FSU
Welcome to our Foundation Stage Unit
Mrs Emptage, Mrs Hinchliffe, Mrs Baker, Nikki, Julie, Alice, Mrs Beer, Mrs Dennis and Miss Mayne
Sunflowers (Nursery 2 Year Olds)
Caterpillars (Nursery 3-4 Year Olds)
Butterflies (Reception)
Step 2 Parent Declaration Form (January 2024) Early Years Pupil Premium Form for Children in Care January 2024 Curriculum Goals Butterflies (End of Reception)Sunflowers Curriculum Web Summer 1 Transport Sunflowers Spring 2 Growing Curriculum Overview Spring 1 Sunflowers Overview Traditional Stories Butterflies and Caterpillars Summer 1 Journeys and Transport Curriculum WebButterflies Spring 2 Growing and ChangingSpring 1 Caterpillars Overview Traditional Stories Caterpillars Autumn 2 Curriculum Overview WinterOur Favourite Five Books
At Monkleigh School, we are passionate about igniting a love and passion for reading from the very start. In FSU, Sunflowers, Caterpillars and Butterflies all have a selection of Favourite Five books - these are five books that are always on display in the classroom. We read these books again and again over the year - they are rich in language, rhyme and repetition and are excellent stories. If you are ever looking to buy your child a book for Christmas or for their birthday or if you would like some ideas for books to borrow from the library, please take a look at our Favourite Five Reads:
Please scroll down to find out what we have been up to!
A week of Easter fun and treats. Sunflowers shared the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar’s Easter Egg Hunt. We had our own Easter egg hunt, made our families a card, enjoyed lots of Easter themed stories and the sensory tray. We also made some yummy chocolatey treats.
FSU would like to wish you all a very happy Easter holidays. We looking forward to another exciting term. Thank you for your continued support 🐣 ☀️
“I’m a spring chicken” 🐣. This week Sunflowers have explored the life cycle of a chick. We have made our own hatching chick and spoken lots about the process. We have continued to make the most of the glorious sunshine this week, playing in the water tray, and practising our gross motor and balancing skills on the stepping stones and crates. Physically, sunflowers have really pushed themselves and have learnt new skills, ensuring their safety on the climbing frame and accessing the slide independently.
This week Caterpillars have been sharing the story of Dora’s eggs. We have been learning about the life cycle of a chick and remembering what animals and their offspring are called. We have been creating our own chicks by ripping and using different materials to scrunch and stick. We were lucky enough to go on a trip to a local farm and loved seeing the animals and exploring what happens day to day on a real working farm. HUGE thank you to Mr and Mrs Grigg for letting us visit!
The Butterflies have been learning about something very close to their hearts this week! They've been learning about the life cycle of a butterfly! They have been using the words: first, next, then, finally to help them explain and sequence the life cycle. They have explored symmetrical patterns and have flashed back to art techniques that we have previously used to create some beautiful butterfly art! Our word of the week was metamorphosis. It has been lovely exploring and learning in the sunshine! The Butterflies are very pleased with their new garden centre role play!
Cycles and Change
Sunflowers have embraced spring this week, and loved getting outside more and more. We’ve used our fine motor skills to create stunning blossom trees; explore using forks to paint with, making beautiful tulips; and loved the flowers in the water. We have spoken about how the cress seeds we planted last week have changed and what we did to look after them and help them grow.
This week Caterpillars have been sharing the story of ‘What the ladybird heard’. They have been looking at greater depth of the importance of farms and having a closer look at farm animals and their offspring. We have been busy washing the muddy animals and we made our own ladybirds so we could play our own game of What the lady bird heard, we had to whisper a message around to all of our friends. We have liked playing ‘what is missing’ and focused on learning to rhyme this week. We have also been having lots of other ladybird and farm themed fun too!
Butterflies have thoroughly enjoyed learning about the life cycle of a frog this week. They have used excellent communication and language skills to describe what they know about the cycle and to explain their understanding of the tadpoles that we have had in class. We're so proud of how the children are communicating so confidently and how their understanding is developing securely. The children have been working hard to practise their sentence writing skills and have flashed back to their learning about the life cycle of a bean to complete independent challenges. The highlight of the week was definitely the trip to Rosemoor, they saw lots of signs of Spring and were able to explore growing. They also visited their garden centre to develop their understanding of how they work to get ready for the role play garden centre that we will set up in school.
Exploring Growth, Change and Life Cycles
Sunflowers’ learning through play this week has been based on ‘growing’. We have explored vegetables in soil; used our fine motor skills to thread ‘worms’ through plant pots; and we have planted our own cress heads. Our story this week has shown us different plants, and how some change from flowers to fruit, as well as talking about how plants require sunlight and water to grow. Some of the older sunflowers have also enjoyed engaging in games encouraging turn taking, good listening and communication with our peers.
This week Caterpillars have been sharing the story of ‘Caterpillar and bean’. They have been learning all about the amazing life cycle of a butterfly. They have been creating caterpillars and butterflies from playdough and have used their busy fingers to create fantastic paper chain caterpillars. They have also made some beautiful symmetrical butterflies and have been busy strengthening little hands by making holes in leaves with a hole punch!
This week the Butterflies have been exploring the life cycle of a bean. Our word of the week has been 'Life Cycle' and we have been reading a non fiction book about the life cycle of a bean. We have also read and retold one of our favourite five stories - Jack and the Beanstalk. The children were posed with the question: I have a bean - what can I do to make it grow? It was incredible to see what knowledge they drew on and the ideas that they came up with. They communicated their ideas and understanding clearly and have all set up their beans in different places - windowsills, outside in the conservatory, at home- to see if they will grow. The children have flashed back to their prior learning on Design and Technology junk modelling to create a setting for the Jack and the Beanstalk story. In maths we have explored shape and continued to learn number bonds to ten.
Springing into Spring!
Sunflowers have continued their farming theme this week. We’ve explored animals in the cereals, created horse shoe prints using celery and used our fine motor skills to pull apart and stick cotton wool on fluffy lambs. Farming is a huge part of our local community, with many of our families being of a farming background. This topic has been thoroughly enjoyed, and the sunflowers have enjoyed teaching me their knowledge and teaching me names of vehicles they use on the farm. As well as watching local farmers passing school in tractors.
Caterpillars have been learning about the life cycle of plants this week. They have enjoyed reading Jasper's Beanstalk and exploring the characters and events in the story. The children have been remembering more about the plant life cycle everyday! They have created their own life cycles and some wonderful cress heads that that are excited to watch grow over the next few days. The children have been measuring themselves and talking about they have grown and changed. The children are doing so well with exploring the numbers to 5 and have been learning how to use five frames.
Butterflies have enjoyed developing their observational skills this week. They have been learning all about the Spring months and have been spotting signs of Spring all around us. The children have explored the concept of growth and change through the story The Growing Story. The little boy in the story sees everything growing and changing around him and doesn'r realise that he is growing and changing too. The children have created watercolour daffodil paintings and have thought carefully about the differences between Spring and Winter. They have worked hard on their number bonds to ten and have enjoyed learning a new song to help them learn these.
Exploring Diversity
Spring is on its way. Sunflowers have started their ‘spring’ topic with lots of farm play. Our focus has been based around the language used for naming baby animals. We have potato printed ‘cow prints’ and had great fun in the ‘mud’. Sunflowers have also explored colour matching this week too.
This week our Caterpillars shared the story of ‘Its ok to be different’. They have been talking about what makes them different and special. Caterpillars have been busy making their own wonderful faces with lots of different colours. With their parents they have been celebrating and sharing their own achievements! They have also had lots of fun by tracing friends this week through clear plastic. As well as keeping those fingers busy and strengthening their fine motor skills through many different fun activities!
Butterflies have been exploring the meaning of the word diversity this week. Their word of the week was diversity and we have been reading the beautiful book Out of the Blue. This is about a little boy who is uncertain and unsure about sharing his favourite colour as it was different to the colour most people liked. The children have created some lovely junk model houses based on the illustrations and have thought carefully about creating their own sentences orally. They are also getting so much more confident with writing sentences! The children have enjoyed playing in our role play library and exploring the numbers 9 and 10 in maths.
Writing and Telling Stories
Sunflowers have embraced this terms topic, traditional fairy tales. We have loved exploring the different versions of the stories and acting them out in play. We have ended this half term exploring the book You Choose Fairy Tales, looking at the book for the characters we recognise and choosing how our own story might look. We’ve enjoyed sharing our favourite books from home with our friends too. Sunflowers have loved the role play castle this week and have made our own sparkly crowns too 👑
Immersing ourselves in Stories
This week the Sunflowers explored the tale of Little Red Riding Hood. We had fun making cups of tea in the water, role playing picnics with the play food, and choosing our favourite foods to fill our own picnic baskets with. We also used our fine motor skills to practise spreading jam, making sandwiches for snack.
This week our Caterpillars have continued to learn about Africa! We have been focusing on the animals who live there. We have shared the story of Little Red and the Very Hungry Lion, the children have found it very amusing. They have created some stunning sunset silhouette pictures which really tested their fine motor skills but their hard work really paid off and the children were so proud of themselves. The children have done some excellent Lion portraits. They have also enjoyed feeding the very hungry lion (from the book) different food and have engaged in small world play with the animals in the Savanna. They have also had lots of fun playing 'guess the African animal' too, which is a game linked to clues!!
This week the Butterflies have entered the mischievous world of Anansi tales! Continuing our learning about Ghana, we have explore traditional stories from Western Africa. We have explored the characters and the setting of the story Anansi and the Magic Stick and have enjoyed reading other Anansi stories. The children have created some wonderful spider collages and have been working hard on writing sentences about the setting in the story. The children have been exploring addition and learning how numbers can be combined. They have enjoyed lots of messy outdoor play and hunting for spiders in the outdoor provision. We look forward to welcoming our parents and carers into FSU next week for Parents Evenings and Progress and Play afternoons.
What a Creative Week!
“Run run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man”. The Sunflowers have enjoyed this weeks story and really tried hard to join in the with repeated phrase. In the sand we have had the story characters and retold the story as we played. We have explored ginger scented gloop, wow’ed by the texture and how it changes as we play. We’ve ‘baked’ our own gingerbread men with the play dough. And of course, had lots of fun with the paints! As well as enjoying a ginger biscuit with our snack.
This week Caterpillars have shared the story of Baby Goes to Market. This is the first week out of 2 that we will be learning about Africa. The children have really enjoyed playing in the Monkleigh Market. We have been busy making lemonade and developing our filling and pouring, we have been sketching a bowl of fruit and creating some fantastic African art with shapes. We have been practising balancing baskets of weight on our heads like Mama from our story and have also been printing with fruit. Next week we will continue to explore wonderful Africa.
This week Butterflies are learning about Ghana. We have been exploring vibrant patterns, colours and shapes. We have flashed back to our knowledge of diagonal horizontal and vertical lines to create patterns all printed using the different types of line. We have enjoyed exploring what life is like in Ghana and where Ghana is in the world. We have read the book Grandma Comes to Stay and noticed that there are lots of similarities between life in Ghana and life in England. The children have been very curious.
Potions, Promises and Porridge - Delving Deeper into Traditional Tales
Sunflowers this week have enjoyed sharing the story of Goldilocks and The Three Bears. We have had fun scooping in the oats to feed the bears, and using them to stick on our own bears. We’ve developed our mark making skills, using our pen to follow a path to the bowl of porridge; as well as role playing in the dolls house with the characters and furniture in the story. Sunflowers have explored the use of the language ‘big’ and ‘little’, as well as ‘three’. We’ve also tried some of ‘baby bears just right’ porridge to warm us up at snack time.
This week Caterpillars have been sharing the story of Sleeping Beauty. The children have been busy making potions which they have loved and playing with the castle. Some of the children even tried to use shapes to create their own castles. The group worked together to create a magnificent junk modelling castle which they have enjoyed playing with. We have also enjoyed making some salad spinner art too! This is something we found particularly fascinating! The spinning motion made us think of the spinning wheel in the story!
This week, Butterflies have continued to explore traditional tales. They have explored the story of Rumpelstiltskin and thought carefully about the choices that the characters made and the consequences of these choices. The children have sequenced the story and identified and described the setting. It has been a very creative week. We have been inspired to create our own Kandinsky themed art work - this will be exhibited at the Burton Art Gallery soon. The children are working hard on their reading skills and should be proud of what they are achieving. We finished the week with a visit to Torrington Library, this was a lovely interactive story telling session.
Exploring Structures and Traditional Tales
This week sees the start of our traditional tales topic. Sunflowers shared the story of The Three Little Pigs, and our play focus was on construction. We experimented with different building toys; building Duplo and wooden brick houses. We had great fun building with ‘bricks and cement’, as well as making straw homes for the pigs to hide from the wolf. Sunflowers also explored different mark making techniques to decorate the pig's houses.
This week Caterpillars have shared the story of the three little pigs, they have thoroughly enjoyed retelling the story and joining in with the familiar phrases of the book and using these within their role play. They have made some fantastic masks and have enjoyed constructing houses from different resources. The children have been printing brick houses and putting on puppet shows. They have also enjoyed painting portraits of the characters too.
Butterflies have loved exploring different bridges - both locally and world wide this week. We have linked our structures work to The Three Billy Goats Gruff and have been exploring characters and settings. We have also been sequencing and retelling the story. The children have been developing their knowledge of junk modelling joins and using these to create some excellent junk model bridges and structures. We finished our week with a walk along the Tarka Trail to explore the different bridges, shapes and materials used.
Happy New Year!
We're so happy to be back to begin a new exciting term of learning! This week we have shared the story of ‘The Stompysaurus’ and have talked about our emotions. We have been using the emotion puppets and talking about what makes us feel different feelings. We have enjoyed stamping our dinosaurs in the mud and finding our puzzle faces! We have been making our faces from play dough and making our faces from different materials too. We were also set a class challenge of filling our kindness jar!
Butterflies have flown into 2025 with a wonderfully positive start! This week we have been learning about the importance of having resilience. Our word of the week has been 'resilience' and we have been learning how we can try and try again until we succeed. We have explored helping hands who might be able to help us if we face difficulties. We have explored The Learning Pit and the Growth Mindset approach of 'We can't do it - yet!' After facing some tricky challenges on the outdoor play equipment we created our own Learning Pits to hep us remember the stages of tackling a challenge. Most importantly, we have considered how we feel when we complete a challenge - all the Butterflies said they felt proud! A fantastic start to the new year!
Diving into Frozen Worlds and Christmas
This week we have been sharing the story of Tickly Christmas Wibbly pig. Our excitement for Christmas has begun! We have been using white crayons and were so excited to use the paint to reveal what we had created. We have been creating our own paper chains and exploring frozen paint. We have also been creating our very own stickmen.
This week, Butterflies have been exploring solids and liquids. They have used their curiosity and their investigation skills to explore why ice melts and what materials can be used to help ice melt. They explored salt, sand, baking powder and sugar! We were very impressed with the way that they identified solids and liquids and their explanations. The children have enjoyed making chocolate to make their own chocolates in moulds. The children enjoyed reading The Snowflake Mistake and flashing back to the word 'unique' which we had as our word of the week earlier in the term.
Exploring Winter and Christmas Trees
Stepping into Winter
This week in Sunflowers we welcomed the change of seasons. We recapped a very exciting snow day from last week, and explored a wintery white sensory tray. We also developed our skills with PVA glue and made our own wintery scenes, as well as some fun indoor snow. We used our book this week to talk about how we now wear items such as hats and gloves because it’s now cold outside, and why the children in the story are feeding the birds bird seed when the ground is snowy and frozen.
Caterpillars have been learning all about nocturnal animals and welcoming the changes our new season is bringing us. We were super excited to have some snow at Monkleigh! We have had some fun with torches by looking for shadows of animals that are awake at night and made our own owls too! We have LOVED exploring the icey foam and helping to strengthen our scissor skills by creating our own paper snowflakes! The children will be continuing to explore the changes of winter next week!
This week we have been learning all about the changes around us. We focused on deciduous trees and have discovered that 'deciduous leaves lose their leaves' We had a wonderful time on Torrington Commons going on a bear hunt - we also managed to fit in a play at the park! We have explored how deciduous trees change between Autumn and Winter and used our fine motor skills to recreate deciduous trees. Our singing for our Christmas performance is coming along very well!
Exploring Diwali
Whoosh, Bang, Fizzle. This week the Sunflowers have enjoyed recapping their experiences of fireworks from the previous couple of weeks. We have enjoyed a poem exploring the different noises the fireworks make, used the chalks and paints to create their own firework display pictures, and used their fine motor skills in the sand to create marks to represent the firework shapes. We have also loved making edible sparkler breadsticks for snack.
This week we have been learning about Diwali the festival of light. We have been learning how this festival is celebrated. We have shared the story of Rama and Sita and made our own salt dough diva lights. We have enjoyed exploring rangoli patterns through shape, marks inside and outside and brightly coloured rice. We have also had lots of fun with mehndi patterns.
Butterflies had a wonderful visit to Merry Harriers Restaurant at the beginning of the week. We visited for a Cafe experience before opening up our own role play Monkleigh Cafe back at school. We would like to say a huge thank you to Merry Harriers and their amazing team for giving us such a warm welcome. The children were able to visit the counter to order their delicious cakes and drinks. They even served each other! The cakes were delicious and it was a lovely opportunity to sit and chat. The children have enjoyed applying what they experienced to their own role play. We have also enjoyed learning about the Hindu celebration of Diwali. The children have illuminated our setting with their super patterns and beautiful transient art.
Fireworks Fireworks Everywhere!
Welcome back. Sunflowers this week have enjoyed the story of Elmer’s colours. We created our own colourful elephant with sponges, explored colour mixing in the shaving foam outside, and matched colours to join elephants. As well as working together and developing our fine motor skills, creating a large patchwork collage like Elmer. We also enjoyed recapping our half term break; exploring and scooping out a pumpkin.
This week the Caterpillars have been sharing a poem from the book Zim Zam Zoom. We learnt all about firework safety and have created some fantastic firework art using lots of beautiful colours and artistic tecniques such as printing, rubbing, flicking and stamping. We have helped to develop our fine motor skills by using thin chalks and cotton buds too! We have also used our fingers to create colourful patterns in the black sand. Outside we have enjoyed a sensory explosion of paint, glitter and foam. We have also shared our own experiences of fireworks we have seen this week or have got ourselves excited for fireworks we are going to be seeing!
Butterflies have had a fizzingly fantastic first week back! We have been reading poems from the book Zim Zam Zoom and have created a performance of the poem whicih we filmed for our families to watch. The children were so confident and really enjoyed the rhythm of the poem. We have been exploring firework experiments and firework art. The highlight of our week was a visit to Harbour in Bideford. We delivered all of the Harvest Festival donations from the school and helped to stack the shelves. We helped the volunteers to make Christmas Cards and create gift bags for the people who use Harbour. The children worked really hard and created some wonderful cards.
Pumpkins and Apples
This week Sunflowers have shared the story “Owl Babies”, talking about how Mummy always comes back. We continued to explore autumnal sensory trays, adding owl puppets and making cosy nests for them. Sunflowers worked really hard using their fine motor skills and precision with their marks to create their own owl babies painting. As well getting messy and free painting with sticks.
This week our Caterpillars have shared the story of 'The Very Helpful Hedgehog'. They have created their very own helpful hedgehogs and enjoyed apple printing as well as painting with autumn items the children have gathered from walks in the local area. The children have also made their very own delicious apple pies too!
There has been a distinct glow of orange and aroma of Pumpkin Soup in Butterflies this week! We have been reading Pumpkin Soup and learning all about our word of the week 'Teamwork' The children have worked on their sequencing skills and sequenced the story and have been so good at using their Fred Spelling to write words to label an illustration from the book. They have developed their fine motor skills and have been wrapping elastic bands around pumpkins; creating pumpkin pastel paintings and hammering golf tees into pumpkin. We have finished the week by making pumpkin soup! In maths, we have started our journey into subitising and have been working on subitising one, two and three.
Celebrating Autumn and our Local Commity
Autumn is here 🍂 This week we have been exploring the crunch of the leaves, the colours of the trees and some animals we may experience in woodland and autumnal environments. We created our own autumnal tree using washing brushes and paint. We also made a hedgehog, introducing and practising the use of scissors and ‘runny’ PVA glue.
This week Caterpillars have been sharing the sorry of the leaf thief. We have been learning about the changes autumn brings. We have been painting with leaves and having a leaf race. We have been on a walk around the school to look for signs of autumn. We have also learnt the importance of harvest and the role of scarecrows. The children have made their own collage scarecrows and have made two fantastic straw ones for the outdoor learning area too!
This week, Butterflies have been flashing back to previous learning about members of our local community who have visited us this term. They have used their learning journey floor book to help them remember. We have talked about the meaning of the word 'Community' and have thought about families, school communities and people who help us in the local community. We have been celebrating our progress in Read Write Inc and Maths. We also enjoyed a visit from Chantal Law who is a local fitness expert. She spoke to the children about the importance of exercise and gave them an exercise class! We have come so far since September! Well done Butterflies!
Introducing Autumn and Foodbanks
This week our Caterpillars have shared the story of 'We're going on a bear hunt'. The children have LOVED acting out the story with movement around the room and engaging in the bear hunt with sensory experiences. They have worked hard to create their own adorable bears too. They have collected autumn leaves and developed their fine motor skills by cutting the leaves to then create their autumn tree pictures as well as creating autumn collages. The children have also been sorting leaves in different colours.
“We’re going on a bear hunt” has been the focus for the Sunflowers this week. We have explored different textures to represent the environments in the story. We had great fun with the gloop and gelli baff snow, as well as the water, rice ‘grass’, and sticks and leaves. We painted bears, and explored size with different bears in the sand. We used these bears to also explore prepositions; over, under, on top.
Butterflies have been learning all about the importance of Foodbanks within our local community. We have read the wonderful story 'It's a No Money Day' which introduces the concept of hunger and foodbanks. The children have been flashing back to previous work on emotions to think about how the characters in the story might feel. The children have explored what they could do on a 'No Money Day' there were lots of walks, bike rides and playing in the garden! The children have enjoyed exploring the mud kitchen and the outside areas. We had a wonderfully sunny trip to Weare Giffard Woods on Monday to look for more signs of Autumn. Kim from Torrington Dental Practice came to talk to us about the importance of looking after our teeth. Wow! What a busy week!
Healthy Eating and Tasting Fruits
This week the Sunflowers have explored emotions. We’ve looked at what being happy, sad and cross may look like, and how we can help us and our friends feel happy and calm. We made calming sensory bottles, explored our facial expressions in the mirrors and really focused in on modelling positive behaviours, taking turns and sharing, and saying ‘stop’ to something we don’t like.
This week our Caterpillars have shared the story of ‘Be brave little penguin’ and are learning to give difficult things a go. We have been talking about feelings and the colours we link to different emotions as well as using our faces to show different emotions and drawing them too. We have also discussed what occurances make us feel different emotions. We have also been learning about the importance or oral health. They enjoyed helping to clean the dirty teeth! The children have also been learning about consent and watching the Pantosaurus. We know that our bodies belong to only us and we are in control of ourselves.
Butterflies have had an incredibly busy week this week! This week we have been learning about keeping our minds and bodies healthy. We have explored emotions and feelings through the story The Rabbit Listened. The children had great fun making their own bouncy rabbits! We have enjoyed a visit from Pete from ASDA who gave the children the opportunity to try lots of delicious fruits. The children have made their own healthy smoothies - carefully using their fine motor skills to cut and prepare the ingredients. On Friday we look forward to a visit from a local nurse who will talk to us about how the children can look after themselves and keep themselves safe - this will really help the children's role play skills in our Doctor's Surgery.
Developing Healthy Attitudes - Sleep and Exercise
This week Sunflowers became dentists. We talked all about healthy teeth and what we do to keep them shiny and clean. We looked at different foods to decide which ones would make our teeth happy or sad. We enjoyed trying some yummy fruits, exploring the different textures and colours. As well as painting and water play using toothbrushes.
This week our Caterpillars have been learning about being healthy. We have shared the story of “Daisy eat your Peas” the children have learnt about how to be healthy and what food and drink are best for us as well as knowing the importance of keeping active. They have been sorting healthy and unhealthy food and shared their own favourite food. They have enjoyed developing their fine motor skills by playing with real peas, painting with spaghetti, creating their own favourite food plates and using knives and forks to cut up playdough food they created.
This week, we have been learning about the importance of sleeping well and getting enough exercise. The Butterflies are an active bunch and have been sharing all of the wonderful activities that they like to take part in. We have devised our own HIIT routines and are using these frequently throughout the day. We have been reading and sequencing the story: Peace at Last. We are so thrilled with the effort that the children are putting into learning their sounds. They are developing their fine motor skills well during our Busy Fingers activities. Our new Doctor's Role Play area has been well visited this week.
Learning about Life at School
This week has been all about colours. Our story this week was “Brown Bear Brown Bear what do you see?”, we explored what colours Brown Bear could see, and then what we could see. We also had a go at retelling the sorry with our friends, ordering the animals in the story, introducing the terminology ‘next to’ when ordering the picture cards. We have explored different colours in the room, matched objects to the right colour and read lots of colourful stories. We have experimented with colour mixing with the rice pudding, and of course some messy hand painting.
This week our Caterpillars have been learning all things Monkleigh. We shared the story of Lulu's first day and talked about feelings and being happy and safe within the classroom. We set our own class rules and expectations. We have been looking at photos of the school staff and learning about lanyard safety. We have created our own beautiful class bunting and have been busy developing our fine motor skills by making friendship bracelets. Later on in the week we have been exploring colour mixing, we loved sharing the story of 'Mix it up' and interacting with the book, we then were able to use this book to get hands on with our learning to mix colours for ourselves which was so much fun. In maths we have also been exploring colours and have enjoyed matching them and going on hunts too!
Welcome Back to the New School Year!
🌻 Wow what a lovely start to the new school year. Sunflowers have spent their first week exploring the environment; developing our preferences for play; learning new routines, as well as amazing social skills. We've welcomed back old friends and been excited to make new ones too.
Our welcome back topic is all about Me and My Community. This week our Caterpillars have been thinking about their families. We have shared the story of 'Families families families'. We have created our own family trees, been drawing our families and doing some pet portraits! Some of the children have independently been making their pets from play dough too!
The Butterflies have made the best start to being at full time school! They are doing so well. We have been reading Super Duper Me and Dogger and have focused our learning on family. The children have used excellent communication skills to share their timeline scrapbooks from home and to talk about their homes and families. They are enjoying exploring the outside areas and getting stuck in with RWI.
