arranged them like butterfly wings. Then, the children had to use the tweezers to pick up a blueberries and pop them in a waffle squares to make a pattern. This was great fun as we could eat the blueberries too!
Forest School 🌳🌳🌳
On Tuesday, we put on our coats, wellington boots and high vis jackets and set off to Forest School in the rain! We all held hands and walked beautifully round the field looking for mini beasts. Tom found a snail hiding in the long grass, but it was too wet for the butterflies to be out.
Spin the wheel – number songs 🎶
As part of our daily routine, we sit in a little semi circle and take turns to press the button on the interactive whiteboard to spin the wheel. Then, we watch the number song that corresponds to the number we have chosen. Here we are watching 5 Little Men in a 🛸 and 5 Little Speckled frogs 🐸
Continuous Provision 🧩
We have had lots of fun exploring the continuous provision activities with our little friends.
Star of the week ⭐️
Tom is Star of the week ⭐️ for reading his book every morning! Well done 😊
On Tuesday, we were very excited to transfer the cocoons into the big butterfly habitat, we can’t wait for them to hatch!
Caterpillar Cookery Skills
When we arrived at school on Tuesday, we found a caterpillar, cookery workstation. With a little adult supervision, we chopped up a long cucumber and pushed the chunks onto a paper straw ( this was the caterpillar’s body ) then we pushed a tomato onto the straw to make the caterpillar head. Some of the children enjoyed tasting the cucumber and tomato during the activity.
Music
This week Bev bought in the jingle bells for us to play along to in our music session. We all sat on chairs in a semi circle and played along to the Maypole song 🎵
Friday – Library Day 📕
Please return your library books every Friday. We have a lovely selection of books for the children to enjoy!
Snack time 🥤 🍎
Every morning, after we have completed our morning welcome routine we sit at the table for snack. We all sit beautifully at the table to eat and drink. We use ALD board to choose a snack and to say if we want more or, if we have finished! We all enjoy this social time as we can chat to the familiar adults in our class.😊
Continuous provision
Here we are exploring the multi sensory activities during continuous provision this week. We used our investigation skills to find out about all activities in our classroom. Such fun!😊
Star of the week ⭐️
Our Star this week is Kaide, for following instructions and helping to tidy up! Well done 😊
