Columbia Grange School

Autumn 2

Welcome back to a new half term. 

This half term, Forest Class has a new topic of Celebrations. We'll be doing activities related to Halloween, Bonfire Night, Remembrance Day, Diwali, Hanukkah and Christmas. Our Attention Everyone lessons will also link to these celebrations. We will be looking at time and shape in maths this half term, learning the days of the week and the months of the year as well as the order they come in. Some of us will be able to say what day it was yesterday and what day it will be tomorrow. 

Our weekly sensory stories will also be linked to our topic this half term, starting with Room on the Broom for Halloween. We're also going to start our cookery lessons to help us with following instructions and preparing our life skills. This term we are also going swimming as part of our PE lesson. 

HORRIFIC HALLOWEEN

For Halloween, we loved getting dressed up! We celebrated by going on a sweet hunt, wearing spooky outfits and making scary pictures. We made silhouette pumpkins and witch's hats, and also made tissue paper mummies. In maths, we learned about 2D shapes and we even made a witch out of the different shapes, using rectangles for her hair, squares for her eyes and a triangle for her hat and nose. In science, we watched an experiment with a pumpkin- it was so much fun watching it bubble and fizz. 

BEAUTIFUL BONFIRE NIGHT

For Bonfire Night, we got to explore the different fireworks that we can hear. We watched Sam light a sparkler in the garden, but we stayed very far away so we could be safe. We made firework art by cutting up cardboard tubes and dipping them in paint. In Attention Everyone, we used straws to blow paint around a page to look like fireworks. 

REMEMBRANCE DAY 

This week we have been learning about Remembrance Day and why we do it. In class, we built sentences related to Remembrance in our Colourful Semantic lessons. We also painted some poppies onto rocks and then went on a trip to Seaham to see Tommy the Solider and to put our rocks down at the cenotaph. 

DIWALI

This week we learned all about Diwali- the Festival of Lights. We read a story about how people celebrate Diwali. We made Rangoli patterns using powder paint. We also made paper plate diva lamps in Attention Everyone and used cotton buds and special paint to make mehndi patterns on card hands. 

HANNUKAH

This week we learned all about Hannukah. We practised our fine motor skills by making a cut and stick menorah, counting the candles as we stuck them on. We made chocolate dreidels using a marshmallow and pretzels and dipping them in chocolate- we loved tasting them. In ICT we painted a menorah on the interactive whiteboard, choosing different colours for the different candles. This week we also went on a trip to a football pitch where we had a brilliant time playing with the footballs, having races and picking up cones. 

THE JOLLY POSTMAN

This week we started the countdown to Christmas and in doing so we read the book The Jolly Postman. In Sensory Story we followed the Postman on his journey, delivering letters to different fairy tale characters. We pretended to be a witch, we poured pretend tea for the postman and we tried gingerbread and jelly just like Goldilocks had at her party! In maths, we delivered numbered letters to the right houses to work on our number recognition. In literacy, we wrote our letters to Santa, using symbols and toy catalogues to help us make our choices. Once we'd written our letters, we put a stamp on the envelope and posted them to Santa in Reindeerland! We hope they got there in time and Santa knows what we want! We also had a Christmas post office set up in the classroom for us to play with. We had a brilliant time decorating the Christmas tree for the classroom and each of us had a turn hanging the baubles on the branches and wrapping the tinsel around it. 

SAY HELLO TO THE SNOWY ANIMALS

This week, the book we looked at was called Say Hello to the Snowy Animals. We got to meet different winter animals and hear the noises they made! Seals make a very loud honking noise! When we got into the classroom, we found that all of the animals had gotten frozen in some ice and that we needed to save them! We used different tools (and some salt) to try and break them free! We did lots of art this week, make polar bears and snowy owls for our winter display outside of our classroom. We also made our salt dough gingerbread men tree decorations to take home for Christmas. We put cinnamon in the saltdough mixture to give it that wonderful smell then once they were cooked we drew the faces and buttons on. It was a busy week this week as we had our Christmas Party and our Parent Stay and Play where we did sensology, tasting ice cream and smelling stinky fish! We also got to decorate melted snowman biscuits, make reindeer dust and reindeer hot chocolate cones with our family! We were all so brilliant!  

THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS 

It's our final week at school before Christmas and we are definitely excited for Santa coming! This week we have made our Christmas Cards for our family, using watercolour paints to paint baubles and then adding sequins. We typed up our messages inside on the computer with help from Karley and Laura. We made calendars to use all of next year too. We had a sensory story about the Night Before Christmas and did sensology where we got to feel a soft Christmas stocking and taste mint candy canes! On our educational visits, we've been to feed the deer at Richardson's Park last week and we went to Clay's Garden Centre to see the Christmas decorations. We even had some juice and biscuits in the cafe. On our final afternoon before Christmas we watched a film with hot chocolate and popcorn. 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from all of us here in Forest Class. 
See you in 2024!