Summer Term 1

Week 1

We had a fantastic first week back in Atlas! We welcomed the new term in with a new theme 'The Farm' where we explored animals you might find there. Our learning this week consisted of understanding animals and their young, identifying animals using their features and understanding habitats of farmyard animals. 

We are very enthusiastic about this theme and look forward to our trip to Leasingham Farm Shop at some point during the term. As always, afternoon bucket time revolves around our thematic learning and involved some messy moments including pig pop and pig splat. 

In maths bucket this week, we recapped 2D shapes and began learning about some 3D shapes too.

Week 2

This week, we have continued our learning about farm animals but have also delved into other features on the farm such as the farmer, barns, coops, pigsty and fields.

We have completed some excellent learning in our phonics and maths too, including subitising numbers to 5 with fluency and learning our initial sound 'p' in phonics.

We have enjoyed joining in with PE with our friends and have shown fantastic listening skills throughout the week. 

Our favourite moment this week was the delivery of some new equipment which we are very excited to use every day. 

We are continuing to work through our child friendly targets including 'trying new foods', 'using indoor voices', 'kind hands' and 'listening ears'.

Week 3

Our senses have been well and truly explored this week. We have used all 5 senses through different activities including milking the 'cow', smelling and exploring vegetables, making and tasting the bread we made, printing with vegetables courtesy of Staples, making tracks with animals and vehicles and helping the farmer in our sensory story.

In maths this week, we practiced our subitising to '6' using dice, objects and later in the week using pictures.

In phonics, we learnt our new sound 'g' and Gertrude the girl helped us quite a lot especially learning the Makaton sign.

Week 4

Our topic this week was 'jobs on the farm'. We looked at caring for, feeding and cleaning the animals as well as collecting and harvesting too. Our song of the week was The Farmer's in his den and the children enjoyed acting this out.

In maths this week, we learnt about identifying 1 and then 1 more. We then subitised this amount to get 2. We really enjoyed this and even pushed it further by showing the addition sign to support our learning.

In phonics, we learnt our new sound 'o' and played a game of 'o' or not 'o' using different toys around the room to identify the initial sound.

Week 5

Our learning this week highlighted planting, gardening and using products that grow on farms. We planted our own seeds this week and are already excited to watch them grow. We compared vegetables and fruits and distinguished if they were grown above ground or below ground. One of our favourite activities was to create our own veggie garden using a paper plate, brown string and some paint!

In maths this week, we learnt some new vocabulary - 'more' and 'fewer' and used these words to compare numbers of objects which we were able to subitise (say, don't count!).

In phonics this week, our new sound 'c' has been great fun to sign, say and write. We used the sand to finger-write and then whiteboards to improve our pencil grip.

Week 6

Our learning this week was all about consolidating our knowledge of all that we have learnt this term. 

We begun our week with a very exciting Atlas school trip where we used Sleaford Community Bus to travel all the way to Leasingham Farm Shop & Garden Centre. When we got there, we met Rob the farmer who showed us all of the animals he cares for. We particularly loved the baby goats (kids) who are new arrivals to the farm. After we visited the animals, we enjoyed a quick snack in the outdoor seating area and by 11.30 we were ready to get back to school to have our lunch. The children were excellently behaved and enjoyed meeting all of the animals. Thank you to Manor Farm Shop & Garden Centre for accommodating us.

As the week has progressed, we have revisited a lot of our bucket time activities to ensure attention has been gained by all and attention span has improved. We did another welly walk, animal pop, sensory story and pig splat. 

In maths this week, we explored length. Our key words were 'long', 'not long', 'short' and 'not short'. We went on a nature hunt to find long and short sticks, rolled long and short wriggly worms and used cotton buds to paint long and short lines.

In phonics this week, our new sound was 'k' which has been quite tricky to write and learn. We practised a lot and have made progress going down the kangaroos body, up his tail and down his leg using different materials and writing implements.

We hope you all have a great half term and we look forward to welcoming you back next term for a new overarching theme - The Beach!

Nia, Meggan & Jenny x

Summer Term 2

Week 1

We hope you all had a great week with lots of fun! Our learning this term focuses on 'The Beach' in which we will explore the beach in it's entirety. This week our key vocabulary is as follows:

Our song of the week was 'Bobby Shafto's gone to sea'. We loved this one as we got to act some of the song out with actions.

We loved getting ready for the beach this week, making sure to apply our suncream, lay out a towel, wear a sunhat and put on our sunglasses. We also learnt how to make sandcastles using a bucket and spade and remembering to tap the top before revealing our creations.

In phonics this week, our new sound was 'u'. We used an umbrella over our heads and shook a pom pom over it to imitate rain whilst sounding our 'u'. We also used sand to go down and under, up to the top and draw the puddle.

In maths this week, we explored 'big, little, small and large'. We sorted items by size and sang ♪ Big Fish, Little Fish, Cardboard Box ♪

Week 2

This week, our theme was 'Water' and we got very very wet with it! We made rockpools, explored waves, went fishing, got dressed up in swimming gear and our favourite activity this week was 'float or sink' where we used a range of objects and first guessed whether we thought it would sink and then experimented to find out the answer. The most surprising item was a pencil, what do you think a pencil would do? Float or sink?

In phonics this week, our new sound was 'b' where we made marks, bounced a ball whilst saying our new sound and traced in sand and traced in sand down the laces to the heel and around the toe.

In maths this week, we have been introduced to zero. Jenny has made lots of activities where the children have had to find zero including glitter reveal, singing songs such as five little speckled frogs and ten in a bed, and counted down until we reached 'all gone' to represent zero.

Week 3

This week, our theme was 'Pirates' and Arrr did we have a fun time! We spent the week immersing ourselves in this theme with our song of the week 'When I was one...', listening to Sea Shanty's, dressing up, embracing sensory stories, getting wet in the wild waves, making paper boats and finally at the end of the week getting into character to be the scariest pirates we have ever seen.

We had a very special visitor on Monday who boarded the Atlas ship and joined in to our stage 2 and stage 3 bucket activities. Pirate Clay was 'oar inspiring and oh how we laughed! Pirate Clay then sent us a message in a bottle later in the week asking for help to find his special treasure so we drew some maps and followed them to find his treasure chest full of gold coins.

In phonics this week our new sound was 'f' and we went on a ffffflower hunt, drew f in the sand, wrote our sound using different materials. We particularly enjoyed our Fffffred games this week where he helped us go down the stem and draw the leaves.

In maths this week, we matched pairs together. We are very lucky to have our own pair of children in our provision and they enjoyed being a part of this learning. We matched lots of different objects and spent the week learning new phrases such as 'pair', 'same', 'matching' and 'left over' when some objects did not have a match. Jenny showed us Simon Sock and then we dived into our clothes box to find our very own matching socks to help Simon.

Week 4

This week was all about our senses at the Beach. We had a fantastic week of smelling, touching, looking, hearing and tasting. We explored all of our senses through a sensory story about the beach, listening to the sounds of the ocean, paddling, splashing and jumping over the waves, tasting fish and chips, making ice cream sundaes and watching them fall on the floor and taking part in beach role play.

In phonics this week, our new sound was 'e' where we traced in sand, used whiteboards to see that 'egg' and 'e' have the same starting sound, rolled and cracked eggs and wrote the letter 'e' by lifting off the top and scooping out the egg.

In maths this week, we explored simple patterns. We started by watching Jenny make patterns such as Green, Red, Green, Red. As the week progressed, we began making our own patterns with blocks and other objects. By the end of the week, we were able to match objects correctly and then draw and identify our own patterns using colours of our choice.

Week 5

This week, our learning revolved around beach animals where we spent time singing songs such as 'In Dublin's Fair City' and 'I went to visit a beach one day...'. We also used the Tiny Tim song and learnt the Makaton sign for Turtle to help us with our singing. In Bucket Time this week, we made sandcastles and then played a game of sandcastle stomp, explored our new sensory lights and toys and enjoyed using chalk pens to decorate a range of beach animals.

On Thursday, we had a fantastic day with our friends in the annual Church Lane Sports Day. We began our day by joining in with a round-robin of events including throwing over a net, jumping hurdles, taking part in an obstacle and crazy golf. In the afternoon, we then took part in our allocated races which was so much fun as we got to show off our skills to our family and our friends.

In phonics this week, our new sound was 'l', we used sand to finger trace, whiteboards to write down the long leg and then used pencils to write our 'l' in lots of different ways.

In maths this week, we looked at comparing mass. We really enjoyed using the scales to see which items were heavier or lighter. We compared lots of different objects including big and small and learned that even though something big looks like it would be heavier, that is not always the case.

Week 6

This week, we learned all about sea animals. We have loved exploring our new sensory lights including our little jellyfish light which are now class pets but are yet to give them names. We spent lots of times exploring the ocean animals and water play along with other sensory materials. On Tuesday, Jenny brought some ice cream cones and we made our very own sprinkles using rice and lentils and dying them with food colouring.

In Bucket Time this week, we made a special Octopus garden and sang the Beatles song to go with it. We chose animals to live in the garden with the octopus and placed them in the water. We made special jellyfish which can be seen in all of their glory on our Atlas windows, we created sea animal collages and at the end of the week, we loved joining in with Carnival activities. We played the steel pan drums, made colourful feathery headdresses, enjoyed some Caribbean food and drinks and learned a dance.

In phonics this week our new sound was 'h' where we finger traced in sand, used whiteboard pens, read our new phonics story 'H is for Hedgehog' and using pencils to write 'h' by going down the head, to his hooves and over his back.

In maths this week, we subitised to 5 using different objects and pictures to 'say and don't count'. We enjoyed using a drum to count the beats, throwing bean bags to represent numbers and feeling items in a feely bag and then trying to count how many without looking.

Week 7

This week, our theme was 'Jobs around the beach' where we explored the professions of those who work in and around the beach. We had some great imaginative play in our ice cream van where the children handed out ice creams with sprinkles and sauce, sang a song all about donkeys and acted it out by swishing scarves for the tail, clip-clopping with musical instruments, flapping our own ears and crunching on apples. We had great fun doing this and the children's engagement was fantastic. We played a fishing game with magnetic rods and fish to see how many we could catch. This was a race and all the children took part. 

Aside from our topic, we used communication boards to support our vocabulary learning where we sang 'Wheels on the bus' and pointed to each subject as we sang. We were also lent a beautiful handmade wooden bus for the children to see and use alongside the song.

Our outdoor play has been lots of fun this week, we all love to play in the water so have had lots of wet clothes! Sorry to our families!

A great penultimate week, we are very tired though and look forward to the summer break.. perhaps we will have a treat next week to tide us over... no pun intended!

In phonics this week our new sound was 'sh' where we wrote in sand using a chopstick, traced over and said our rhyme 'sshh said the horse to the hissing snake'. Lastly, we wrote our new digraph (2 letters, 1 sound) on whiteboards whilst whispering 'sshhh'.

In maths this week, our focus was to subitise up to 5. We had some great learning opportunities and enjoyed the activities such as pancake count - bingo dabbers on the pancakes - how many blue? how many red? Counter flip - where we threw some double sided counters up into the air, let them fall to the floor and then subitised how many were red and how many were yellow.

Week 8

In phonics this week our new sound was 'r'

Down the robots back and curl over his arm

In maths this week,