The Investigation Hub at Sidney Grove
Week beginning 6th October 2025
Characteristics of Effective Learning-creative and critical thinking – working with ideas
In the garden the children were showing interest in rolling balls but becoming frustrated with each other when there weren’t enough balls for everyone to use at the same time. We created a game in which some children stayed at the top of the slide and rolled the balls down, others waited at the bottom of the slide, collected the balls and rolled them back up! It was a tricky activity that required lots of teamwork. The children soon realised they needed to warn each other by saying “Ready?” before rolling the balls to one another. They also thought carefully about safety, remembering to put the ball in their pocket before climbing up the slide and to roll rather than throw the balls. The children stayed fully focused for around 25 minutes — showing fantastic cooperation, communication, and concentration skills!
Parents as Partners
Our core text this week was ‘Pumpkin Soup’ by Helen Cooper. Over the week we explored small group activities based upon the text such as using natural materials outside to make ‘soup’ and wrapping pumpkins with elastic bands to develop fine-motor strength… ‘It’s so beautiful…it’s all covered! My pumpkin is covered!’ ‘I stretched it! I made a Halloween one!’
On Friday, to link with our learning about the Harvest Festival, we worked together to use fresh vegetables to make our own delicious soup. The children used tools such as peelers and safety knives to prepare the vegetables. We talked about the parts of the vegetables we might choose to remove and why, the colours, textures and smells and the children all helped to chop and peel the ingredients. The soup was delicious and some children were brave enough to try!
Our rhyme this week was ‘The Incy Wincy Spider’ inspired by some of the not so ‘incy’ spiders we saw in Nursery the week before! The children used creative materials to make their own spiders which involved some mathematical thinking alongside fine-motor skills for cutting and sticking…
‘I did it! It has 8 legs!’ ‘It has 7 legs… it needs 1 more!’
Outdoors Learning
In small group maths the children collected sticks outside and were prompted to describe them by length:
‘a short one!’ ‘A little one!’ ‘What if we find some which are shorter?’ ‘Who can find the longest?’
In their forest school session the children explored the greater variety of leaves on the ground. They also accessed an activity to use shape punchers on the leaves, transferring skills used with tools in the writing area to the outside environment.
Staff Training
On Monday staff at Bensham Grove attended our first ‘Schools of Sanctuary’ training session. A School of Sanctuary is a school that is committed to being a safe, welcoming, and inclusive place for everyone — especially for people seeking sanctuary. We look forward to continuing this training and to promoting a sense of inclusion and belonging for all of our families.
Wishing you all a lovely weekend 🙂