Summer 2 Week 1 

This half-term we are starting our new topic of 'Things that Grow'. This will offer a broad opportunity to explore nature and humans. We started this week with vegetables as we love some food exploration and playing in the willow. We used our fine motor skills to cut, chop and peel vegetables as well as engage our sense of taste, smell and touch. Children also looked at colour and shape in maths but brought vegetables into this to practice using vocabulary.  We played a matching game using pegs, which the children really enjoyed. This supported fine motor skills, colour and pattern skills as well as social skills. As a school we also had the police visit! Willow were really excited about seeing the police car and loved putting the police hat on. Safe to say this was a big hit.

Summer 1 Week 6 

This week we reviewed everything we did during this unit of Macbeth. We had great fun making potions, role playing as witches and in battle, preparing food and generally having lots of creative fun for the end of term. We have also made the most of the good weather, being outside, lots of water play and drawing with chalk! This week was also cultural diversity day. We had the whole day looking at and celebrating the different cultures we have in the willow and around school. We made some flags and then joined in with the whole school parade around school waving our flags. Children really enjoyed all the music during the parade, especially the drums. It was great to be part of the whole school parade.

 

 

Summer 1 week 5 

This week's focus has been on banquets, which was a big hit in the willow as our children love sensory play, preparing and taste-testing food. We used the communication board to support us when making food for our banquet, requesting items needed and expanding into full sentences. Lots of fine motor skill activities were also included to support early writing, such as chopping food, flooding napkins and transferring food from one bowl to another using a spoon. We also had sports day in which willow was fully included. We had a picnic outside watching others race and then each child raced with their own year group (supported by adults). It was really successful and felt great to show how inclusive OBS is with all children cheering and supporting each other. 

Summer 1 Week 4 

This week’s focus has been on potions and witches! Safe to say it has been the willow's favourite week of Macbeth. Children have loved making their own potions, especially when it's mixing colours and sparkles. Linking potions to communication has shown just how capable some are when motivated with water play. Willow also had our stay and play morning with parents; it is always fantastic to see parents join in with our fun. Children showcased their potion making skills alongside their fine motor by making sandwiches for our banquet and decorating their very own watches hats! We then showed off our morning songs routine, so parents could see how well we could follow instructions and recognise the days of the week, weather and alphabet. What an amazing week.

Summer 1 Week 3 

This week's focus has been on kings and queens. The children have loved dressing up as kings and queens, the crowns are a big hit. They also really enjoyed creating their own crowns which are proudly on display in our class. We had lots of sensory fun with different textures and colours of jewels, especially when they captured the sunlight!  We used our fine motor skills in maths to look at sorting objects by colour, children showed fantastic colour recognition, and used tweezers to pick up objects with impressive skill. In literacy, we had lots of fun matching words and pictures to work on our reading skills, supported by symbols. This is a great motivator, as children really enjoy matching games. We also introduced some language from Macbeth when role playing, which caused a giggle. 

 

Summer 1 Week 2

This half-term, our topic is Macbeth by Shakespeare. We have broken the main themes from the story into smaller weekly focusses. This week, we have looked at the bedroom scenes using a mixture of role play, videos and songs. The children worked together to create a bedroom scene, promoting social skills. This also provided lots of sensory exploration of textures, which the children really enjoyed. This week was a calming one, with lots of gentle physical exploration through yoga and sleep/wake games. The potion and sandwich making proved a hit once again, and the children showed fantastic communication skills when requesting the items they had chosen.

Summer 1 Week 1 

This half-term, our topic is Macbeth by Shakespeare. We have broken the main themes from the story into smaller weekly focusses. This week, we have looked at battles, using role-play and games to work together just as people in battle do. We have been creative by making our own shields and decorating helmets. As part of Macbeth, each week the children will create a potion (just like the witches) and make sandwiches (inspired by the banquet scene). This will not only promote a range of fine motor skills, colour recognition and social skills, but will primarily focus on communication, as the children will have to make choices and request items. Colour recognition and fine motor skill development are key targets for maths and literacy this half-term. Therefore, the children have taken part in a range of activities to support this, such as bead threading.

Spring 2 week 5 

Spring 2 Week 4

This week’s theme is monkeys and the jungle. It’s been a favourite so far! We have focused on gross and fine motor skills along with body parts. Children have had lots of opportunities to make monkeys in different ways, looking at the parts of the body, and referring back to our own body parts. We even managed to draw facial features on a monkey mask. They have started to point to body parts in the song ‘heads, shoulders, knees and toes.’. Children also enjoyed some sensory play through food, peeling the bananas, cutting and mixing all supports with communication though choice and fine motor skills. Once again, the nature walk proved a success as, with the warm weather, children were happier to explore and play on the trim trail; we ‘explored the jungle’.

Spring 2 Week 3

This weeks theme has been Zebras and patterns, giving a strong maths and fine motor skills focus. Children enjoyed making stripes on paper to support early writing skills. This has been on display for them all to enjoy. Children looked at creating their own patterns by threading beads and using tweezers to pick out animals supporting fine motor skills, colour and shape recognition. Children are growing in confidence each week with gross motor and climbing skills. It's amazing to see the progress. Our afternoons now include a nature walk, to encourage children to notice what is happening in the world around them, especially as the seasons are changing, we can see flowers starting to grow and notice the weather getting warmer.

Spring 2 Week 2

This week was focused on giraffes and elephants within our theme of Safari. This means that we have looked at big or small and tall or short. Children have loved doing this with toy animals. We also have had lots of creative play incorporating nature due to the weather being so nice. Sensory play, as always, has been a big part of our week. We looked at scooping different items like an elephant using fine motor skills. Children also really liked threading beads this week, where we could look at patterns, size, and colour. As it was World Book Day, we had lots of focus on books. Children especially liked looking at the books outside in the sunshine.

Spring 2 Week 1

This term's topic is safari and this week we have focused on lions and tigers. Children really enjoyed the sound buttons for ‘grrr’ and ‘roar’ in our sensory play as well as exploring the movement of ‘grass’. We had lots of creative play making tiger masks and lion faces, enabling us to focus on the colours yellow and orange. Children have also utilised their fine motor skills, making lions and tigers from playdough, which is always a favourite activity, and making lines for tiger stripes on a shared piece of artwork. Gross motor skills have been put to the test with our amazing new swing. All the children were really keen to have a turn. This supported their social skills as they had to navigate sharing and turn taking.

Spring 1 Week 6 – This week’s traditional tale is The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Children really enjoyed this one. We used our scientific skills to build bridges to look at balancing items. As well as mathematic skills for the size, seeing if the troll can fit under it. Children also really liked the sensory play with the hey which the goats would eat, and finding the goats hiding in the hay. In PE, we used our gross motor skills to move across bridges, and move like a troll or a goat. Children are getting more confident at climbing higher and balancing. Willow also really enjoyed some role-playing, Using masks to help get into characters. 

 

 

Spring 1 Week 5 – This week’s traditional tale is the gingerbread man. We have had lots of fun using all our senses exploring food which could be used in a gingerbread man. Mixing dough and modelling it into different shapes and looking at what could be used for the features. Children also used their fine motor skills to decorate a gingerbread outline, looking and eye, mouth and buttons, as well as cutting out items to dress their gingerbread man.  In theme, children used their gross motor skills to run like a gingerbread man.

Spring 1 – Week 4

This week’s traditional tale is Jack and the Beanstalk. In the Willow, the children really enjoyed the tuff tray for sensory exploration this week. It has a mixture of items to represent the story, from beans to ‘clouds’ (cotton wool). We were able to explore lots of key vocabulary through this experience, such as: hard, soft, fluffy, wet, and cold. Children also had lots of practice of cutting. This was linked to maths as we focused on patterns and thinking about what comes next. In literacy, we focused on the /c/ sound, thinking about items we know start with a /c/. At the start of the week, Willow liked our physical skills of practising being a giant with large footsteps and stomping, then being jack with quick twirls and sprints. At the end of the week, we put our beanstalk climbing skills to the test!

Spring 1 – Week 3

This week’s traditional tale is Rapunzel. We had lots of fun building towers; this has been great to link with maths outcomes of counting and shape. Building towers has also supported scientific knowledge by noticing gravity and how things fall down, as well as building on language understanding of build, up, down and fall. As in all ways, children have enjoyed lots of sensory experiences, focusing on the texture and colour of Rapunzel’s hair. Literacy this week focused on how to make the /b/ sound and linking it to known words.

Spring 1 – Week 2

This week’s traditional tale was Little Red Riding Hood. In Willow, we have been exploring food by making items for Little Red Riding Hood’s picnic basket, such as cakes and jelly, practising packing a picnic basket and role playing with the food. The children really enjoyed mixing the cake batter almost as much as eating it! We have also looked at the characters in the story and created our own artwork to represent each one. Maths and literacy this week focused on counting down until the huntsman arrives and making the /a/ sound when Little Red Riding Hood is scared.

Spring 1 – Week 1

Our topic this term is Traditional Tales, and this week’s focus was Goldilocks and the Three Bears. There was a strong focus on gross motor skills, with the children practising being Goldilocks and ‘going on a bear hunt’, as well as being the Three Bears searching for Goldilocks. The children enjoyed lots of sensory exploration with oats this week, exploring hot and cold, as well as dry and wet. We also got creative by making pictures of the Three Bears’ porridge and creating bear masks for role play.

Autumn 2 Week 7

 Christmas has officially arrived in Willow this week! We have had great fun exploring the lights, sounds and feel of Christmas. The work never stops, though, and the children have been putting all of their new skills to the test by being creative and making lots of Christmas crafts to take home, such as cards, wreaths and pictures. Willow also had their Christmas party, which involved lots of balloons, bubbles, music and, of course, party food, which is always a hit in Willow.

Autumn 2 Week 6

This week, we ended our Space topic with a space party! We revisited many of our favourite activities from the topic, including investigating different textures to create an alien, using sticks to create an out-of-space picture, and introducing aliens to things they might find on Earth if they visited. Willow Class have really enjoyed this topic, especially the many sensory activities involving light and dark exploration, as well as exploring different textures. Towards the end of the week, we also started some Christmas crafts, as the children were showing an interest in the Christmas trees around the school.

Autumn 2 Week 5

We have looked at Aliens and Space Creatures focusing on Imagination, textures, and movement. Children used their imaginations to create a flying saucer, sticking a paper plate with a paper bowl to make the shape and then decorating them but cutting and sticking their own shapes. Children also had an opportunity to paint their own space alien portraits. We had some fantastic sensory experiences with alien slime, and an alien feelie box. Fine motor skills were put to the test when cutting out aliens and flying sauces to create their own space creature scene.

Autumn 2 Week 4

This week we have focused on the moon - texture, shape, movement. Children really enjoyed taking part in our astronaut training, using gross motor skills to; climb, run, jump and balance. We had lots of sensory exploration creating a moon out of puffy paint, as well as painting bubble wrap and pressing it to create the moons creators. In food Technology children created their own moon Crater Rice Krispie Cakes which is always a hit!

Autumn 2 Week 3

This week our focus has been on the stars and Constellations, we have explored light and dark, as well as patterns. Children had particularly enjoyed using lights and bubble tubes to explore how the stars look in a night sky, creating a great sensory experience which proved to be highly engaging and soothing. We have also explored our creative side creating our own constellations and practicing printing with paint.

Autumn 2 Week 2

This week we have focused on the solar system. We explored the planets though images, physical toys and videos, creating lots of sensory experiences. Children loved using different materials to create their own planets. Our main focus this week was on fine motor skills, especially cutting skills. Children painted their solar system background and then cut out planets to stick onto the background, they also cut out puzzle pieces to order and stick as well as cutting and sticking space objects in maths to order the amounts.

Autumn 2 Week 1

This half-term we have the topic of Space!

This week we focused on Blast Off! – Rockets and Astronauts. We introduced rockets though stories, pictures, videos and models. Children loved mark making in flour, trying to create their own rockets and thinking about the lines rockets make in the sky. We also had lots of fun creating our own astronaut masks and doing some role-play, pretending to be astronauts! Playdough was used to create our own rockets as well as using college to decorate our own rockets. The spinning chair has been a great way to give a sensory experience of a rocket launch.

Autumn 1 Week 7

This week we have focused on Adventure week! We have had lots of fun doing some of our favourite activities from the term. Playdough is always a firm favourite and children really enjoyed creating their favourite farm animals. We also played lots of games, including farm bingo, practised our numbers and fine motor skills all in one go and created some art for Halloween and bonfire night. Of course, we also decorated some biscuits with icing and sprinkles as was deserved after a busy half-term. 

Autumn 1 Week 6

This week we have focused on harvest at the farm. This we brought to life when exploring a variety of fruits and vegetables and making a soup from the ingredients. Children also really liked exploring the textures of a farm harvest when completing a sensory walk through straw, oats and cereals. We had a great time creating cow's udders and milking them. It led to lots of laughs and some very determined children to empty the udders!

Autumn 1 Week 5

This week we have focused on Farm Machines. Children have created lots of art this week using farm machinery. They especially liked rolling the wheels though paint and then making tracks on paper. They also made some of their own tractor tyres, using different foam shapes to see how different shapes create different marks in ‘mud’. Fine motor skills were put to the test again when trying to make some machinery from playdough. Additionally, children particularly enjoyed some maths this week involving colour matching toy dinosaurs to the numbers when thinking about concrete amounts.

Autumn 1 Week 4

This week we have focused on feeding time. Children really enjoyed the sensory experience of a farmer’s field made from cereal! They loved being able to be tactile but also being safe to eat. We linked food to colours to expose children to a variety of foods, and then expanded this to encourage fine motor skills through colour matching and games. In PE this week, the children loved practising their climbing, balancing and jumping skills. Our gross motor skills in the Willow are a real strength!

Autumn 1 Week 3

This week we have focused on noisy farm, we looked at the animals and the noises they make; building our own sheep to embed the link between sound and image, and practising weaving on farm animals while imitating the sounds. We also looked at the machinery and the difference in sound by cutting and sticking the noisy parts of machinery as well as driving the machines on different surfaces. This week was all about linking the sensory experience of sound to other experiences.

Autumn 1 Week 2

This week we have focused on meeting the farm. Children have used their fine motor skills to mould playdough into farm animals. We have had many sensory experiences using natural materials focusing on the changing seasons, and with the delivery of bubble warp, we just had to have lots of fun popping it.  Children also enjoyed making jam sandwiches while cooking. We tried to follow the instructions to support independence.

Autumn 1 Week 1

Farmyard adventure!

This week we have introduced our first topic of the year in Willow, Farmyard Adventure! We have started off by exploring the animals on the farm. Children have enjoyed ‘feeding’ the animals, using the animals to create art from footprints and matching the animals to their shadows. This has supported their hand-eye co-ordination, fine motor skills, and attention. Of course,  we have also had lots of sensory experiences with the oats.