Our topic is

Ready, Steady, GROW!

This half term we are exploring plants and flowers inspired by Jack and The Beanstalk through a sensory story with different sights, sounds, feelings and actions. We are really focusing on our mark-making and counting skills.

We will also be learning the songs 'Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush' and 'The Farmer Plants His Seed'.

Take a look at some of our learning below.

Week 6 - Make it!

Our core word this week has been 'make' and what a perfect word for lots of Easter making fun! We began the week 'making' music and had a great time exploring lots of different instruments and using out bodies in different ways to make sounds. 

We have been busy making Easter bunnies and other Easter crafts using our painting, cutting and sticking skills. We've 'made' lots of lovely mess during sensory play which included sequins and slime this week as well as playdough. 

Our cooking session of course was chocolate based. We had to snap the chocolate pieces to melt them and scrunch the cornflakes. We mixed them together, carefully scooped them and counted the eggs for the decorations. Yum! 

The Great Willow Bake Off!

Today we had a wonderful time with some of our parents at The Great Willow Bake Off! We grated and peeled vegetables for a crunchy salad, blended fruit with milk for smoothies, iced and decorated biscuits and chopped fruit for delicious fruit kebabs.  

What a lot of fun! So much exploring and learning and of course, lots of wonderful mess.

Week 5 - What do we need?

We've had another busy week in The Willow building our skills whilst having fun and using Jack and the Beanstalk as our sensory story. 

Our word of the week has been 'need' so we have practised using this word, sign and symbol to ask for things. For building ("I need another one!"), jigsaws ("I need a triangle!"), sorting (I need a blue one!" and for making things work ("I need to press the button!"). 

We have had lots of opportunities to practise writing our names and mark-making, and lots of counting activities too. With the weather getting nicer, some of our sensory times have been outside with sand and water, but we enjoyed exploring with oats, water and salt sprinkles inside too.  

We've had some new equipment for our sensory circuits this week so we had fun exploring ways to move on the wobble board and scooter board. We also really enjoyed giggling under the parachute as it went up and down!

RND 2025!

More Willow fun was had on Red Nose Day baking and decorating delicious cakes, making each other laugh with water play and exploring lots of red things!

Week 4 - 'What?!'

We've had a busy week in The Willow and our core word has been 'What?' We began the week asking 'What's next?' with the alphabet puzzle and 'What's inside the bag?' where we discovered different animals. We enjoyed a noisy animal sound book too in bucket time and dressed in silly clothes asking 'What shall I wear?'

We're been practising our writing skills with our name cards and chalks, mark-making with cotton reels and paint flowers, and counting with beans, pegs on leaves, golden eggs, building towers and matching leaves. We are all getting better at using scissors now too. In sensory times, we've planted our own sunflowers, made patterns in rice and made a wonderful mess with shredded paper. 

In our cooking session, we cut out circles, squeezed and spread puree and grated and sprinkled cheese to make mini pizzas. 

Week 3 - 'Get' muddy!

In our Ready, Steady, Grow topic this week, we've continued enjoying our Jack and the Beanstalk story. Our core word of the week has been 'get'.

We have thought about vegetables growing and used different tools (grater, peeler and blender) to make carrot soup. We've used soil for sensory play as well as other natural products like wood shavings, rice and cereals. 

We have used leaves and sticks for mark-making and did some beautiful chalk drawing and painted flowers. We practiced our counting making beanstalks with bricks and numicon and used our scissor skills to cut and decorate plant pots ready for our seeds.

Every day, Willow have a short PE session and as well as small and large apparatus, we complete a sensory circuit with three parts - alerting (waking up our bodies), organising (using our bodies in different ways) and calming (resting and relaxing our bodies). We all like to move in our own ways. 

Week 2 - Pancakes and "Looking"

We have continued with our Ready, Steady, Grow topic and our story of Jack and the Beanstalk, but we have also celebrated pancake day and World Book Day. Our core word has been "Look" so we had fun looking for the right jigsaw pieces, using binoculars and magnifying glasses. In PE, we've enjoyed looking under the parachute as well as practicing our skills in jumping, throwing and kicking. We've had lots of different sensory experiences this week - straw, playdough, painting beanstalks, squirty cream and sticky syrup. What messy fun! 

Week 1 - 'Up and Down'

This week we have also been exploring the words 'up and down'. We've enjoyed rolling cars down the ramp, building towers up high and knocking them down, playing with parachutes, blowing balloons and bubbles up and watching them float down.

We have been developing our fine motor skills with chalks and sponge printing. Look at our tall beanstalk that we measured ourselves against. We have been counting leaves and golden eggs, matching numbered leaves and making beanstalks with numicon and cubes.

In our cooking lesson today, we tried eating spinach leaves and then snipped them up to make mini spinach pies. We enjoyed grating cheese and cracking and beating eggs (sadly not golden ones!)

Our Topic is...

AMAZING ANIMALS!

This half term we are exploring the book 'Rumble In The Jungle' through a sensory story with lots of different sights, sounds, feelings and actions. We are learning about different animals and using this to develop our communication, fine motor skills and early maths skills.

We will also be learning the songs 'Old MacDonald', 'Animal Fair', '5 Little Speckled Frogs' and '5 Little Ducks.'

Take a look at some of our learning below.

Week 6 - Animal Antics

We have brought our Amazing Animal topic to a close this week. We enjoyed making animal hats and matching animal toys to their photos and symbols. We've explored lots of different sensory activities; slimy green chia seeds, playdough and crispy cereal. Our word of the week has been 'on and off' which we have explored through Bucket Time and in our cooking session. We made some jam sandwich love hearts which we decorated with coloured milk. 

Week 5 - Cheetahs and Tiger Stripes

We've had fun exploring cheetah and tigers and making animal prints with potatoes and tiger stripes. It's a bit of a sad week as we get ready to say goodbye to Mrs Meller tomorrow so we've enjoyed making her a card and a delicious cake. 

Look at how wonderfully our scissor skills are coming on, and we've also enjoyed some interesting sensory experiences. 

Week 4 - Giraffes and Crocodiles

Giraffes and crocodiles have been our inspiration this week as we've continued on our Rumble in the Jungle adventure. We are enjoyed the sights and sounds from the sensory story each day and this week our word of the week has been 'Where?'.

We made giraffes with long zigzag necks, made long necks with duplo, and stuck and counted crocodile teeth. On our Thursday cooking session, we made an amazing cucumber crocodile exploring different foods and using our cutting skills. 

In the afternoons, we have really enjoyed different sensory activities - jelly, spaghetti, cornflour and playdough.

Week 3 - Slippery Snakes

We've loved looking at the snakes this week in our story. We have used our fine motor skills to make spiral snakes, practiced cutting with scissors, made snake marks in flour and oobleck gloop and had a brilliantly messy morning making snake bread. We've worked hard on our counting through songs and with cubes and numicon, and we are busy exploring the sounds /s/ /a/ /t/ and /p/ each morning. We've enjoyed playdough and animal bubble baths too!

Week 2 - Elephants and Zebras

As we've carried on with our Rumble In The Jungle book, we've loved adding sounds to the different animals. We've had lots of different sensory experiences such as animals in jelly, zebra biscuits and stripy paintings. We've done good work threading and counting rings on to the elephant's trunk and feeding him pompom snacks. We also made jungle shakers and enjoyed making animals with the playdough. 

Week 1 - Jungles, Chimpanzees and Lions

This week, we have really enjoyed joining in with our sensory story, especially the drum and the animal sound buttons. We made leaf shakers to add sound effects to the story and counted monkeys climbing up a tree. We have painted lions using a fork (and other ways) to make a mane. We tried to make trees using our new magnet toy and had lots of fun mixing, rolling and spreading to make lion jam tarts!