The Investigation Hub at Sidney Grove

Week commencing 29th September

Characteristics of Effective Learning

Active Learning; being involved and concentrating

Some of the children were hiding under fabric and blankets in the small world area. They were having lots of fun but also risking bumping into each other as they moved about! Natalia taught the children a new game ‘Bug in the Rug’ in which one person hides and the other children help one person to guess who the bug is by suggesting clues such as their hair colour or eye colour. We also talk about things which the ‘bug’ is good at and their interests. Finally, the ‘bug’ would say hello from under the rug to allow the guesser to tune into their voice. This game engaged the children for around 15 minutes in which they demonstrated high levels of engagement and enjoyment whilst developing their communication and personal, social and emotional skills.

Parents as Partners

This week our core text was Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert. We explored the story through a variety of engaging activities that encouraged imagination, discussion, and creativity. Through questioning, the children wondered where Leaf Man might have blown away to in the world. This sparked rich conversations and supported their language development as they described different journeys he could take.

‘To the park!’ ‘To the woods!’ ‘To the train station’

The last page of the story reveals that Leaf Man has a new friend and again we asked the children to wonder who that could be…

‘It’s his brother!’ ‘It’s actually his Grandma’ ‘it’s a Leaf Lady’

As part of their fine-motor development the children have been practising their sewing skills using a leaf template and sewing in and out of the holes as a running stich. They also used tweezers to move conkers in and out of different containers to help to strengthen their fingers. Lots of maths opportunities were explored by careful counting of conkers sometimes using a ten frame as a visual aid. We looked at how many conkers squirrel and owl had and described who had more/ fewer or the same.

The children explored colour mixing to create beautiful autumnal prints in shades of red, yellow, orange, and green. They experimented with a simple printing technique, using leaf shapes dipped in paint to make their designs. Together, they sang Autumn Leaves and joyfully acted out the verses, tossing real leaves into the air as they sang, adding excitement and movement to their learning experience.

Outside Learning

We continued our core text’s Autumnal theme exploring the seasonal changes in the garden and at forest school. The children searched for minibeasts and were very excited to find a variety of snails which they observed closely using magnifying glasses, noticing details such as ‘spiral’ patterns on their shells.

In our forest school session one of the children carried forward his learning around the Bear Hunt by bringing the bear he created last week to hide in the environment. The children then repeated refrains from the story as they searched for the bear with great excitement!

Home Learning

This week we have noticed our children using some incredible vocabulary in their conversation. Children have used words such as ‘impressive’ ‘distracted’ and ‘concentrate’ without being prompted and in the correct context! Wow! We are going to make a wow word wall to showcase this incredible knowledge. If you hear your child using a new word at home and it makes you think wow then please let us know!

We are setting up reading folders for all of the children to begin using before half-term. More information to follow!

Have a lovely weekend!