What a lovely week of weather we have had this week. The children have had lots of time outside. Much needed to support the children’s mental wellbeing – from the smiles and laughs we observed the children have very much enjoyed it!

Outside the children have enjoyed the go-karts, swings , spinning seat and garden games. The children have also been looking after the garden by giving the flowers a water. The children have also liked to explore some of the plants such as the feel and smell of rosemary.

In cause and effect this week we have changed some of the switches to increase the difficultly and offer challenges for the children to explore further. Was lovely to see Joshua independently exploring the switches in the classroom by walking around and pressing the switch. The fan was a favourite.

We observed some amazing physical developments this week. We work daily on developing physical skills such as walking. The confidence in the children and the progression towards the physical skills is brilliant. Well done to Imogen who is working towards her independent walking target. Imogen is taking more independent steps every week. Well done to Tom as well this week because we saw some lovely steps towards the interactive whiteboard whilst being support and guided with his hands.

We have started to join our swimming sessions with Owls. Its a lovely way for the children to socially interact and build relationships. Physio Ben was joined by physio student Imogen in the pool today. We saw plenty of smiles and laughs today. Coming to the pool is brilliant for our children’s mental wellbeing but fantastic for their physical development.

Our star of the week is BS! BS is using communication to express likes and dislikes. BS always listens and has lovely manners, saying thank you in purposeful situations.

Have a lovely weekend and enjoy the weather! – The Nightingales Team

This week the Nightingales have been celebrating the festival of ’Holi’. Holi a Hindu festival is known as the festival of colours. Nightingales explored ’Holi’ at the pendulum frame where there was a variety of colourful balloons filled with varying stimuli which gave the children a different experience when manipulated. Some of the balloons made noises and some could be stretched and when released would bounce back.

The Nightingales children also explored the colourful holi powder. The colourful powder was released at a height where we saw visual tracking and we also placed the powder in a tray whereby the children reached in and made marks.

During exploring ’Holi’ the story ’festival of colours’ allowed the children to explore how traditionally colourful holi powder is made from flowers. The children were able to explore the flowers by pulling away the petals or grasping and releasing the flower heads.

It was great to see the children in the sensory room showing awareness of sounds and visually tracking objects. We are also very proud of Zahra who is doing amazing at building tolerance to tummy time but also attempting reaching at the same time. Well done Zahra !

We had some lovely weather this week so we made sure our Nightingales took full advantage! We used the swings, slide and the bikes!

Big thank you to the Nightingales teaching assistants Denise, Lauren, Amanda and our lunch time supervisor Lisa who have made a start on the garden outside our classroom this week. Its had a good clear out and fresh flowers have been planted. I want to say a big thank you to Lisa and Denise who have donated flowers and the garden gnomes. As we lead up to Easter the Nightingales children will start to sow seeds and plant bulbs to add to our garden. We will keep you updated on how our garden is growing.

Stars of the Week!

We have two stars of the week in Nightingales. Firstly Zahra who has been doing amazing at tummy time. Zahra is slowly increasing the time spent on her tummy and is becoming much more tolerable. Well done Zahra ! Our second star of the week is Aminah. During registration we look for our friends from the pictures. This week Aminah has been able to pick the picture card for all 7 of her peers when asked to find them. This is outstanding Aminah! We have been working on this since September and to now identify all of her friends is amazing. Well done!

Enjoy the weather and have a lovely weekend – The Nightingales Team

This week during creative we repeated our world book week activities by bringing back the duck pond and what a success it was. Last week we saw children sharing the space together but this week we saw further developments in this activity by the children looking at each other, vocalising towards each other and all three children placing their hands into the water at the same time. It was fantastic to see these three children playing happily in the water. At the higher level water table we saw standing balance exercises taking place whilst exploring the water and the objects present. In addition we observed children reaching out for the pouring water. We are aiming to do more water play soon and we are going to keep it as a regular activity in the summer term.

During music this week two pupils had some one to one interaction. Sometimes during music the volume of sound can become too loud for some children but we are lucky in Nightingales that we have a lovely space outside our classroom where we can take children to do some quieter engagement.

The Nightingales are continuing their exploration of the stories ’Roaring Rockets’ and ‘How to catch a star’. Both stories give the children the opportunity to stretch their arms to reach for stimuli and then moving on to fine motor skills to grasp and manipulate. We have been seeing lots of anticipation as we count down for the rocket to take off in the story ’roaring rockets’.

The Nightingales enjoyed their wellbeing session this week.

Nightingales stars of the week are Joshua, Tom and Imogen. The three children have engaged and shared an activity together. They all enjoyed each others company. We are so proud of them. Well done!

Nightingales would like to say a big thank you to Ellie who has been with us to gain experience in special needs education. Ellie has been amazing with the children and fitted into team like she had always been here. Ellie has been wonderful by understanding the children’s needs, interacting with the children and sharing her caring nature and smile. Ellie is going to make an amazing teacher (Especially a special needs teacher!) and we wish her all the luck with her PGCE. Thank you for the card and gifts you presented to the children and staff.

Have a lovely weekend – The Nightingales Team.

A busy first week back with lots of fantastic engagement taking place. For two weeks Nightingales will have Ellie join our staffing team. Ellie is currently undertaking her PGCE at University College Birmingham and has come to Oakwood to gain experience in Special Needs education. Our Nightingales children have loved Ellie in class this week and have given her a lovely welcome into our classroom.

At the start of the week the Nightingales loved their wellbeing session with massage, foot spa and how to take care of themselves by exploring teeth brushing, hair care ( using a hair brush or a hair dryer) and looking at their reflections in a mirror. The well being session is a favourite with our Nightingales.

We had some dry days so was able to do some walking practice up and down slopes. Accessing outside gives the Nightingales children more area to practice their walking but being outside is great for mental wellbeing.

In the cause and effect session we are seeing the children explore the switches to activate the toys, lights or fans. Lots of smiles when stimuli (toys, lights or fan) was activated. We will continue to work on cause and effect sessions weekly for the children to develop the connection that they are controlling the stimuli.

We had a fantastic time celebrating World Book Week. It was lovely to see some of the children dressed up ,so thank you to our Nightingale parents.

During World Book Week the Nightingales children took part in activities that related to the book ’oh dear’. There was a duck pond to explore, a milking cow station, finding the hidden eggs in the wooden boxes and exploring the animals stuck in the mud with a switch that activated the song ’Old McDonald’. We observed some lovely sharing and social interaction taking place at the duck pond between some of the Nightingales children.

We celebrated a birthday this week! We would like to say a big Happy 21st Birthday to one of our Nightingales teaching assistants – Brodie! The children had birthday cake and we had party songs with the parachute to celebrate.

Well done Nightingales for always working hard. All our Nightingales were stars this week so they all went home with a small gift or sweet treat.

Have a restful weekend – The Nightingales Team