Autumn 2
Pink Class - The adventures of 'The Gruffalo'
Welcome to the second half of our Autumn term, Autumn 2! We hope that everyone has had a fantastic half term holiday with their family and friends!
Our topic for this half-term is:
The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson
Week 1 - The Gruffalo goes to the zoo!
As we return to school after half-term, settling straight back into our routine and lessons, we begin our new topic of The Grufflao! Each week we are taking The Gruffalo on an adventure to a new place, places where we might go to or even dream to go to! Our first week back has been super exciting as we have taken our Gruffalo to the zoo and explored what it might have been like if he went there himself!
In Pink Class we have began our hunt on the Discovery Park collecting sticks to create our snake's log pile house in the tuff spots. We have joined in our Gruffalo attention everyone everyone where we watch a giant snake jump out, we counted up how many prickles were on the gruffl-dough back! and then we splatted some green warts on the The Gruffalo's nose, wow!
We enjoyed stamping animal footprints with different colored paints to create patterns big and small, some of us even enjoyed an animal stomp foot massage! In class we read The Gruffalo for our sensory story and explored and accepted touching the different items like a foxes tail, owl ice cream, a squeaking mouse and even tasted some bread-STICKS from the snake!
This week we have been enjoying sensology that we had it two times this week! Our first session was based on the story 'Whatever next!' where we went in a rocket with baby bear up to space, that was amazing fun. Our second sensology was Based upon learning about Halloween and Bonfire night. For this, our children looked at bubbling slime, toasted marshmallow, fizzing sparklers, fresh pumpkin and even listened to a witches cackle! "MUAHAHAHA!"
We hope that you have enjoyed your first week back as much as we have in Pink Class!
Week 2 - The Gruffalo goes to the shops!
This week in Pink Class we read The Gruffalo together in sensory story and explored the spiky prickles on the touch pads and liked it on our back too just like the Gruffalo. We have Attention Everyone sessions as a group and this week we looked at different things that might happen when we visit the shops, In phase one we pulled out of the bag a post box which we could count and post letters into and we found a rocket hiding in the post box that was a fun surprise when it went WHOOOOSHHH!!! Phase two was looking at the magical drinks shop where we poured clear liquid into a cup and it miraculously turned out a different colour! Phase three we looked at cornflour rain. The OOOPY, GLOOPY, STICKY RAIN! Pink class were all so mesmerized by this so we extended the activity and did some 1 to 1 work taking turns and sharing which was really good fun.
Judo with Kevin is our new PE slot this half term that we do once a week. We have an amazing time learning new skills, Judo moves and having lots of rough and tumble play! Each child thoroughly enjoyed this session and kept requesting more by signing 'more' in Makaton, using hand on hand guidance or by using symbols to request more. We joined in Charanga musical school lesson and did some numeracy work with helping and counting the purple spikes on The Gruffalos back.
In art we made a 'scrambled snake' collage picture and then cut round and round the lines to make spirals which we displayed in class because we were so proud of them! Well done Pink Class!
Week 3- The Gruffalo visits the circus!
This week we have looked at the story of the Gruffalo and we took him to our circus in pink class. We have made Gruffalo collage faces, big top tents out of plates and even gave a clown a really cool hair do with paint and the hair dryer! In attention everyone, we saw Ashlee dress up as a clown with a funny wig and a red squashy nose, she had a yellow flower that we tried to look at but it was a trick and water came gushing out, we really enjoyed that one!
We completed our sensory Gruffalo story activity and sensology of getting bear to the moon and we sat super well! Pink class went to judo this week and did some fantastic moves that made us look like acrobats from a circus! We have made poppies by using textured tissue paper to make a collage to remember all of the fallen soldiers and also made a Pudsey bear art work to get involved and raise awareness for Children in Need.
The discovery park, adventure trail and the PE hall was a great place to practice our balancing and coordination just like the amazing circus friends! Another skill we have been practicing is sitting at the table for meal times and using a fork for some children and we have came on leaps and bounds within that so well done pink class, you are all superstars!
Week 4 - The Gruffalo visits the park!
We took the Gruffalo on an adventure to the park this week! We involved a lot of different elements and things that we usually see when we visit the park with our friends and families or in school.
In Attention Everyone we looked at the scrambled snake foam coming out of the tube which went SPLAT all across everyone, we looked at the spiky and squashy flashing balls that we could touch, catch and throw! Then we saw the slithering snake jump out of the tube and some of us were even able to anticipate the jump! Awesome work Pink class! We gathered all of the findings for in the garden and the discovery park to creak our 'woodland park', 'sand park' and our 'grass park' in our class tuff spots that we have been able to explore in building castles and wood huts for the animals.
We have been listening and turn taking in numeracy to share our love for numbers with our counting songs, next week we are going to introduce number tiles to match with our songs everyday. In art we used balls that we might take to the park, in a tray with paint of the colours of the sand and grass to ROLL, ROLL and ROLL until be made a cool marble effect painting, this is helping us to develop our gross motor skills on tipping, rolling and holding objects.
We have visited a play park on our educational visit to learn how to correctly utilise the equipment safely and also on to the adventure playground in school to practice our gross motor skills and hand eye coordination. In ICT we have engaged with lots of cause and effect toys, requesting for items to be plugged in and looking at what happens when we add power to something, what is the effect and Pink Class have tried extremely well with plugging in the fans, hair dryer, the moving dogs and more safely.
What a fantastic week Pink Class!
Week 5 - The Gruffalo visits the cinema!
This week we have had another fantastic week in Pink Class where we explored the Gruffalo heading to the cinema!
This week we have learned all about making popcorn, making cinema glasses, watching counting songs in the hobbit house like a little cinema screen , we tried the popcorn too! We then went a played on the discovery park.
In attention everyone we watched the clever duck machine create POP, POP POPPING sounds and spill out all the popcorn once it was ready , we used the cinema tickets from the tuff spot to make our golden ticket splat!
We have also really enjoyed judo, sensology, sensory story and cookery this week we used flour, sugar and water to make some cake mixture which was messy but we had lots of fun practicing our fine and gross motor skills. We created some extraordinary stained glass window effect snowflakes for our doors and windows in school to show all of our friends!
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Week 6 - The Gruffalo visits the aquarium
This week we have been super excited to be exploring the Gruffalo heading to the aquarium topic which has been full of lots of 'fishy' surprises!
At the start of the week we explored lots of inviting tuff spots where we were able to touch, smell, hear with our senses all of the crunchy paper, bobbing fish, musical animals that live in the see and squirting water out the top of the whales back!
In attention everyone we looked at the rattling fish, the swimming turtle and the spiky puffer fish ball that went BIG, small, BIG and small! on to phase 2 where we used blue, green and silver paint with a scraper to make BIG waves across the paper. In phase 3 we played 'fish rescue!' where we used the magnetic fishing rod to rescue the fish that were stuck on shaving foam mountains! We counted them 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5!
We have also leaned all about the Gruffalo's adventure through the forest this week through sensology, sensory story and story massage. Judo was great fun for our PE this week as well as circuits in the big hall to practice our gross motor skills.
We have also been beginning our Christmas cards to send home next week, we are so excited!
Well done Pink class :)
Week 7 & 8 - The Gruffalo visits Santa's grotto
We can't believe that it is almost time to break up for the Christmas holidays! In our last full week of school we have embraced the snowy weather and took the Gruffalo to 'Santa's grotto' this week and we will next week too. We have been sledging in the discovery park, exploring new textures in the snow, making it snow in Pink class with the cornflour mixture and we visited Santa too and got an early present, a fidget popper toy!
In other festive lessons around school we have enjoyed the Santa dash where we completed the obstacle course with some help and guidance to help Santa get all of the toys from the workshop into Santa's sleigh. We have been out on our educational visit this half term to Whitburn park where we have had a PSHE focus and looking at fastening our own seat belts on the bus and holding an adults hand while on outings. We have been working towards strengthening our gross motor skills when climbing and balancing on the equipment and learning to use it safely.
In class we have been reading stories together this term through the sensology and sensory story programmes which help to really bring the stories to life for the children. We have read 'The Gruffalo' and 'Whatever next!' We have extended our stores throughout the continuous provision in class and provided opportunities for table top activities to link in with our Gruffalo and Santa's grotto theme.
In Art this week we have made reindeer dust to take home as well as decorating a Christmas jumper online, sticking the suit on Santa game, making Christmas cards with snow globes on for our families and a robin stained glass window bauble.
Next week we will be engrossed in the full spirit of Christmas and learning all about Santa Claus, our movie and hot chocolate day, Christmas time and the SNOW!
We are so proud of each step that the children make and we can't wait to see what we can achieve in Spring term!
Pink Class wishes you a very Merry Christmas!
