Welcome to the Parrots Class!
Staff
Teacher: Emma Hamnett, Jack Hobson (Thursday, Friday)
TAs: Jack Hobson, Rachel Mitchell, Sam Bacon and Eve Aspinall
Mid Day Leader: Elaine McCreedy
Newsletter
On The Move
We want to start with a big WELCOME back to all our children in the Parrots class and their families. The children have all settled back into their routine exceptionally well. The children that have joined the Parrots from other classes or a different school have quickly become familiar with their new setting, and it has been fantastic for us to see them become increasingly more comfortable and happy within their classroom alongside their peers. Some significant interactions and positive relationships have formed with the staff in the Parrots class.
Our topic has been ‘On the Move’ this half term, and we have incorporated this into our learning activities. During one of our sessions, we used paint by rolling cars, balls, and giant rollers to make tracks and marks. The children also got ‘on the move’ by making colourful paint footprints by walking in the popping paper.
During our sensory food exploration sessions, the Parrots have focused on adding water or milk where appropriate to different cereals such as porridge, Weetabix or rice krispies. The children have been mixing and pouring using their cups, bowls and spoons whilst being encouraged to taste and explore the different textures that they have created. The children have progressed to choosing which cereal they want to put into their bowl independently.
Attention Autism is one of the Parrots’ favourite activities each day. The children enjoyed watching the pasta fall on the xylophone to create the musical rain. It was a highlight to watch them still their bodies, fix their gaze and anticipate with huge smiles during the hot chocolate splat; during these sessions, it is fantastic to see the progress in the children’s listening attention and independence skills.
We have also enjoyed being in nature whenever the weather has allowed, and exploring the jungle has created a very calm and peaceful experience for the children in the Parrots class.
A great start to an exciting year – well done, Parrots.
Signalong
At Kingfisher 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
Communication
- Making requests – give your child a choice from 2 objects throughout the day wherever possible. Make part of a toy available for your child to encourage them to bring it to you to ‘ask’ for the other part to play. Use photographs of food, objects, tv programs for your child to choose from. Place photographs of food or toys around the house for your child to bring to you to make requests.
- Intensive Interaction – copy the sounds, movements, and actions that your child makes and watch and wait to see how they respond when you mirror what they are doing.
- Recreate some of our Attention Autism activities such as – cars, musical rain or 5 little men in a flying saucer. Here are some you tube clips to help you – if you scroll along to the 2nd part of each of the videos you will see a demonstration of the 3 activities mentioned above:
Firework Pop
Hot chocolate splat
Sensory Exploration – rhymes and stories
- Watch some of the following stories and rhymes by searching on Super Simple Songs or You Tube. Create sensory experiences for your children to play along using ginger spice powder for sensory mark making, porridge for mixing, leaves that you can collect on an autumn walk, apples that you can cut, print with or eat for snack, or cloud snow dough (see recipe on Pintrest). The stories or rhymes that your child will be familiar with from their experiences at school are:
- The Gingerbread Man
- Goldilocks and the Three Bears
- 5 Little Leaves
- 5 Little Apples
- Frosty the Snowman
Exploration and Investigating
- Create some of the sensory materials that we will be using in class to explore and investigate. Here are the some of the recipe links on Pintrest:
Autumn Spice paint – https://theimaginationtree.com/autumn-spice-paints-recipe/
Autumn Sensory foam – https://www.learningandexploringthroughplay.com/2016/10/autumn-sensory-foam.html
Christmas Tree Sensory bag – https://www.giftofcuriosity.com/christmas-tree-sensory-bags/
Exploding Snowman – https://www.mombrite.com/the-exploding-snowman-science-experiment/
Looking after myself
- Focus on aspects of personal care such as brushing teeth and washing hands and support your child to develop their independence and skills
