The Summer term has come to an end. Our pupils and teaching staff have had great fun whilst busily exploring their specific, themed curriculum. Let’s have a quick review of what pupils at each year group have learned in the last a few months.
EY1
The child is made of one hundred.
The child has a hundred languages
a hundred hands
a hundred ways of thinking, of playing and speaking.
A hundred
Always a hundred
ways of listening
of marveling, of loving
a hundred joys
for singing and understanding
a hundred worlds to discover
The Hundred Languages of Children, Reggio Emilia
Throughout the theme
The Very Hungry Caterpillar, EY1 pupils had many opportunities to create their very own caterpillar using imagination, creativity and a plentiful supply of arts and craft materials. In the gym, children used pool noodles to pretend they were a caterpillar and that they were chasing teachers and friends. they also used plastic beads on a thread to make small wiggly caterpillars. Some children chose to use wooden sticks to draw them on sand and others choose scissors and craft paper to cut a long caterpillar.
As the Very Hungry Caterpillar eats quite a lot on the pages of the book, we arranged activities such as tasting different types of flavoured water. We added small amounts of lemon, salt, sugar, vinegar in water so children had the opportunity of tasting and describing the flavour to the teachers and their friends. They compared the taste to the food on the pages, such as "the strawberry is also sweet", "the pickle is sour" and "salami is salty". Spices were also available for smelling and the children added them to playdough, water and flour and they used the mixes in the play kitchen for cooking.
Our little EY1s had great fun when we had ‘dress up as food’ day! Pupils had the opportunity to review the vocabulary, numbers, and the days of the week.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar theme was full of exciting activities and events, that also included Art Week. During this time, we learned about recycling and we built our very own little Shanghai using recycled materials such as boxes, cardboard tubes and milk cartons.
Parents were invited to participate in their child's nursery life as we had Stay and Play sessions. Children shared their experiences with parents. They made art work, they sang together and enjoyed a very pleasant afternoon.
EY2
A Squash and a Squeeze is a story about a woman who believes that her house is too small. As we all do when we feel unsatisfied about something, so she went to see a wise elder for advice. The man suggests that the woman bring various animals from outside such as the hen, the cow, the pig and a plethora of other animals inside. The woman does as the wise old man suggests and to her dismay, the animals create a stir; some break furniture, others get in the way and the result is total chaos in the home.
The woman then begins the slow yet inevitable process of letting all the animals go back into the yard where they belong. After all the animals have gone, the house is empty, and the woman realises that her house is not so small after all. The moral of this story, in turn, is that it is best to appreciate what we have while we have it. And yet another message in this story is that everything has its place and when we have placed everything in the correct order, all will be well in the end.
What better way to teach children about appreciation than to have them build their own houses? That is exactly what we did in EY2. The pupils had the opportunity to build a house using boxes and decorative materials. The children also had the opportunity to learn about different kinds of houses such as those made from bricks and wood.
Following on this, the pupilslearned about the life cycle of different animals such as caterpillars and frogs. This enabled the children to learn about the significance and preciousness of life. They were simply amazed when they saw real tadpoles make their stunning transformations into their more mature forms. The children were equally surprised by watching a time lapsed video of a seed turn into a plant.
After learning about the cycle of life, the pupils in EY2 had the opportunity to nurture it. Using a cornucopia of seeds from roses and melon to strawberries and grass, we created grass heads using cups, soil, water, sunlight and a lot of care. The children saw to it that the plants were watered every day and after a month, we had cups filled with grass and fresh, organic strawberries out in the EY2 garden to eat. From this, we learned another lesson about the importance of appreciation. When we take care of the things that we value, they grow, become bigger and stronger and bear fruit. We thus benefit from taking responsibility and showing appreciation for the things that we have.
Through this story, we also supported the pupils to discuss different characters from other stories. Some children admired the monkey king because they thought he could do everything well. Others liked Spiderman because they thought he was brave and helpful. We then had the children create their own character using paint and other materials to decorate shirts. These characters would be unique for each individual child with their own special talents and gifts. In the end, the pupils took part in a catwalk where they could show others the special character clothes that they had designed. Each child had the opportunity to talk about their character’s talent. From this activity, the children learned the importance of risk taking, how to have courage and that characters in stories can inspire us to solve problems.
In conclusion, through this theme, pupils learned about the life cycles of animals and plants. Furthermore, they started to learn to value and cherish the resources that they have. They also learned about different kinds of houses and understood space (in terms of size: big and small, tall and short and shape). Moreover, the children had the opportunity to reflect on the importance of the meaning of the story: reality doesn’t change; however, sometimes our mind changes.
EY3
The Summer term has come to an end. Our children and teaching staff have had great fun whilst busy exploring our themed curriculum. Let’s have a quick review of what pupils in the EY3 group have learned in the last a few months.
Baby Beluga in the deep blue sea,
You swim so wild and you swim so free,
Heaven above and the sea below,
And a little white whale on the go.
These were the words our EY3 pupils were singing way back in April as we prepared them for a term of exploring under the sea. Before we dived beneath the waves, we looked at what was around us along the shores and beaches. We began our topic learning the story ‘Sharing a Shell’. The children made the characters from the story and then used their puppets to retell the story through shadow theatre. We looked closely at different shells and noticed the colours and patterns before making our own out of salt dough. The children also used shells to make beautiful wind chimes.
Following this, we took a look beneath the waves and began learning about the creatures that live there. For World Environment Day we discussed the pollution in our oceans, how it affects the wildlife that lives there and what we can do to help. The children got involved in clearing all the rubbish from our beach themed sand tray. The children looked at the differences between the animals in the sea and learned how to tell a fish and a mammal apart. We looked at how they breathe and how they swim, left and right or up and down. We discussed what would happen in a competition between a great white shark and a killer whale and who would win!
The children had great fun making submarines for our role play area, as each class decorated their own. We learned the names of the different sea creatures we might find and how they protect themselves from predators. The pupils used their arts and craft skills to make some of these animals including turtles, jellyfish, sharks, seahorses and starfish. The children then carried on the idea of being in a submarine by making a porthole picture using their own photo.
The pupils really enjoyed exploring the different creatures that live under the sea and then carried this into their play in many areas of the setting.
Building on what pupils already knew about the different animals in the sea, we moved on to look at ocean food chains. Many species of life in the ocean are dependent on others for their survival. We had touched on this slightly with our opening text where the hermit crab, bristle worm and anemone all worked together to help each other survive. Exploring this further the children were very curious to find out how a starfish could eat a clam and how crabs can eat a starfish. We also learned about the parrot fish who eats the rocky coral and poops out sand!
As the pupils surfaced from fathoms below, we reflected on all the amazing creatures we had encountered on our adventure of exploration.
EY4
EY4 pupils have had a fabulous term using our imaginations! We’ve read stories, created junk models, painted pictures, demonstrated our acting skills and even created our own characters!
The children really became inspired by the stories ‘Not A Stick’ and ‘Not A Box’ and created some fantastic pieces of junk modelling. Some worked with their friends and others worked independently to turn every day used items into something new. We encouraged all the children to use the language from the books to describe their new designs – “It’s not a … it’s a …!”
We used the story of ‘The Three Little Pigs’ to do some role play and the children loved creating their own houses out of straw, sticks and bricks – we had to make sure they were strong enough to stand up on their own! We changed the story a little to create our own characters and even had a go at writing our own stories.
