Autumn Term 2 2024

Week 1

This week, we have been enjoying our topic 'Fires, Fireworks & Marshmallows'. We have been exploring our topic through songs about Bonfire Night, stories about the dark night sky, making and listening to sounds around our vocabulary and taking part in craft activities to support our learning.

We have introduced a new oracy curriculum across school this term, where new vocabulary is explicitly taught and modelled. To support our learning of new vocabulary, we will be modelling this through Bucket Time where the children will learn the Makaton sign and understand the context of the word through exciting and engaging activities. We have called this our 'Oracy Core Word'.

This week, our Oracy core word was 'Who?'. We played 'who are you?' where we pulled out some of our classroom teddies and asked the question. We also supported the children when it was their turn by looking into mirrors and signing 'who' and asking the same question.

In Bucket Time this week, we read a sensory story which included experiencing the darkness (lights off), felt the wind on our skin (using a fan), felt the crunch of the leaves as they fell on the floor, smelt the burnt wood and listened to it crackle in the fire (scrunching foil), tasted the marshmallows and watched the fireworks fly through the air (coloured ribbons going up and down). We also experienced the explosion of fireworks and their noise by popping balloons full of coloured paint onto our big sheet of paper.

In Phonics Bucket this week, we introduced our new sound 'n' - down Nobby and over his net. We identified pictures, used scarves to air write our sound, wrote our sound in sand and wrote our sound on whiteboards by the end of the week.

In Maths this week, we have been working on identifying and subitising 1, 2 & 3. We sang '5 little fireworks standing in a row' to help us see the numbers and used party poppers to support our learning.

In our Life Skills this week, we made scrumptious rocket vegetable skewers. We first watched Jenny cutting and skewering the cucumber, tomatoes, peppers and carrots and then had a turn ourselves. Eating them was a blast!

Week 2

This week, we continued our topic of ‘Fire, Fireworks & Marshmallows’ and added lots of Remembrance learning in too, to highlight the importance of remembering those who have fought for our country. We enjoyed making poppies using collage and painting techniques and displayed these around our room 🔴.

On Wednesday, our core word bucket focused on ‘more’ where we put balls into a tube which was very engaging. We had to say and sign ‘more’ to help Jenny place more balls in the tube. We then enjoyed cake splat where we got to have a go ourselves through signing ‘more’ when it was our turn.

On Friday we celebrated Children in Need where we got to wear our pyjamas and this was very comfy for us all! Perhaps we’ll petition to do this more often?

Week 3

This week, we introduced our new topic 'Pinecones & Conkers'. This topic focuses on seasonal change where we feel a change in the weather and we notice the leaves falling from the trees. We have enjoyed lots of craft activities, sung songs and enjoyed stories relative to our learning. We absolutely loved the snow this week and thoroughly enjoyed throwing snowballs, making a snowman and lying in the snow to make snow angels! We really hope it isn't this cold all of the time though!

In Bucket Time this week, we enjoyed making an Autumnal scene with leaves and pinecones being placed on black paper and then shaking flour all over them to see the shadows the objects made. We absolutely loved melting the snow and discovering what was hidden inside. We found pinecones, a hedgehog, a squirrel and lots of autumnal leaves. In another bucket, we got very very messy when Nia showed us 'conker splat' - we were all covered in green and brown paint but enjoyed seeing an abstract conker. Our favourite stage this week was 'conker spin' where we used the cake stand, brown and green paint to create our very own conkers. We used brown for the nut and green for the shell and as we spun the stand faster and faster, we were able to imitate spikes coming off the outer edge.

In Phonics bucket this week, we introduced our new sound 'g' - around the girl's face, down her hair and give her a curl. We finger traced our sound, used scarves to air write, read our 'g' book and used whiteboards by the end of the week to write our sound.

On Wednesday this week, our Core Word was 'up' where we watched a balloon whizz around our room going 'up, up, up' and we had a go at pulling the string on our flying discpropeller to see our 'helicopters' flying all around the Atlas room.

Unfortunately, our cooking has been postponed for a few weeks due to sickness and illness in our room. Hopefully, we will resume this as soon as everyone is back up to full health.

Week 4

This week, we continued our topic ‘pinecones & conkers’ where we went on an autumnal walk around school to find different natural objects that had fallen on the ground, explored making patterns by rubbing different leaves, coloured and made marks on autumnal pictures.

In bucket this week, we enjoyed flour shake over different natural objects and explored new vocabulary, we loved playing lots of musical instruments - banging drums, tapping keyboard keys and having a go on the xylophones. We loved shaking leaves everywhere and then crunching them in a tray.

In phonics bucket this week, we introduced our new sound ‘o’ - all around the orange. We traced the sound, identified pictures with the initial sound and reviewed previous sounds and splatting this weeks ‘o’ sound.

In our core word learning, we explored ‘in’. Meggan made a fantastic bucket for us where she pulled out engaging items from a box asking ‘what is in the box?’. For stage 3, she then asked ‘who is in the box?’. We looked inside to find a mirror which was very exciting.

In life skills this week, we made tomato soup. We watched Jenny open up the tins and pour the soup into a saucepan and then we all had a turn stirring the soup until it was ready to eat. Whilst the soup cooled, we took turns spreading butter onto a piece of tiger bread to dip into our yummy soup 🍵. 

Week 5

This week, we introduced our new topic ‘Crispy leaves, wind and trees’. We loved using clay this week to make leaf prints where we rolled out the clay, pressed the leaf into it to create a pattern and then removed it to observe. On Thursday, we had some very special 4-legged visitors including a tortoise, a bearded dragon, a slithering snake, a guinea pig and a long-eared bunny. We loved being able to hold and touch the animals and the class favourite was definitely the bunny!

We had a very messy morning on Friday where we created a large tree collage using autumnal colours to show some leaves still on the tree and leaves that had fallen to the ground. Our favourite part of the week this week was listening to Mr Tumble’s Autumn Song ‘Golden, golden’. We have been entranced by the song and have loved singing along to this. 

In bucket this week, we enjoyed our play with leaves. We used crispy leaves which had been collected from outside to create a glue reveal, this was a lot of fun as we watched Nia crunch the leaves between her fingers into lots of small bits. We then loved blowing the leaves up into the air by inflating a balloon and attaching it to a bottle, filling the bottle with small leaves and then letting the balloon deflate causing the leaves to blow all over us!

In phonics bucket this week, we introduced our new sound ‘c’ – curl around the caterpillar. We identified the matching pictures, created the sound with pegs on a peg board and wrote over the letter with highlighters. One of us loved our new sound so much that we gave it a permanent place on one of our walls…

In our core word learning, we explored ‘open’. This was a lot of fun and the engagement from stage 2 & 3 was fantastic. We read ‘Dear Zoo’ and with each flap to be opened, we signed ‘open’. After this, Nia had made a special door for us to knock on and as we opened it up we found Meggan hiding behind it with a special treat!

In life skills this week, we made vegetable stir-fry. We felt the crunchy noodles before they were cooked and smelt the vegetables in the packaging. Jenny then carefully cooked them together before adding some special sauce. We all had a go at trying the stir-fry but some of us just were not keen at all.

Week 6

This week has seen some fantastic opportunities and experiences for the children. We enjoyed continuing with our ‘Crispy leaves, wind and trees’ topic where we created leaf collages in a stained glass window style craft and created clay leaf prints. We have enjoyed some early Christmas festivities this week starting on Wednesday, where our families joined us for a special Christmas Bucket Time, some lovely crafts and a mince pie. We loved doing this and can’t wait for the next one at Easter! On Thursday, we enjoyed Christmas jumper day where we enjoyed dancing in the hall with Reception class and then we had a delicious Christmas dinner.

In Bucket time this week, we enjoyed a glitter reveal where we revealed a special glittery leaf and tree and we enjoyed celebrating Jenny’s birthday with her. She brought us some lovely cakes and we all sang Happy Birthday ♫♪♪.

In phonics this week, we introduced our new sound ‘k’. We finger traced the sound, identified pictures and read the ‘k’ book all about koalas.

Week 7

Merry Christmas! We have had a fabulous last week with lots of Christmassy festivities taking place. We have enjoyed a couple of Christmas Buckets and our favourite activity was pulling the Christmas Crackers to explore what was inside - Nia, Jenny & Meggan were a little disappointed not to find the classic giant paperclip!

In our crafting this week, we made some very special Christmas decorations including a bauble for our tree and a handprint Christmas wreath. This was very messy but lots of fun. 

We have had lots of lovely experiences this week and on Friday, we enjoyed watching the pantomime with our peers in the hall. Later on, we had a special visit from Father Christmas and because we have all been so wonderful, we received a little present from him. In the afternoon, some of us went back down to the hall to sing Christmas Carols around the tree.

A busy and very wholesome week to send us into the Christmas break. We hope you all have a fantastic Christmas and a Happy New Year! We look forward to seeing everyone back in school on the 6th January.

Much love, 

Nia, Meggan & Jenny