This is an introductory paragraph about Core Curriculum at Orchard Brae.
Rooms 6 and 7 have been joining together for PE.
They have been enjoying a variety of activities developing their gross motor skills, co-operation skills and body awareness.
Today all the boys in Room 5 enjoyed a trip to Kirkhill Forest. We drove to the Forest park and had our morning snacking before embarking on our fun walk uphill forest walk.
All of the boys did their best, and displayed their strength and stamina as it was a good long walk with parts of the path covered in icky sticky mud and sparkly snow.
We took Bucky Bear with us and enjoyed making memories together.
The pupils in Room 3 love story time! Our stories are always brought to life with props, smells and sound effects which help bring the words and ideas to life. You never know what might happen during story time in Room 3… monsters might come to chase us, Katie Morag could take us on a journey to deliver the mail, a pirate ship to jump aboard for an adventure or even up into the night sky in a rocket to visit the moon with Baby Bear. Items go flying, the room descends into darkness and there can be very loud or quiet noises – our senses are well and truly awoken and the engagement is fantastic.
During stories we have the chance to practise some of what we learn through our targets or other curricular areas – a really good chance to generalise our skills. We always leave gaps so that the pupils can join in with signs and vocalisations. It is really helpful to repeat the same stories so that we become familiar with them and can begin to anticipate what is coming next. Sometimes we find that things which can be tricky in other contexts i.e. particular textures we aren’t sure of or having to pass on something to a friend which we would rather keep ourselves is much easier to cope with or work on during all the fun of story time.
The children’s active participation in story time has developed so much, we are really proud of them. They are joining in not only during their own turns but also paying so much more attention to their peers, lots of careful watching and listening.
We are looking forward to sharing some favourite stories from home with each other and getting to know some new ones while working through our context of ‘All About Me’ and answering the question ‘Who am I and who am I within my class?’.
Our fruit/vegetable of the past fortnight was apple and for the next two weeks is CARROT. All our classes are encouraged to serve this vegetable at least five times during snack to expose our children to fruit/vegetables and encourage them to have a taste. Our Howes Hoose group certainly enjoyed their apple and carrot and at the other end of the school our little ones in nursery are being exposed to and encouraged to taste the fruits/vegetables.
One of our new initiatives for Healthy Eating in 2020 is ‘Fruit/Vegetable of the Fortnight’. A fruit or vegetable will be introduced at snack time and served regularly over a two week period. In this way we aim to expose the children to fresh fruit and vegetables and encourage them to try new fruit and vegetables, develop a taste for healthy foods as well as offering children the experience of preparing and tasting a selection of fresh fruit and vegetables. We will also be sharing our Healthy Eating successes … WATCH THIS SPACE!!
Our ‘Fruit of the Fortnight’ is APPLE.
Room 7 have been enjoying a variety of activities in the build up to Christmas. They have enjoyed being creative making cards, crackers and have enjoyed listening to and interacting with artifacts about the Christmas story.
Three weeks ago, Room 3 started exploring the question ‘What is Christmas?’ as part of our Winter Festivals theme and as you will see from the photographs…we have certainly tried our hardest to answer it! We have been building on our prior learning and have used means of learning which are motivating to help us discover more about Christmas.
We have participated in many music sessions where we have used Christmas props and have been practising our Makaton signing – we look forward to performing some of the Christmas songs to an audience at the show tomorrow.
Exploration of a wide range of objects has happened through Sensology sessions as well as focussed turn taking games as we continue to develop our awareness of each other – Christmas pass the parcel was a lot of fun and we did so well at sharing what we found inside with our friends. We have explored exchanging money as part of a Christmas counting song where we bought mince pies at the bakers shop.
During free play we have explored a wide range of Christmas items and found some of them very interesting. One boy found it great fun to knock bells off his standing frame, meanwhile another young lady was delighted to find a chocolate coin hiding in the Christmas exploration bowl as you will see from her selfie! There have been many Christmas activities set up including festive playdough which we made together and our favourite exploration tubes which we have been motivated to request through vocalising or move towards by crawling or in our equipment.
There are so many lovely Christmas stories and poems and we particularly enjoyed learning about the ‘Old Lady Who Swallowed A Bell’ – there was much hilarity as she swallowed bows, parcels, a sack and even a sleigh which we made fly across the classroom! We learnt about the Christmas story and joined up with friends in Rm 2 and 8 for this – we took on different roles, dressed up and acted the story out.
We have loved exploring Ian Bean’s online Advent Calendar with a daily activity we could do using the switch or eye gaze machines. The Christmas tree lights have been a real motivator to press the switch for too.
A real highlight was the sensory 12 days of Christmas…unfortunately there was so much fun and hilarity that it was tricky to get still photos but the classroom was very animated as we anticipated each item coming back – one boy was beyond excited about the 5 gold rings which he shook with gusto each time! There were lights flying, crackers cracking, tooters tooting, Christmas puddings and a beautiful dancing snowflake which sparkled on the tree.
We have been busy doing lots of crafts including using the salad spinners to make pictures for each season – this is definitely one of our favourite art techniques! We posed to take a picture for our Christmas cards and have done lots of crafts in art with Diane too. The room smelt amazing when we made jam to take home as a little Christmas gift.
We all looked fantastic today for our Christmas party before going to visit Santa and having a wee sing song with him.
Is it any wonder everyone is tired?! Yet another busy term in Room 3 with so much hard work. Enjoy your well deserved holiday and we look forward to what 2020 has to bring.
Room 6 have been enjoying exploring the community this term.
We walk to the ducks daily and have seen the number of ducks increase from in the teens to 34.
We have a weekly visit to the library where we enjoy investigating the DVD’s, sensory box and looking at books.
We enjoy playing on the toys at the park in Sheddocksley and have enjoyed exploring the ice when walking to the horses.
Room 15 have been very busy making a video of their version of ‘All I Want For Christmas’ demonstrating the range of communication systems being used in the classroom.
We hope you enjoy this festive treat and why don’t you have a go at signing and singing along!
It has certainly been a busy week at Orchard Brae and we have enjoyed participating in a range of festive fun and yesterday was the busiest day of all!
In the morning, the Primary department had a dress rehearsal for their Christmas Show, which we will performing next Friday.
A big thank you to Lynn and the catering team who put on a splendid Christmas lunch for us yesterday.
We all enjoyed tucking into our turkey and all the trimmings and festive shortbread and ice cream for dessert while listening to some Christmas tunes.
In the afternoon, we were joined by the St Margaret’s School choir who performed some Christmas tunes for us. We would like to say a HUGE thank you to the pupils and staff from St Margaret’s who joined us. This has become an annual event and it is one which we always look forward to. The hall was packed and everyone enjoyed their performance immensely. Thanks also to Room 9 staff and pupils who hosted a short snack and get together with them afterwards.
After such a hectic week, we look forward to seeing what excitement next week will bring!!
