Week commencing 16th November - Westmeston

This week our focus has been reading. We have looked at the letters of the alphabet and the children have tried to spot letters from their names.

During the week, we have read some of our favourite books. Whilst reading ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’, we were able to act out the story with felt props. It was fun finding the correct pieces and then taking the beautiful butterfly out of its cocoon.

We also read Supertato (which the children thought was very funny) and decorated pictures of the main character.

During Miss Matthews’ music lesson, we sang the story of ‘Going On a Bear Hunt’ whilst looking at the book. We all enjoyed joining in with the actions and making the sounds of the story – squelch, squerch, splash, splosh!

During our Forest School session with Paulina, we learnt all about different types of deer. Paulina even had some deer antlers which had been shed and the children were able to hold and examine them. They were very heavy! The children made little stick reindeer characters using tools to whittle the bark and pens to decorate the faces. They then had some help to tie stick antlers onto their animals. What a lot of skills they used!

Paulina then led us all in a wonderfully active game. We had two teams, the squirrels and the deer, and she had put out lots of golf balls which we pretended were acorns. The two teams then competed to see who could collect the most acorns for winter! There was a lot of running around and laughing. We also practised our numbers as we counted the buckets of ‘acorns’ at the end!

Finally we worked as a team to build a shelter. Paulina showed us how to use three Y shaped sticks to make a base. We then added smaller sticks and branches. We tested to see if the shelter was waterproof by putting our hands under it whilst Paulina poured on water. It definitely wasn’t waterproof yet! So the children were then shown how to add dried leaves up the sides of the shelter. After lots of leaf collecting, we tested it again and no water got through! The shelter made a lovely little house for our reindeer characters!

On Wednesday, the children had fish and potatoes for lunch and Mrs Irwin showed them how to prepare a whole fish. It was interesting to see the process and the bones of the fish. The children were very keen to touch it!

We made a new batch of play dough this week and our little helpers enjoyed measuring and mixing the ingredients. The children chose which colours they would like as each day's group will have a different colour to keep them separate. They kneaded the food colouring into the warm, soft dough - it felt lovely! The children had a great time playing with it when it was ready!

We also made masks this week. The children were able to choose which animal they wanted and then decorated them. The teachers helped to tie some elastic on to the masks. The children had lots of fun role playing as the animals - it was a noisy hall for a while!

There has been some lovely shared play in the garden this week with children helping each other and working as a team. This is a developmental step that we really enjoy seeing: children learning to play with one another rather then playing alongside them.

We went on an adventure for our Friday walk this week as we headed up the mountain! All of the children showed great stamina as they climbed up the steep, muddy path. What a wonderful time we had at the top as we explored the slopes, climbed trees and enjoyed our snack.