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.

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

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6