Welcome to the Pelicans Class!
Staff
Teacher: Nic Smith, Joanne Tierney (Monday, Tuesday)
TAs: Kirsty Kelly Steph Grundy and Yvonne Gallagher
Mid Day Leader: Deborah Sellars
Newsletter
Ticket to Ride
Well this term and this academic year has absolutely flown by! We have finished the year with our topic of ‘Ticket to Ride’ which we have had some fun with.
We have enjoyed The Train Ride sensory story which went from sensory story to an immersive drama session… The children were seated aboard the ‘train’, given their tickets and when they train whistle blew and the noise of the steam train could be heard off they went on their journey passing by animals in fields, hot air balloons, birds and streams until arriving at their destination to be met by ‘Grandma’.
We have also enjoyed ‘Jump Aboard the Animal Train’ with music themed around ‘Walking Through the Jungle’. We used puppet animals and musical instruments to make the animal sounds – a drum for the elephant; shaker for the snake; and wooden block for the frog.
In Learning in Nature we have enjoyed riding the bikes on Jack’s Playground. We have also continued our Boccia sessions with the Ospreys and all continue to make progress throwing and rolling the balls and watching the ball to see where it goes.
We visited Spain for Languages Day, especially enjoying exploring the Spanish food and the visiting guitarist who played beautiful flamenco music for us to dance to. We have had Sports Week with the highlight being the Sports Day afternoon! Thank you to those parents who were able to join us for some races, you definitely got into the spirit!
As it is the end of the year we are sad to say two of our class mates are moving on to high school but we know they will both continue to shine their beautiful lights there too and we look forward to hearing about what they are getting up to!
Have a wonderful summer holiday everyone! Take care and we will see you in September!
The Pelicans
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
The following activities are suggested as appropriate homework activities which you can enjoy with your child and reinforce the learning we are focussing on this half term.
- Allow your child to make choices where suitable and encourage them to use their voice or signs as much as possible to make their preferred choice.
- Play two-way games and sing action rhymes, such as ‘Row the Boat’ or ‘Wind the Bobbin’ supporting your child to join in and participate, leave space to see if your child anticipates what comes next.
- Share songs and rhymes – such as Barefoot books on YouTube/ HelpKidzLearn/SuperSimple Songs; sing action songs and model the actions.
- Share stories – touchy feely books or stories that you can add silly noises and sound effects; share noisy books where you can press buttons and they make a noise.
- Carry out simple physio exercises such as stretches; watch children’s yoga videos on YouTube and try some simple postures and stretches.
- Explore and investigate with messy materials – mud, sand and water play, etc. Encourage them to explore with their hands and hide objects for them. Talk about how it feels, smells and sounds, etc.
- Play anticipation games such as ‘ready, steady, go…’ use bubbles and balloons.
- Go outside in all weather!
- Food play – explore dry and wet pasta, rice, lentils, etc… smell herbs and spices. Water play! Filling and pouring from containers! Add ice cubes – talk about the cold.
- Support your child to become as independent as possible – washing and drying hands, etc.
- Thank you for your continued support in helping your child to learn and make progress.
