Last week Saplings Class spent a second week basing their learning around the theme of ‘Spring’, with a focus on flowers. They started the week by listening to their focus book ‘Little Bear’s Spring’. They took part in lots of fun activities that were designed to support them in developing their skills and knowledge in relation to the Early Years curriculum. A favourite activity that covered several EYFS elements (Understanding of the World, Physical Development and Expressive Arts and Design), was using pipettes to colour mix watercolour paint (by placing two colours on a cotton pad and watching the paints mix to make a new colour), then drawing petals around the cotton wool pad to make a flower. The children loved seeing what colours they could make!
To encourage mark making, and develop their scissor control, the children cut the sides of cupcake cases to make petals and then coloured them into to make their own flowers. The children also practised their early writing skills by beginning to form the letters in their names to make their own flower name-gardens. Drawing Club further supported fine motor control and and pencil grip.
The maths focus activities last week, were comparing quantities, and using the stem sentences ‘___ is more than ___’, and ‘___ is fewer than ____’, to develop the children’s mathematical vocabulary. They did this by rolling dice and matching them to the corresponding numeral-flower, before counting out the same number of blocks to make a stem. After ding this twice the children then compared the quantities and used the stem sentences they’d been practicing during carpet time.
In RE Saplings Class visited church as part of their Easter Unit. They went up to look at the new Paschal (Easter) Candle, that was lit for the first time at the Easter Vigil mass, and to talk about some of it’s features. The children then had some time to explore the church and ask questions. It was great to see how curious they were about what they could see.
To continue the theme of spring flowers, the children made their own flowers out of playdough, strengthening the muscles in their hands, wrists and shoulders to support early writing. They also had the opportunity to use loose parts, on the lightbox, to create their own spring trees.
In order to continue their gross physical development the children took part in fabric dancing, listening to spring music and ‘growing’ from seeds to flowers. The children then had the opportunity to start the process of really growing a plant! Inspired by reading Jack and the Beanstalk, the class planted and watered their own beans which are now sitting on the window sill. We wonder what will happen next!
As part of their Understanding of the World curriculum, the children learned about the life cycle of a flower. The class discussed what a flower needs to grow, before planting cornflowers in our pre-school garden area: they loved getting muddy in the compost and we can’t wait to watch them grow!
To end the week at Forest school the children enjoyed some outdoor learning, finding different natural materials to make their own ‘nature bracelets’. Great job Everyone!
