Autumn 1
The Clever Kittens have now settled well into their exciting adventures of school life at Redscope.
Our first topic theme has been ‘This is Me’ and we explored all about our feelings through the book ‘The Colour Monster’. Every day as the children come into class they find their photograph and place it on a particular Colour Monster depending how they feel.
We learnt about the Artist, Andy Warhol and painted our face and hands in the Artist’s pop-art style using bright colours. Children were able to show different emotions in their paintings such as happiness and sadness.
We asked the Clever Kittens to bring a photograph of their family and pets into school to put into our floor book. We spent time with children encouraging them to talk about their photos and memories they have about their family.
We looked in the mirror and used our fine manipulative skills, tools and techniques to create our own portrait with clay. They are all mounted on display in our classroom, but don’t worry, they will be coming home.
To launch the beginning of our home school library and celebrate our first few weeks in Clever Kittens, we invited parents/carers to join us for a Booknic. Families brought a blanket and joined us either in the classroom or on the Clever Kittens field to share many wonderful stories and choose their first library book.
We went on an autumn walk to Barker’s Park. On our walk we had the opportunity to notice different aspects of the outdoor environment in our local area and changes in the season. We found brown, orange, red leaves, conkers, acorns and all natural materials we could use to create an autumn collage. We also had a ‘listening moment’ to listen for sounds around us whilst walking in the woods. We tried to name and describe the sounds we heard to help us in our phonics learning. We could hear the birds tweeting and the wind making the leaves on the trees rustle. We used our senses to notice different sights, sounds and smells.
We had Stay, Play and Learn sessions to welcome our parents/carers into our classroom environment and to show them what we have been learning. We used our beautiful autumn foliage and treasures we had gathered whilst we were out exploring on our walk to create an autumn collage. It was a terrific way for our young children to combine art and nature. For the background of our collages, we used a painting technique called – Smoosh painting! (Children blended and mixed colours together with their hands on top of the cling film). It is a wonderful way for children to observe what happens when certain colours blend and it is a lovely sensory experience. The most amazing part was having our parents/carers in the classroom and seeing everyone together!
This half term, we used ‘Talk for Writing’ to narrate a non-chronological report about ‘How to keep your teeth clean and healthy’. Vocabulary Cat helped us to learn new vocabulary and the meaning of new words singing our Word Rap and clapping the syllables in the words. This inspiration came from a special visit from the Dentist and Dental Nurses from Kimberworth Dental Practice to teach us how to look after our teeth. We now know that we should brush our teeth twice a day for two minutes, after breakfast and before going to bed. We also need to eat healthily to keep our teeth healthy and visit the Dentist regularly.
We celebrated TT Rockstars day by being ‘Super Subitisers’. Children began their learning journey of subitising (the ability to instantly recognise the number of objects in a small group without the need to count them). We were able to be super subitisers using conkers, pinecones and other resources. Through number rhymes, e.g. 5 Little Monkeys, we talked about simple addition and subtraction and how the number grew bigger when we added and smaller when we subtracted/took monkeys away.
As part of the preparations for the schools Pumpkin Patch event, we had a great time building our scarecrow. Clever Kittens used material felt tips to create green and yellow checks on the shirt. They made a paper mache head, stuck on two googly eyes and stuffed the scarecrow with straw. See if you can spot it on the school field.
What a busy half term! Please look at the photographs of our first adventures.
