This week we’ve had so much enjoying our jungle topic. We have been singing lots of songs about monkeys and having lots of monkeys jumping on our bed. There’s been lots of sensory play around our topic too with cereal monkeys, masks for dressing up and mark making.

We had our music lesson outdoors this week on our shipwreck play area with Bev. She brought her trusty parachute which the children absolutely love, and a big bag of tambourines and bells for the children to practice fast and slow rhythms with.

All of our children are doing really well with the work activities first thing in the morning which is followed by choosing time. We’ve been so impressed with each of them and their fantastic progress, well done Fireflies!

We’ve been lucky enough this week to have a new friend complete her work experience with our amazing Fireflies. She has spent time getting to know our amazing children and learn all about our amazing classroom.

This week we have been exploring more of our topic ‘the jungle’. We have been doing lots of sensory work related to jungle animals and the children have really enjoyed the feel of our sensory animal bags. Some felt bumpy like a crocodile, some were soft tigers fur and others hard like a rhino. The children have played with our jungle frogs this week in blue rice “water” jumping the frogs from lilly pad to lilly pad. We’ve also enjoyed jungle themed songs and toys which the children have loved.

We’ve enjoyed another fabulous music lesson with Bev this week who showed us all how to make fast and slow sounds with the instruments. And of course she treated us again with the parachute and songs, thank you Bev.

It’s been so warm this week and our children have loved cooling down with lots of water play. We had water squirters and buckets outside which of course ended up with so much fun and laughter for everyone. And to top it off we’ve been treated to ice cream for afternoon snack on Thursday. Everyone was grateful for a chance to cool down.

We look forward to seeing what fun we can all have next week.

The past two week’s we’ve been investigating seeds and how they grow into flowers. We’ve been planting our own seeds and watching how they sprout into shoots and then flower. The children have found this fascinating seeing their seeds change daily.
In our art lesson we’ve been continuing the theme of our topic and practicing staying in the lines of our flower pictures with paint and sponges.

We have enjoyed our fantastic music lessons with Bev who has been bringing her parachute to our lessons for us to play with in time to the music. This has been so much fun for the children.

Unfortunately we’ve been unable to go swimming so we’ve all enjoyed lots of water play in the classroom which has been the source of much fun and enjoyment for the children and the adults! There wasn’t a dry patch left at the end of the lesson. The children were able to play with squirting toys, tubs and buckets to fill and empty.

Our children have been practising their skills within our PE lessons. They’ve been kicking, throwing, bouncing and aiming towards a target. The children did a fantastic job and had lots of fun.

This week has been full of creepy crawlies. We’ve been hunting for as many bugs as we could find in our forest session. We were so excited to get to forest that we forgot to take our iPad so we brought some bugs back to visit our classroom. We took some pictures to show our grownup’s.
As part of our topic we’ve been exploring spaghetti worms and plastic bugs and planting seeds to see how see how things grow.

We’ve had lots of sensory play as always this week with lots of water play, filling and emptying with rubber ducks and toy boats. The children have loved foam play and mark making too.

This week has been another busy week within Fireflies!

As part of our parent showcase, we invited grown ups down to the forest to explore with us and see what we enjoying doing down here.

We have had fun in music exploring different instruments including a tambourine, hand drum and shakers. Bev interacted individually with each child whilst singing ‘ 1 little, 2 little, 3 little fireflies, 4little, 5little, 6 little fireflies, 7 little, 8 little, 9 little fireflies, 10 little fireflies making sound’ as part of number day celebrations.

In cooking, this week we explored chopping honey dew melon, peppers and cucumber. We explored the texture of the foods by touching, smelling and tasting. Some of us enjoyed it more than others.

Keep an eye out for some pictures next week about our fun with numeracy day.

Have a lovely half term and don’t hesitate to send us some pictures of your week via evidence for learning or email postbox@oakwood.walsall.sch.uk

In Fireflies, we have had a crazy few weeks so here are some pictures. Due to the changes in weather.

We had a foamy wet play session where the chidlren were asking for foam using visuals and gestures as well as the children playing dollies and feeding them foam soup.

We have been working hard with our learning through play ranging from colour matching to completing inset puzzles to copying a simple adult led pattern of a caterpillar and butterfly linking to our personal, social and emotional development curriculum about how we change and grow so we have been looking at the hungry caterpillar story. This is also why we have been exploring the tuff tray with oats, fruit, noodles, onion rings and cereal, the children enjoyed exploring and trying the different foods as well as using some of our cooking skills to chop the fruit such as apples, oranges and tomatoes.

This week we have been very busy exploring some new toys including a motorised car track,an adult led pink guitar, 12,16,20 and 24 piece jigsaw puzzles as well as a beautiful hands on visual colour matching activity (made by Rosie)

In Cooking, we have progressed from using butter knifes to spread to chopping fruit. We had lots of fun chopping bananas and attempting to cut applies and pears (this was very tricky with plastic butter knifes)

In music this week Bev brought along her chimes which we enjoyed playing with creating a tune and exploring loud 📢 and quiet 🤫 .

We have also been practising our fine motor skills up to free the jungle animals by cutting the paper strips as well as jigsaw puzzles and pop up toys

We’ve had lots of outdoor fun this week from forest to playgrounds. We’ve had lots of fun in the playground playing with our friends and going to the bike playground where we shared bikes and scooter with our friends.

In personal, social and emotional development we have been practising teethbrushing and face washing. This was enjoyed by all and the children were trying to brush our teeth as well.

Have a lovely long weekend! We will see you all on Tuesday

Fireflies Team

Fireflies had a very busy week last week!
We created jungle themed collage pictures using jungle themed colours appropriate to the animals. The children had lots of fun exploring the materials and glue especially the glitter to create their own pictures.

We had lots of fun exploring the forest again and finding the trees that we can climb in as well as listening to the leaves crunching under our feet in the sun

In Art , this week we have been adding leaves to our tree sculpture. We painted our own leaves using green paint and cardboard cut outs, as well as real branches to poke out of the tree. We also used lots of leaf shaped paper shapes that we glued to the tree.

Finally, we created some glitter crowns in honour of St George’s Day

Stay tuned to see more fun next week
Fireflies Team

This week we have been exploring our fantastic forest environment. We had the opportunity to visit our forest area and see what amazing things we could find. The children found some great climbing trees, beautiful daisies and even a toy car to play in. They all had a lovely time exploring in the sunshine.
We’ve also spent some time playing with the bikes on the track with our friends.

As part of our topic this term we’ve been using our senses to explore the jungle using sounds, touch and materials. The children have really enjoyed this calming sensory time in the classroom learning about jungle animals.

And of course we’ve had yet another wonderful music lesson with Bev who brought along her parachute for us to play with in time to the beat and a big bag of maracas and tambourines for us to all make our own music with.

We’ve had a fantastic start to the term with our Jungle topic. The children came in on Monday to a Jungle themed classroom with lots of Jungle resources to explore and play with. Jungle themed books, puzzles, dress up and toys were enjoyed by everyone.

The children have loved the sun too this week and had lots of fun enjoying a picnic on the grass followed by an outdoors PE lesson with the parachute and ball games.
Bev joined us for another fantastic music lesson and brought with her enough tambourines for everyone to join in with the music and fun.
We had lots of glittery fun in our art lesson this week too when the children made lanterns for our own Eid celebrations.

The children have been working very hard on their communication with fantastic success using their own PECS books. They have been able to request their favourite things much easier and this is something we will all be working on over the term to help the children develop their communication skills further.

We look forward to another fun filled week next week.