Week commencing 22nd September

The Investigation Hub at Sidney Grove

Characteristics of Effective Learning- creative and critical thinking

Making links…

On Monday, following the heavy downpour at the weekend the children were fascinated to observe patterns in the sand. They observed ‘sandy hills’ and staff explained that we could call them sand dunes. We discussed countries where we might see sand dunes, such as Morocco and Egypt. We then extended the children’s learning by adding animals such as camels to the sand dunes. Some children related this information to their own prior knowledge:

‘My Grandad went to there… where the sand and camels are…he went on a bus!’

‘Camels live on the sand…not kangaroos!’

Looking at the patterns on the sand: ‘splosh, splosh splosh!’

‘The kangaroo is in Australia! Here is the camel in Egypt!’

Parents as Partners

Our text this week has been We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen. We knew this was a firm favourite of many of our children when they immediately began joining in with the repeated refrains of the story. We retold the story in numerous ways; using crayons and pencils to draw, acting out the story in the garden and even changing the words and inventing new parts of the story! The children also enjoyed going on number hunts in the garden and practising recognising numerals in the outdoors environment. As part of their creative development some children followed instructions to make bears using tubes and paper.

Our song of the week allowed for many opportunities for maths focus time. We looked at the numerals as we sang and the children chose the correct number after taking away a currant bun. Our younger learners enjoyed counting and ordering the bears from the Bear Hunt by size.

Outdoors Learning

Moving our learning forward from our previous forest school sessions, we continued to investigate berries and leaves. We decided to experiment with creating natural paints. On Monday after listening to the Bear Hunt story we planned to create green wavy grass. The children looked for grass and leaves and used rolling pins to grind them to make paint. ‘You turn it…squash it like this!’ ‘It’s all soggy!’ ‘Now I need a little bit of sand because it didn’t work good’ ‘I’m painting a cave! A bear’s cave!’ ‘I’m painting the swishy swashy grass’ We then moved onto berries, squashing them in a similar fashion and exploring the colours they made. ‘It’s red! Then purple!’ The children observed the changing colours due to the warmth of the sun! ‘I’m mushing the berries!’

Rising Threes

This week in the rising 3s the children have demonstrated a keen interest in the story of the week “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt”. Throughout the week we took part in play experiences and adult led activities that support child learning and development while linking in with the story of the week such as We’re Going on a Bear Hunt Yoga and Sensory trays which allow the children to explore different textures and materials described within the story.

Home Learning

This is the perfect time of year to explore seasonal changes with your child! Perhaps you could encourage them to tell you the Bear Hunt story whilst you spend time outdoors, or look for Autumn treasures such as conkers and leaves. If you get the chance to share a home experience on Famly we would love to share it in our group time next week! Have a lovely weekend!