We have had a wonderful start to the new academic year and it has been fantastic to witness the Squirrels settling in so well and showing so much curiosity and enthusiasm at the start of the next stage of their academic journey. Whilst it has been a short first week, that hasn’t slowed us down! We have been extremely busy drawing, building and working hard in the Squirrels’ cafe.
The highlight of the week however has been the introduction of our three pet fish, Tango, Bubbles and Pancake to the classroom. The fish have proved to be a huge hit with the children and they have loved feeding them and watching them move around the tank, even using magnifying glasses to get a closer look!
We have enjoyed the last of the nice weather and have been having bounds of fun in the Outdoor Learning Environment. The Squirrels have been putting their fine motor skills back to work by balancing and pouring using water and various sized containers. We have also spent a lot of time working as a group to carefully plant the new plants and discussing what we will need to do to properly care for them.
A big highlight of our week was our first Outdoor Learning Morning. We were extremely proud of the focus, concentration and listening skills demonstrated by the children as we walked to and from Tooting common and they did an excellent job of spotting numbers on buses and identifying people who helped us along the way. The children were equally as brilliant when we got to our destination and enjoyed searching for bugs and balancing on logs. In our Focus Time activity we continued to develop our fine motor skills through pegging various objects onto our makeshift washing line strung between the trees before working together to count how many pegs we had on the line.
During our Focus Times this week we have been discussing the children’s holiday news and emotions, specifically focusing on how the children feel now that they are Squirrels. It was wonderful to hear responses such as “I feel proud” and “I feel excited.”
This week we also participated in Sports, where we developed our ball skills through throwing the ball through the hoop. In Music we started learning songs for our upcoming Harvest festival and the children had their first Spanish session which they found highly exciting as they were given the opportunity to learn greetings and the different types of weather through songs, dance and games.