Term 2
Week 4
It’s getting closer…….yes , next week we are saying goodbye to November and hello to December – we are talking Christmas and MAGIC!
We are still (trying to) following our daily routines and learning, yet we can feel the excitement growing with the children (and staff!) Talk is usually about Christmas trees, Santa and presents! It is so easy to see why this is such a magical time of year……and there will be a lot more magic happening next week……the children will be in for a surprise on Wednesday morning…..I will say no more (yet).
This week, myself and Mrs Langford enjoyed a webinar entitled The Magic of Children and How to Find it led by Greg Bottrill (I have to secretly admit that perhaps I was a little star struck having read and been inspired by some of his books, I was rather excited to ‘meet’ and hear his ideas ‘face to face’). He left us with what seemed like hundreds of ideas that we could develop further to really get that magical learning instilled in our classroom all year round.
One of the ideas was to ‘rebrand’ our areas, instead of having carpet time, welcome the children to the Kingdom of the Carpet. We tried it and oh my goodness – what an instant reaction we had, the children suddenly wanted to be Kings and Queens and Knights and Princes and Princesses….they wanted crowns and suits of armour and could not get into the junk modelling area quick enough to design and make the necessary accessories! Levels of collaboration, Oracy and engagement went through the roof!
Another idea was to create a secret message book – again, the high levels of engagement were instantaneous. We had a small scrap book, masking tape and felt pens and whoosh they were off – independently cutting the tape, mark making, creating secret combination codes with numbers and letters and talking to each other about their codes!
We will be introducing a few more of Greg Bottrill’s ideas over the next coming weeks and months - just like the children, we too get really excited when we learn new things.
In other areas…..the Nativity performance is taking shape, carols are being sung, children are learning their lines, adding in extra bits and some have even cast themselves – they make it look so easy! I am sure there were a few tired eyes on Friday evening having watched The Jungle Book at The Watermill Theatre. Perhaps The Watermill’s production along with the Nativity production will have inspired some to become future actors – again, there is something magical about experiencing a live performance.
Below is one of the carols we have been learning in class, it would be fantastic if you could sing this at home too.
As well as lots of talk about Christmas, one of the most popular topics of discussion in Robins is pets. I feel I know so much about your pets already, Mr Wigglebottom, Tank, Snakey, Vinny, Boris etc – I feel like they are part of the class. What this does mean though, is that the children are interested in sharing talk about things that matter to them, therefore, we would like to dedicate this week’s Show and Tell on Thursday to PETS. Please send in or upload photos/videos to Teams (you will need to log into your child’s account)– there is a folder in the ASSIGNMENTS section called PETS – SHOW AND TELL 02.12.2021 – the more contributions we have the more enriching the session so please feel free to add as many photos as you can – I think the limit is 10 – go for it! If you don’t have a pet then we would love to see a favourite teddy.
Enjoy the rest of this very cold weekend……it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas (yes I am singing).
See you on Monday