Spring Term 1 2025

Week 1

Happy new year! We hope you all had a fabulous Christmas with lots of festive fun. This week, we have focused our attention on settling the children back into Atlas through lots of learning through play and engaging activities. We have enjoyed starting our new theme – ‘Creepy Crawlies’ and have begun with ‘Minibeasts’ to get us going. By Friday, we were all very tired but loved joining in with Rock Kidz in the school hall where we jumped, danced and chanted along to the singers.

In bucket time this week, we have enjoyed getting back into routine by using our favourite bucket time resources. In stage 2, we enjoyed singing incy wincy spider and watching foam splat. In stage 3, we helped to put spots on a ladybird and making play-doh minibeasts. 

In phonics this week, we introduced our new sound ‘b’ – down the laces to the heel and around the toe. We loved our book this week as it was all about Bees. We also enjoyed sand writing and highlighting our sound.

On Wednesday, our core bucket focused on the word ‘want’ where we met a new friend Perry the Puppet who wanted to draw a picture of a ladybird but needed the correct colours to help her. She said ‘I want red please’ and we had to help her find the red pencil. Eventually Perry had drawn a fantastic ladybird with lots of black spots.

In life skills this week, we made tortellini with cheese which was delicious! Nia had to boil the water and add in the pasta but we all helped her to grate the cheese by holding the cheese in one hand and the grater in the other and pushing the cheese downwards onto the grater. We also helped to serve our pasta into bowls using a wooden spoon and sprinkling a bit of cheese on top.

Week 2

This week, our learning has been cementing our knowledge and understanding of minibeasts. We have enjoyed lots of activities including discovering different insects in kinetic sand, creating symmetrical ladybirds, matching minibeasts and making play-doh insects.

In bucket time this week, we placed spots on a ladybird and counted them, had a special ant glitter reveal and we read the story of the very hungry caterpillar along making a balloon print using red, green and yellow paint. Our favourite activity was on Friday, where we dug for insects in sand and carefully placed them in magnifying containers to look at their characteristics including having wings, 6 legs or antennae. 

In phonics bucket this week, we introduced our new sound ‘f’ – down the stem and draw the leaves. This week, we enjoyed some Fred games where we helped Fred identify things in the garden. We also made ‘f’ using pegs and a pegboard, played splat review sounds and highlighted our sound which was very tricky!

On Wednesday, our core word learning, we explored ‘give’. We played 4-in-a-row where the children took it in turns to ‘give’ me the red counters and then we could play the game together.

Week 3

We have had a fantastic week in Atlas, learning all about Incy Wincy Spider. We have enjoyed learning the song with the Makaton signs. Our story this week was The Very Busy Spider and we have taken inspiration from her and have been very busy ourselves with lots of spider crafts and enhancing our fine motor skills.

In bucket time this week, we enjoyed a flour web shake, a glitter glue reveal, painting a spider web with salt water and using kitchen utensils to create a splat spider. We loved watching the salt water being added to the black paper and watching it dry to reveal a special web. Our music this term is all about stories and we have focused our attention on The Three Little Pigs. Sophie has made this very exiting using different instruments and noises to bring it all to life.

In phonics bucket this week, we introduced our new sound ‘e’ – lift off the top and scoop out the egg. We played a Fred Game to begin our week where we matched the objects to the corresponding pictures and later in the week, we enjoyed sand write, the ‘e’ book all about elephants and used scarves to air write our sound.

On Wednesday, our core bucket focused on the word ‘please’ where we read a special social story all about saying please. We then practiced our Makaton and signed or said the word every time it was said in the story. In stage 3, we asked Jenny for a ‘ball please’ and then had a go at throwing it into the target.

In life skills this week, we made spaghetti with a cheesy sauce which was very yummy. We boiled the pasta and once it was drained, we added in the sauce. We all helped to mix it up and then enjoyed tasting it.

Week 4

This week, we have been learning all about Minibeast Habitats with our focus story being 'Hotel For Bugs'. We enjoyed activities where we had to find the correct habitat for the minibeast, finding, colouring and counting minibeasts and overwriting over minibeast bodies.

In bucket time this week, we veered off topic and enjoyed some original stage 2 activities including current bun splat and 5 little men in a flying saucer balloon pop. On Tuesday, Meggan made a special maths bucket for us where we learnt about 1 less. We loved watching the leaves fall off the tree and then sang 5 green bottles whilst pulling green bottles off a wall. Later in the week, we loved dancing and playing music with Sophie which we thoroughly enjoy!

In phonics bucket this week, we introduced our new sound 'l' - down the long leg. We identified objects beginning with our sound, enjoyed learning about llamas in our 'l' book and all had a go at writing our sound using highlighters and on a whiteboard.

On Wednesday, our core bucket focused on the word 'thank you' where we read a special social story all about using our manners. We then practiced the Makaton and signed 'thank you' whilst we chose an object to play with.

This week, we have been spending lots of time in our outdoor area and as the weather warmed up towards the end of the week, we loved exploring our shadows and playing in the water trays.

Week 5

Our learning this week has focused on Caterpillars with our story of the week being 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'. We really enjoyed reading and exploring this story through Makaton sign, caterpillar crafts and getting to feed the caterpillar ourselves.

In bucket time this week, we helped to feed the caterpillar balloon by choosing different foods for every day of the week. As soon as it was full enough, the caterpillar deflated and we loved watching it whizz around the room. We also enjoyed the caterpillar counting stage this week, where Nia painted a very large caterpillar and for each circle of it’s body, she threw paint soaked cotton wool down and we helped to count each one.

In phonics this week, we introduced our new sound ‘h’ – down the horses head to his hooves and over his back. We enjoyed making our sound with pegs, learning all about hedgehogs and overwriting our sound with highlighters.

We have really enjoyed this topic and look forward to continuing and extending it into next week!

Week 6

This week, we have extended our learning from Caterpillars to Butterflies with our focus story being 'The Butterfly Dance'. We have enjoyed making butterfly prints with our hands, looking at butterfly symmetry, looking at matching dots on butterflies and singing the butterfly colour song.

In bucket time this week, we loved glitter glue butterfly reveal, symmetry butterfly paint, sleeping caterpillars where we were rolled up in a blanket ready to turn into beautiful butterflies and having a turn at twisting the butterflies round and round until they were ready to be released then watching them flutter all around us.

In phonics this week, we introduced our first digraph (two letters, one sound), sh – shh says the horse to the hissing snake. We loved finding objects beginning with this sound and some of our favourites were ‘shop’, sheep’, ‘ship’ and ‘shell’. We found our new sound tricky to write but we all had a good go at it.

On Wednesday, our core bucket focused on the words ‘yes’ and ‘no’. We learnt the Makaton signs for both words in stage 2 and in stage 3, we played a colour matching game where we had to identify which box to put the corresponding items saying our core words as we played.

In life skills this week, we completed our term with spaghetti hoops. We enjoyed this quick cook and although not as tricky as some of our previous recipes, we really enjoyed tasting the hoops with some of our friends from year 5 & 6.

We have had a fantastic term learning all about Creepy Crawlies. We hope you have a restful half term and look forward to welcoming you back in a week’s time 😊

Nia, Meggan & Jenny x