Week commencing Monday 7th April 2025

The Investigation Hub at Sidney Grove

Parents as Partners

It was fantastic to share our Spring Stay and Play with so many of you on Monday. It is always so impressive to see the children so confidently sharing their learning with you, thank you for taking the time to come and share this with us!

This week we have strongly focussed on reinforcing number skills before the Easter break. We planned lots of games with number recognition including “Tin Can Alley” in which the children knock down tins and then say which number they have. In group time we practised a new game in which they chose a number and then looked for their number while the adult whizzed through the flash cards, this was very popular! Even our core text “ We’re going on an Egg Hunt” had numbers to spot for each egg the rabbits collected. We have spent the week singing Easter themed songs including ‘Hot cross buns’ and ‘chick, chick, chicken!’

Characteristics of Effective Learning

Following on from last week’s write up on playdough we wanted to share some of the children’s learning using this resource. Some of the children have been developing their mathematical knowledge through subitising playdough people.

“Look, one and two is three!”

“Five, there is three and then two over there and that makes five”

“I see four, two at the top and two at the bottom”

“There are six… two at the top, two at the side and two at the bottom”

When children see numbers and understand their composition instantly in this way they are developing number sense, enhancing their counting skills and improving their mental maths skills.

Outdoors Learning Opportunities

At the weekend, some of the staff spent a day working on our outside environment to improve the learning opportunities we can offer in the summer term. We are really proud of the changes made and the children were so keen to play in the sand and to use our new resources. Some of our new storage allows the children to take more ownership of their environment and they have shown greater independence in accessing and tidying the resources. We also have a beautiful new cosy story nook which has been so popular for a quiet story outside this week!

The children have been helping us to develop an outside painting area. They have enjoyed using water for mark making onto a plastic sheet hung from a washing line. They looked at each other through the sheet, describing what they saw and “painting” each other’s faces. They explored a variety of gross motor opportunities including climbing, sliding and rolling tyres. They have been building with large blocks in the gazebo and enjoyed spotting and naming the insects they spotted on the structure.