Our current topic is ‘What a beast!’.

We have been looking at the books ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’ and ‘Jasper’s Beanstalk’.

The children have been very busy doing the following:

• constructing homes for minibeasts
• making caterpillars for art
• practicing scissor control by cutting paper leaves
• exploring natural materials to sort and build with
• making our own bottle gardens for our outside area
• exploring sensory trays with a variety of edible leaves
• modelling with green playdough

Thank you and have a great half term,

Team Wagtails :)

This week the children have been to play on the orchard! They seemed to really enjoy exploring the area and using the playground equipment.

During this half term, we will be reading:

– Brown bear. Brown bear
https://www.youtubekids.com/watch?v=z_718ht4ZJA

– The colour monster

– Elmer
https://www.youtubekids.com/watch?v=cKu-mUgq4Gw

-Wow said the Owl

Wagtails have been developing a love of reading through shared reading activities, including joining in with sensory stories, massage stories, story strings and class stories.

We have been using all of our senses to actively explore a range of sensory materials and develop understanding about colours, sounds, textures and tastes.

We are working on developing an understanding of numerical concepts (lots, one, none, more, 1:1 correspondence), through building with large building bricks, exploring different sized cardboard boxes and heuristic play with varying sized containers and objects.

During art we have been exploring colour, design and shape, as well as responding to pattern through texture and print.

During cookery we have made Teddy bear pizzas, using muffins, tomato paste, cherry tomatoes, black olives and pepperami.

We recently had a visit from Millers Ark farm. We walked down to the field and saw some pigs, sheep, donkeys and goats!

Thank you for looking!

Team Wagtails :)

The topic for this half term is Old MacDonald. The Wagtails have been independently exploring different sensory materials, from cereal, to chocolate sauce, to curly kale! We have also been rescuing amimals from jelly, making homes for farm animals, exploring natural object treasure baskets and using our counting skills to count animals during ‘number bucket’. We are having a mobile farm coming to visit in the coming weeks, which we are very excited about!

The topic for this term is ‘Cooking up a storm’.

We have been reading ‘Happy Birthday Peppa’

During Play and Learn, the children have been:

• Sorting objects by colour
• Engaging in an Incy Wincy Spider sensory story
• Transporting large and small bricks using trolleys and trucks
• Making marks in dry sensory trays with fingers and one-handed tools
• Making Birthday cards for Mummy Pig
• ‘Making’ a cake out of wet sand and adding candles
• Using a range of boxes to create ‘presents’
• Developing their play skills through engaging in Peppa Pig small world play

We have recently started doing ‘Food Explorers’ with the children. This enables the children to learn through sensory experiences and explore different food items without the pressure to eat it.  Some of the children appeared to enjoy touching, smelling, eating and ripping lettuce leaves. Vicky and Amber have got some great ideas lined up for our future sessions – watch this space!!

The children have settled really well into school life. It has been great to see them happy to arrive at school and willing to engage in more activities around school. We regularly visit the school library, engage in weekly cookery activities, access P.E in the hall and visit soft play, the OT room and our Light and Sound room. We also attend weekly Speech and Language sessions, TAC PAC and Attention Autism sessions. It has been amazing to see how far Wagtails have come in such a short space of time. We are very excited to watch their learning progress further over the coming months.

Have a great week!

The Wagtails Team

Our final week in Wagtails

** Wow! ** What a warm week it has been!! Wagtails have been amazing at coping in the hot weather. We spent a lot of time indoors keeping safe and hydrated, but we did manage to visit the orchard early one morning before it got too warm.

We can’t quite believe it has come to the end of another school year. It has been an absolute blast!! We have achieved so much in the space of 9 months and we could not be more proud of the children’s achievements.

I’m sure we will still see you from time to time around school (yay!), so stay safe and have an amazing summer!

Team Wagtails

Wonderful Water!

Our current topic is ‘Wonderful Water’. Our class books are ‘The Big Red Bath’. ‘Pig in the Pond’ and ‘There was an Old Lady who swallowed the Sea’.

Wagtails have had a very fun-filled few weeks. As you can see in the photos, it has included getting a little messy!!

So far, we have been reading ‘The Big Red Bath’, with the other two stories making an appearance in the coming weeks. We have read the story as a whole class, with a smaller group also taking part in a Big Red Bath sensory story.

We are learning about floating and sinking and are exploring using all our senses. This has involved:

• Exploring red sand, glitter and gloop
• Counting and sorting animals
• Water play (which was extremely popular on the humid days!!)
• Floating and sinking tasks using a variety of different items
• Painting our own big red baths
• Making boats out of a variety of different materials – will they float or will they sink?
• Going on an adventure using our own Big Red Bath and animals that feature in the story
• Role-play with small world toys to re-tell and re-create stories
• Learning to read key vocabulary linked to our topic: water, bubble, empty, full, float, sink.

The Wagtails Team :)

This week we have been exploring sensory trays filled with feathers and sorting animals, with the added challenge of using one handed tools such as tweezers to pick up and transport materials and sort them into sets of colour.

We have spent some time colour mixing and identifying which two colours make secondary colours, observing the results of our actions.

We have explored the properties of different objects and have been sorting/counting objects according to simple properties.

We hope you have a FANTASTIC half term break and we look forward to welcoming you all back in June – eek!! Where does the time go?!

Team Wagtails

Our lovely Wagtails show lots of enjoyment in engaging in Stage 3 of what we call ‘Bucket Time’. This is where the adult leader demonstrates a simple activity, often modelled with another adult in the group. Some children are then invited to have a turn but only if they are comfortable to do so. Not every child in the group will get a turn, which then teaches important emotional regulation skills, as well as the essential skills of waiting, turn-taking and learning through modelling.

This week we took it in turns to choose a coloured paint, squeeze it into a paint pallet and then paint a flower petal. We received some ‘Wow!’ commentary, which was lovely to hear.

There are many Attention Autism recordings to watch on Gina Davies’ YouTube Channel – ‘Gina Davies Autism Centre’. Check them out! :)

Gina Davies Autism Centre – YouTube