Spring 1
Our topic this half term is
Off we go!
(Transport)
Below is our Medium term plan. Please take a look and see some of the things we will be doing. It also has a 'home' section on with some ideas that you can do with your child that link up to our topic. We'd love to see some photographs and hear all about your adventures! Please send any photos or updates through our school Dojo app.
This half term we have been learning all about different modes of transport and the people who use them. We broke our topic up and focused on a different thing each week. We looked at; week 1 aeroplanes, week 2 cars and trains, week 3 boats, week 4 tractors and farms, week 5 emergency service vehicles, week 6 rocket ships and space and in our final week we focused on love, families, friends and Valentine's Day.
Each week we themed our role play area and tuff spot trays to match the topic and we had lots of fun exploring them! We had building blocks, small world play including dolls, cars and trains. We had a role play police station with lots of technology resources, a role play hospital and a pirate treasure island with a treasure chest. During our space themed week we all loved the blackout tent with twinkly lights, the planet stepping stones and the 'galaxy' tuff spots filled with metallic objects, black rice, pom-poms and beanbag stars. We even had lots of big rocket ship cardboard boxes!
We have thoroughly enjoyed our transport themed Attention Everyone sessions. During our transport themed Sensology sessions we have been using our senses to;
*Look at a UV galaxy image using the UV torches
*Listen to a car horn
*Touch a real car steering wheel
*Smell a car air freshener
*Taste various fruit and vegetables from the farm, brought over on the tractor
Our Sensory Story has been 'fire engines'. This simple story is about what the fire fighters do when they are called out to a fire emergency. Each week we explored the props and learnt the matching Makaton sign. In the story we explored a fire engine toy, a helmet, a siren alarm, a hose pipe and a flashing light. We also watched the smoke appear as the icing sugar was stirred, got sprayed with water and took turns climbing up the ladder, just like the firefighters in the story. We worked on finding the matching prop independently from the box when shown either a symbol or a particular page in the book.
We have been very crafty in our Art, Write dance and Attention Everyone sessions. In our Write Dance sessions we practised pre-writing shapes including vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines, circles and crosses. We used these skills to write the initial letters of our names on our 'someone special' cards, on the small and large interactive whiteboards, on our hand made police badges and on our pirate treasure maps. We made some tinfoil handcuffs, footprint tractors, farm animal muddy footprint art, paper buses and aeroplanes with our photographs on, a large moon using various resources and sensory space rocket bottles. We had lots of fun creating fire artwork using tissue paper and paint and loved dressing up as firefighters to spray the fires out using the large twirly hose pipe! We 'milked the cow' using a rubber glove and made a large 'love potion' with bath bombs and flower petals. We enjoyed exploring natural resources with our small world play including real grass, soil, hay, sand, pebbles and shells.
During our fine/gross motor sessions we used large rollers to create big track marks and used tweezers to carfeully pick up peas and sweetcorn from the farm. Using playdough we made fingerprints and inspected them with magnifying glasses and we made some funny aliens.
In our Early Maths sessions we have been using vehicle props to count and order numbers to 10. We have been learning how to order numbers 10-1 then blasting off in the rocket ship! We parked the toy cars into numbered bays, categorised farm animals into pens and organised boats by colour. Using water spray bottles we found and sprayed random numbers when called out and worked on our positional language such as up in the air, under the tunnel, in the treasure chest. We made some 2D shape aeroplanes and built up rocket ships using 3D shapes.
In PE we enjoyed 'Fit for Fun' sessions with an outside provider called June. We worked hard on getting ourselves changed for PE as independently as we could and focused on turn taking and following instructions within the sessions. During our Teacher-led PE sessions we used various PE equipment to look at different modes of transport. For example we used the mat trolley as a bus, the scooter boards as cars and the parachute as a hot air balloon and a train.
We have continued to develop our sharing, turn taking and gross motor skills in areas around school such as the Ball pool, Discovery Park, Sensory room, Playground and also at the park during our Educational Outings each week. While out in the Hobbit House we enjoyed watching sparklers and singing transport themed songs.
Every morning we take part in our 'Welcome time'. This includes saying hello to our friends and looking at our feelings. We then look at the days of the week and the weather. We look out of the window and listen to an interactive weather song with torches for the sun, spray bottles for the rain, flour for the snow and a fan for the wind. After this we look at our topic for the week and learn how to sign relating words in Makaton. We then watch a short video or a song all about our topic on the whiteboard.
We have a Well-being, Preparing for Adulthood session every morning. This half term our focus was 'Hair care' with the hope of desensitisation and building up tolerance of hair care routines including washing, brushing, styling and cutting. We pretended to be at the barbers with a vibrating toy on our heads like a shaver, we listened to songs all about hair, we looked in the mirror and brushed and styled our hairs.
In Cookery this half term we made pizzas! We followed instructions to open and spread the tomato puree, grate and sprinkle the cheese, carefully put the pizza into the oven, wait and then cut and eat our pizzas. Each week we developed our skills and knowledge, learning skills for life and becoming more independent as time went on.
