Ready To Move On

Ladybirds, it has been delightful. What a pleasure it has been to see you develop, grow and shine. We are so proud of you. We are all so happy to have a been a part of that journey. Thank you for allowing us that privilege.
Thank you also to all Mummies and Daddies for you support and trust throughout the year. We couldnโ€™t have done it without you!
We will still be here and hope to see you around School at different times and we will be observing and marvelling at the progress the children will make in the coming year. There are exciting times ahead.

Our final week together has been just wonderful, ice creams, outdoor fun, party time , dancing , pass the parcel and much more.



Creating some sunshine and happiness.

Have a safe and happy summer holiday.

Thank you all so much again,

Lisa, Paula and the Ladybirds team.

Team work ๐Ÿž๐Ÿ˜

Our wonderful ladybirds have been working hard on their peer interaction skills, sharing and taking turns with others. We have had several sessions where we work together as a team, adults modelling interactions , lots of encouragement and praise for good sharing of resources.
We created play dough together, adding ingredients, stirring and mixing, we then created little models as a team and even had a timer โฑ for the first team to complete. The children were able to work closely with each other, sharing smiles and giggles and creating fantastic models. We repeated this activity using duplo blocks, the children were able to create structures as a team, adding pieces to create one wonderful model.

We continue to encourage all children to make marks, this is done in many ways. We use different sensory materials, play dough, body lotion, shaving foam, flour , sand etc to encourage the children to explore using there hands , strengthening fingers and movements ready to use writing utensils. We have been using chalks on black boards and outdoor walls and pavements, as well as white boards and pens to begin to form shapes, letters, and marks with meaning. Some children have even been having a try at overwriting their own name, we are so proud of all the fantastic efforts in developing our fine motor skills.


We are so excited to share lots of lovely fun activities, creating more wonderful progress and making memories together for our last week of school before the summer break.
Take care ladybirds

love Lisa, Paula and the ladybird team ๐Ÿžโค๏ธ๐Ÿคฉ๐Ÿ˜

Exploring New Environments

This week, Ladybirds went to visit SNAP in Cannock. It is a fabulous place and well worth a visit. The children loved it. They were excited about going on the bus and thoroughly enjoyed it. On entering the building, the first thing they saw was the soft play area and they made an immediate beeline for that. Some were cautious in the ball pit initially but quickly gained confidence. We ate our packed lunches in the sunshine and explored the very many fun things to do. Later some of the children enjoyed the play room and sensory room while others wanted another session in the soft play area. There was sand, water, a trampoline, a zip wire, lots of swings and climbing frames. The piano was a big hit. So much to enjoy.
A few children enjoyed a well earned nap on the way back to school.
We would love to go back.

We had another lovely morning for our forest session. We have waited a few weeks to play in muddy puddles, related to the โ€˜thick oozy mudโ€™ in our story. The ground was still so dry from all the beautiful weather we have been enjoying in recent weeks so we made our own, digging up some of the soil and pouring water on to it. Not everyone had their wellies or Forest shoes but some plastic bags came to the rescue so we could jump away happily.

We are looking forward to more fun and learning as we near the end of this school year.
Love from, Paula, Lisa and the Ladybird team. ๐Ÿž

Bouncing Good Fun

This week we were very lucky to have An active session on Bouncy Castles. What a terrific way of developing balance, coordination, muscle strength, stamina, social interaction and having amazing fun all at the same time. The staff enjoyed it too! Big smiles all around. We are very thankful for the opportunity.



It was photographs this week too. The children did an amazing job transitioning out of routine and sitting beautifully to allow the photographers to get some really lovely shots. We hope you loved your proofs.

We plan learning to best meet the needs of the children and we strive to provide lots of fun, engaging activities to do so. You will know from previous blogs about our routine activities such as Attention Autism, Parachute Time, Story time etc.Many of our children learn in an active way and music and songs supports the learning for most. We are lucky to have Bev to support us in Music every week but we also try to provide lots of exploratory learning opportunities that the children can choose, including music, songs and dance. We do encourage involvement and interaction with these but we hope they will be spontaneously motivated by the tasks and materials available to them as continuous provision. We may step back and observe a childโ€™s learning, or we may step in and support physically, through language or modelling play and learning. We are always on the lookout for these learning moments.


Next week we have our trip to SNAP. We are really excited.
You can take a look at their website to see some of the great opportunities they provide to support wonderful learning for children. Come back next week to find out about all the fun we had there.

http://www.cannocksnap.com/


Below are just a few photos from the last couple of days showing exploratory learning and engagement of the children.

Golden Learning Moments

Have a great weekend.

Love Paula, Lisa and the Ladybird Team

Independence skills ๐Ÿž

Wow ๐Ÿคฉ Ladybirds we are so proud of the progress you are making with your self help skills and independence tasks ๐Ÿ˜

We have been working on lots of skills to support independence with daily tasks at home and school. The children have all made great attempts and with lots of encouragement and repetition we are seeing progress and more independence.
The children are not only showing us these skills during our dedicated session but during other parts of the day as well, continuous provision, snack time etc, this shows deep understanding and generalisation of the skill.




We also continue to improve our attention and concentration through bucket time, the children are now able to attend a whole bucket session for two tasks, with great eye contact and concentration throughout.


Have a lovely weekend in the sunshine ๐ŸŒž

Take care and see you soon

love Lisa, Paula and the ladybird team ๐Ÿžโค๏ธ

Forest Fun

This half term we are visiting the forest every week again. We are looking forward to lots of lovely experiences. The weather was just perfect for us this week and it was amazing to see how the forest has changed in such a short time. Our last visit was our Easter Egg and Easter Bunny hunt with our parents. Since then, the leaves have covered the forest roof creating a beautifully cool and dappled environment.

Our Ladybirds transitioned well, we even travelled a different route due to the building work taking place on campus. The children enjoyed running across the field which was newly mown. The entrance path into the forest area was dark and reminded us of going into the cave in our story. We still love to turn off the classroom lights for that part of the story. We could see the beginnings of new man made changes in the forest. Pathways are being created between trees and in mown areas. Other areas have been left to nature creating beautiful environments for us to explore.

We ran, walked and even crawled and played in the long wavy grass, just like the characters in the story. Some children loved the smell and the feel of the grass on their skin, others needed some encouragement but we all enjoyed the experience. We couldnโ€™t go over it, we couldnโ€™t go under it. We had to go through it!

We later enjoyed a picnic snack before returning to our classroom and more fun.

Next week, we will explore mud. Donโ€™t forget your wellies!

More Outdoor Learning

Here we are squeezing, pinching and blowing to create pieces of art.

Wishing everyone a happy weekend.
Love Paula, Lisa and the Ladybird team.

๐Ÿž๐Ÿž๐Ÿ˜€

Letโ€™s get active

What a wonderful final week of term๐Ÿ˜Š, the sun has been shiningโ˜€๏ธ๐ŸŒค and ladybirds have had lots of fun outside ๐Ÿž๐Ÿคฉ

The children are exploring our outdoor areas with meaning, lots of independent exploration, climbing, balance and agility exercises, sensory play and some relaxation too. We have enjoyed water play, with pouring , filling , emptying and lots of splashing ๐Ÿคฉ the children have also engaged well with sand play, creating sand castles and enjoying to crash them down.
We engaged in lovely whole group number songs outside too , the children were able to sit and attend as a whole group. We all explored the number resources and sang numbers songs, the repetition and rhythms support us in learning our numbers 1-10.


Ladybirds have had a fantastic half term exploring our new rainbow room soft play. The children have transitioned well and enjoyed experiencing a new environment ๐Ÿ˜Š๐Ÿž. Lots of fun active play, sliding on the slide, hide and seek, peekaboo, peeking through the dome window and fantastic climbing!


We are so proud of you all , our wonderful ladybirds continue to make us proud everyday๐Ÿžโค๏ธ
Have a great week together , take care and we will see you soon

love Lisa , Paula and the ladybird team ๐Ÿž

Looking After Ourselves

First of all, thank you so much to all parents and family who were able to attend our Sports Showcase. The children loved seeing their family in school and it was wonderful to see so many parents sharing some fun and engaging moments with the children and getting to know you a little better. We were lucky that he sun showed itself for us. Thank you.

One of the things that we are emphasising and building upon currently is personal care and developing greater independence to look after our bodies, our physical and mental health, keeping ourselves safe.
You would have read in last weekโ€™s blog, all about Pantosaurus. The children are enjoying this song and have fun counting and bouncing pants and nappies on our parachute. There is a link to the song below.

We have seen vast development in the tolerance children have for many sensory experiences and these include, amongst other things, accepting adult support where appropriate and experience if new textures, temperatures, touch sensations etc.

Each day, we are washing hands and cleaning our teeth. We are also introducing hair brushing, face washing and using a nail brush.

We are also encouraging greater independence, as always, through communication and we are pleased with the progress we are seeing here. Ladybirds continue to use Aided Language Displays, pictures, symbols and signs but they are doing so with more focus and intent, with greater confidence and with growing independence. They are using these to make requests at snack times, for requesting toys or activities and to ask for more, let us know they have finished and to make choices.

Wishing everyone another great week.

Take care,

Paula, Lisa and the Ladybirds team. ๐Ÿž

Our safe circle โค๏ธ๐Ÿž

Wow ๐Ÿคฉ , another fantastic week with our lovely ladybirds ๐Ÿž

We have been working hard during our personal , social and emotional sessions, the children are beginning to show more emotion and understanding. We have focused the last two sessions on the people in school that can help us ( our safe circle ) , the children have explored pictures of all the team and we have discussed how our families, friends and careers help us at home. The children have also been listening to our pantosaurus song each day , this musical animation of a cuddly dinosaur is part of the NSPCC pants campaign. This helps us to understand that our bodies are ours and that we must say โ€˜Noโ€™ to anything that makes us feel uncomfortable.
We are using our colour monster story and colour monster cuddly characters to help express our emotions, this week we revisited our rollercoaster experience, the children were more engaged and showed fantastic emotions through facial expressions, movements and some screams of excitement ๐Ÿฅฐ


We have fully settled into our swimming sessions and we are all so proud of the progress that all our children have made. This week the children focussed on movement through the water , we encouraged the children to kick arms and legs with our support. Wow ๐Ÿคฉ the children have made great improvements with this and some children are able to kick arms and legs independently. We also thoroughly enjoyed action songs in the water , the children moved through the water with their peers , following the lead of the adults. We are so proud of you ladybirds ๐Ÿž a massive well done for all the great effort you put into your swimming skills this week.

Have a lovely weekend everyone

Love Lisa , Paula and the Ladybird team ๐Ÿžโค๏ธ

Celebrating the Coronation of Charles III

This has been a short but busy week. It has also been a fun week and one in which we have seen the children show us new skills and great progress in development, especially in communication. The children are communicating more verbally, through signs and through the use of aided language displays and picture symbols. We know that much of this is due to the support and work that is happening at home. Thank you to all our community for your support, hard work and patience.

Learning this week has been linked to the coronation. We hope that all our families enjoy another long weekend and for those of you who are taking part in your own community festivities, we hope everyone has a great time and creates happy memories.

Have a look at some of the things we have been doing.

We used our fine motor skills to create crowns. Pinching and sprinkling glitter to make our crowns shiny and beautiful but also trying out our coordination in using scissors.

Crowns Fit for a King

The children chose red, white or blue, helped to mix some frosting and put this on to cupcakes ready for our party. As a group, everyone contributed to a class cake for the school cake decoration competition. Children mixed icing, added colours and piped on features for our corgi cake.

Celebration Cakes

Continuing on from our King Charles inspired eco week, we helped to plant some herbs outside. We enjoyed feeling and smelling these. We explored sensations and tastes in our red, white and blue sensory tray. Also below, are some photos of a wonderful eco inspired music session with Bev. In the hall, we used some every day items to create music and sounds in a variety of ways. Many thanks to Bev for preparing and delivering this for our children.

Take care everyone,

Lisa, Paula and the team. ๐Ÿž๐Ÿž