Welcome to the Bluebirds Class! 



Staff

Teacher: Lisa Garside

TAs: Tracey Ferguson, Aimee Nutt, Pam Seers and Rhoni Montgomery

Mid Day Leader: Suzanne Barnsley


Newsletter

Food Glorious Food

This half-term the Bluebirds have been exploring our topic ‘Food Glorious Food’. We have been listening to the story ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ in our Early English sessions and have created some lovely art work in our follow-up activities.

We have continued to develop our skills in Early Maths, we have been feeding our hungry caterpillar by posting fruit counters into his mouth. We have worked on making big and small caterpillars out of the duplo bricks and we have been perfecting our filling and emptying skills. We have been looking at identifying the full and empty containers whilst doing this. 

In Food Discovery we have been exploring different fruits and salads, touching and smelling them before working on our cutting skills. We have used child safe knives to push into the food before pressing down to cut. After cutting we have enjoyed a taste. We have finished the half term making fruit kebabs. 

This half term we have celebrated World Book Day, the Bluebirds dressed up as their favourite characters and we enjoyed lots of activities based on the ‘Teletubby Books’ these included colour matching, colouring, sensory exploration and of course looking at and reading books.

We have also celebrated Red Nose Day, we designed red noses, painted noses onto our photographs, made red nose biscuits, danced and explored red sensory materials. We especially liked exploring the pink shaving foam and red jelly!

We have finished the half term celebrating Easter. We have enjoyed an Easter egg hunt and have had a visit from the Easter Bunny. We have designed our own Easter eggs, made cakes and tasted some hot cross buns.

This half term we have also been working hard on identifying the weather, during register time we take turns to look outside and see what the weather is like today. We look at the sky to see if it is raining, sunny, cloudy or snowing and then choose the weather symbol form a choice of four. We got very excited when we had a sunny day!

After a very busy half term we are ready for the Easter holidays and enjoying some chocolate, hopefully we will see some more sunny days as we start the Summer term. 


Signalong

At Halcyon Way we use Signalong as a part of a Total Communication Approach, we are constantly using core vocabulary with the children to support their language development and then through each of our topics we introduce new signs and language, which extends their vocabulary further. We also have two “Signs of the Week” which helps maintain and extend key knowledge and skills of everyday vocabulary.

Each half term we will be creating a short video showcasing and demonstrating signs relavent for the current term so that you can learn the signs and further this learning at home.

Click play to watch this half terms Signalong video!


Lunchtime

If your child has a school dinner, the school menus can be accessed by clicking here. For children who bring a packed lunch, please remember to provide healthy and balanced options. We are a Healthy School and will be focusing on healthy eating and how children can make healthy lifestyle choices.


How You Can Help at Home

The following activities are suggested as appropriate homework activities which you can enjoy with your child and reinforce the learning we are focusing on this half term. Our topic this half term is ‘Food Glorious Food’.

  • Ask them to tell you about the stories they are learning this half term – ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’
  • Read books together and encourage your child to turn the page and hold the book the right way up. Look at pictures in books and encourage your child to find/identify/name objects on the page – how to care for books, no bending, ripping, eating
  • Encourage your child to independently explore toys, use hand-under-hand support to encourage if needed – encourage your child to take the lead in play with you repeating what they do
  • Practice topic related signs and use symbols – these can be found on the school website
  • Encourage your child to communicate their needs using their preferred means, e.g. spoken words, gesture, sign or symbols – if you need any symbols to use at home please let us know
  • Encourage your child to count and hear number names, singing number songs, look at numbers 1-5 – use mathematical language e.g. one plus one more equals two
  • Talk about the weather when outside and looking out of the window – experience different weather
  • Encourage your child to develop their self-help skills by feeding themselves, washing own hands and faces, taking own shoes and coats off, can your child get their own coat/bag when asked
  • Encourage your child to cut own foods/playdough using a child safe knife, using a cutting motion, applying pressure to cut
  • Encourage and allow your child to try new things independently, let them make safe mistakes and tell them it is ok to make them – Most importantly have fun and remember that play is learning!
  • Encourage your child to tidy up after themselves – we play the Clean Up song at tidy up time – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFl8LWN-xlA&list=OLAK5uy_mPlneeXDMNOTqKJwvKOJkpnwif3_l_6kA

Useful links

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ENSjcMhzwY – Wake up Shake up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffeZXPtTGC4 – Phonics Song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQMr_XY7IEM – Brushing Teeth Song


Useful Links


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