Author: Amy Dunnett

Making Bird Feeders with Room 2

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Bird Feeders

Aa part of our topic ‘Up in the air’ everyone in Room 2 worked together to make some simple bird feeders out of Cheerios.

We then hung them outside on the small trees in our class area and have been enjoying looking out the window at them trying to spot some birds.

Sadly we haven’t seen many birds but hopefully more will come to visit us.

A Messy Child is a Happy Child with Room 4

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A messy child is a happy child. 

We learn so much through making a mess in room 4! We have been making play dough and the children love being a part of the process and investigating all of the different ingredients needed. We learn lots of maths skills such as measuring and counting. 

We have also had lots of fun making marks during messy play with foam and food colouring. Being able to make marks helps us to develop our early literacy skills. 

We also decorated some biscuits just before Valentine’s day for some messy fun! During this activity we were learning to share resources and space with our peers. 

Up in the Air with Room 5

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In Room 5 we have been taking part in science experiments for our ‘Up in the air’ topic. We used a switch-adapted hair dryer to blow ping pong balls covered in paint across paper. The results look amazing! Then we tried to keep balloons in the air using the hair dryer. Lots of fun!

3, 2, 1 … Blast Off!

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Since returning to school after the new year, we have been exploring our new theme of flight with the story “Space Song Rocket Ride”.  (We’ve shown such fabulous engagement that we’re going to extend this story for another week!)

We’ve listened to the story being read, supported with story massage, and used aided language boards to develop our communication around the story.  Some of us have been learning to focus our visual attention in the direction of the symbols, others tapping them on the sheet, and some of us saying the words shown!

We’ve role-played a rocket launch, with our seats moving as we prepare for blast off!  We’ve then explored music and movement recreating the main movement from the story – spinning!

We’ve explored our early listening skills with related songs, exploring reacting to familiar sounds and showing recognition of rhythm and in some cases understanding some of the words – blast off!!

We’ve had space themed bucket times too.  For stage one we’ve had foam rockets, popping aliens and a flying ball zooming into space over our heads!  Stage two we had three little men in a flying saucer with balloons, and the balloons flew off as each little man decided to fly away!  Stage three however was a clear favourite – zoom, zoom, zoom, with a rocket ride on a wheelie chair!

(Resources for many of these activities can be found on our class Google Classroom for anyone wanting to try ideas out at home too!)

Where will our flight topic take us next?

Celebrating Burns Day In The Ladybird Room

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The Ladybird room children and staff had great fun celebrating Burns Day.

They started off the week by making special Ladybird tartan pictures. On the day itself they had the traditional meal of vegetarian ”haggis, neeps and tatties.” Some children appeared to enjoy it more than others.

We rounded off the celebrations on Friday with children and staff dressing in tartan and dancing to ceilidh music in the hall followed by having a very Scottish teddy bear picnic. All the children had taken in their favourite teddy or soft toy and were able to join us for an indoor picnic of traditional Scottish food such as shortbread, oatcakes, and cheese.

A great end to the week and lots of fun.

Thanks very much, Heathryburn School Community Cafe!

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Every Tuesday afternoon is a joy for Room 8. It’s Community Cafe time. We all are happy to visit and spend 45 minutes with our friends across the road, boys and girls from Heathryburn School. We all enjoy a warm drink, and there is a choice of different foods each week. It is easy to see that the pupils-host enjoy taking orders, serving food and getting to know other members of the local community and us. The predictable environment with structure and high level of routine along with a package of social learning and interaction help and support our boys and girls to develop their social skills and gain knowledge. Angela, the community café coordinator, is always available for 1-1 support for anyone who would like to discuss any problems. 

By accessing this venture, Room 8 was able to develop their communication skills, meet new people and friends, work as part of a team, make a decision, apply functional numeracy and literacy. 

We all agree the community café showcases an alternative model of community – where people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities spend time together – socialising, working, creating and enjoying each other’s company.

Thanks very much, Heathryburn School Community Cafe.

Up in the Air with Room 4

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Exploring our topic of “Up in the air” 

We have been exploring our topic of “Up in the air” in room 4. We are looking at what animals are in the air. We have been using our mark making skills and our fine motor skills to create some wonderful artwork. 

To make butterfly pictures we used our mark making skills to spread paint and then folded over to make a symmetrical design.

We made a honeycomb design by spreading paint on some bubble wrap and then printing this on to our printed honeycomb design in relation to bees.  

We made bees too! We wrapped yellow and black yarn around a bee shape to do this. 

The seagulls were very happy that we made some bird feeders. We used seeds and lard mixed together and stuck them to a pine cone. 

As part of our sensory story “Up, up, up” we have been using a prop of an umbrella that has twinkly lights to turn on when a switch is pressed. We have been enjoying exploring this. 

New Horizons with Howes Hoose

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Howes Hoose have been working on their New Horizons Personal module. We have been talking about personal skills we are good at and ones that we want to work on. After selecting a personal challenge from a variety of symbols we got to work. Challenges included – learning to use the washing machine, deciding what is for snack each day, hoovering and keeping desks clean. We are going to be reviewing our challenge this week and deciding if we found it easy or difficult!