Welcome to the Puffins Class!
Staff
Teacher: Georgia Jones
TAs: Carrie Ashworth, Carla Davies and Emma Hobin
Mid Day Leader: Charlene Harding
Newsletter
Food Glorious Food
Hello everyone,
The year is flying by, we are at the end of spring 2 already! We are so proud of the Puffins children for continuing to progress in lots of areas. This half term we been engaging in many exciting activities related to the topic ‘Food Glorious Food.’
In Early English, we explored the story ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar.’ The children enjoyed posting fruit into the caterpillar’s mouth! During phonics, we have been engaging in instrumental sounds, and some of us have been sounding out letters in the alphabet. The children enjoyed exploring books during relevant reading time. We have continued our individual English and communication work and engaged with Move and Mark sessions. During stage 3 Attention Autism bucket time sessions, the children have shown great turn-taking and acceptance that they may not always get a turn. In Early Maths, we have continued to work towards our individual targets.
During well-being sessions, we have had fun using foot spas and holistic massages; the Puffins were making lots of happy noises when accessing the foot spa! We are becoming very independent during daily teeth brushing and hand washing.
During food discovery we have been using a knife and fork to cut up fruit and make fruit kebabs! Some of us enjoyed tasting the fruit.
In I Wonder, we had fun exploring various key events, including Red Nose Day activities, Mother’s Day cards, exploring colours to celebrate Holi, Languages Day, where we visited Asia creating flags and smelling spices, exploring Eater activities, and creating Eid cards.
We have continued to enjoy shared area spaces, including soft play, shared play, Jack’s playground, and the halls.
We hope you have a lovely break,
Puffins Class Team.
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
- Mirror what I do – sounds, facial expressions, body language. This will support your child’s communication.
- Give your child lots of opportunities to make choices and requests at home. Please get in touch with me via Seesaw if you would like any symbols to support this. Exchanging symbols is a great step forward in communicating your wants and needs. Always model language e.g. ‘I want drink.’ – Please let me know if you would like play boards to support communication at home
- This term, we are exploring the stories, ‘The Journey Home from Grandpa’s’ Can your child point to vehicles, Can your child sign the colour?
- You can listen to the story here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKcrsv_t8Ko
- Early Maths, can your child match pairs of socks, can your child sort items around the house into big and small. Can your child make a den using household items?
- Explore and play with different toys (noisy toys, bubbles, light up toys, balloons, and encourage the sign more, again, fast and slow – Please reach out if you would like any videos of sign-a-long sending home
- This term, we are exploring ‘dance’.
- Listen to different styles of music.
- Can your child copy simple, child-friendly action videos?
- One of our favourite action songs we like to move to in the puffins is ‘Walking in the Jungle’ You can listen to it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoSq-yZcJ-4
- Explore different types of food in a fun way! Can your child help to make their own drink? Can your child mix wet and dry foods? The messier, the better!
- Encourage you child with their self-help skills and hygiene routine. We like to listen to a song in the Puffins.
Practice washing your hands: Sesame Street: Washy Wash Song | How to Wash Your Hands – YouTube
Practice brushing teeth: Brush Your Teeth | Kids Song | Finny The Shark – YouTube
Please access any of the activities suggested here or on the Medium-Term plan. If you need any more support or ideas, please send a message via Seesaw. We love to know about the learning that goes on at home! Let us know how you get on via Seesaw. Enjoy and have fun learning!
Puffins will be swimming on a Thursday afternoon, please can you make sure that your child has got their swimming kit in on that day.
