Welcome to the Puffins Class! 

Staff

Teacher: Georgia Jones

TAs: Carrie Ashworth and Carla Davies

Mid Day Leader: Charlene Harding

Newsletter

Earth, Wind and Fire

Hello everyone, 

WOW! The Puffins have enjoyed a super busy term! We have welcomed Carla into the Puffins team and have made a great relationship with her. The children have continued to practice transitioning around the school appropriately, including ‘good walking’ where we have been taking our time walking around school. We have had lots of fun exploring ‘Earth, Wind and Fire’ activities in a variety of environments indoors and outdoors. 

In one of our Early English sessions this half term we have been exploring the story and song ‘What a Wonderful World’. We enjoyed singing the song whilst exploring vegetables that are grown in our wonderful world. We had fun bringing our cookery (understanding of the world) skills into our creative development sessions by chopping vegetables and painting with them. We have also continued our Move and Mark sessions, practicing arches and other writing patterns to support our hand writing. Some of us have been practicing matching symbols to our name or writing name’s independently. 

In Maths we have been practicing number ordering skills, some of us have been working on simple addition skills during our 1:1 work. We have also been looking at exchange where we have exchanged a coin for a snack of during role play of shopping. This has been very exciting and allowed the children to make choices.

In Understanding of the World this half term we have explored plants and animals you may see in spring. We have practiced naming animals including the name, colour and using sign-a-long to label the animals. We had lots of fun celebrating St Patricks Day by looking at the colour green and practicing our Irish dancing! Dressing up as our favourite character from a book. Celebrating the religious festival Holi, we joined in with powered paint throwing. We made Red Nose inspired biscuits for Comic Relief. On Languages Day we took a virtual trip to France where we listened to French café music and ate some traditional foods including croissant, baguettes, quiche and cheese. In the final weeks of term we have been searching for the Easter bunny and exploring Easter activities- this has been so much fun! 

In Creative Development we have looked at activities related to our theme ‘Earth, Wind and Fire’ including mud play, nature soup, water play, fire engines, fire colours and practicing our fine motor skills when making wind socks. We had fun colouring in our Mother’s Day cards. We have also been practicing our chopping and peeling skills and have made some fruit kebabs in our Food Discovery sessions!

We have built up confidence in our Rebound Therapy sessions and are working really hard to try new positions! The adults have noticed a positive improvement with our listening and attention skills during and following our trampoline session. 

We are excited for next term where we will continue to build on our skills and partake in different activities in line with the new theme ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’  

Have a lovely break! The Puffins team. 

Follow along with this half term’s Signalong video!

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

  • Copy what I do – sounds, facial expressions, body language. This will support your child’s communication. 
  • Allow lots of opportunities for your child to make request and make choices at home. Exchanging symbols is a great way towards communicating your child’s wants and needs, please always model the language for your child. Please contact me if you would like any symbols to support this at home. 

Can you child say or sign what is coming next? Can they point to key parts in the story? E.g. ‘where is Pete?’ What colours can you see? What animals do you notice?

  • Our focus on Understanding of the World will be noticing the seasonal changes – go on a nature walk. Can you find any plants or flowers? What colours can you find? What animals or insects can you spot? What is the weather like? How does it make them feel?
  • Explore nature through play including leaves, sticks, and flowers. Notice what it feels like, can your child say or sign the texture. Can you make a kite out of sticks, string and a plastic bag?
  • Practice you name, you can try this by using spoken words, signing, writing or ordering/matching letters in your name. 

Can your child show numbers on their hand? Model numbers throughout the day whilst with your child e.g. counting up your stairs, counting teddies/toys, chopping food during teatime and counting how many pieces you have etc.

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 Friday afternoon, please can you make sure that your child has got their swimming kit in on that day

Useful Links

This Half Terms Learning Activities Timetable
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