Celebrating Ramadan in Room 5

The past couple of weeks Room 5 have been learning about and celebrating Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr. We have engaged in Ramadan-themed sensology sessions during which we tasted dates, enjoyed the visual experience of looking through a telescope for the new moon and smelled incense, as well as other sensory experiences. We painted pictures to depict the new moon in a night sky and enjoyed baking ma’amoul (biscuits with dates inside commonly eaten during Eid).

Sensory art project in room 5

Room 5 have been taking part in a sensory art project. This is a structured hour once a week which includes mindfulness practice, sensology and art. We spent the first four weeks exploring different objects and materials in order to show our preferences and make choices. These will then be used going forward to be able to create art. This week we made our first pictures using a mixture of oil paint and poster paint. The oil paint will dry with a bumpy texture which is great for those of us who are tactile learners. We had lots of fun creating our pictures and will continue this project all term. We hope you enjoy seeing some of our work!

Celebrating Diwali In Room 5

In Room 5 we celebrated the festival of Diwali with lots of different activities. We learnt the story of Rama and Sita through a sensory story which we all took part in every day for a week. It was exciting to experience being in the forest and seeing the scary, 10 headed demon Ravana. We also enjoyed mark making with rangoli paint and painting diva lanterns for our families.

Cycling!

In Room 5 we have lots of fun riding our bikes around the playground. Cycling trikes is really good for us to learn the reciprocal movement of our legs which helps with our coordination and balance. It also strengthens our leg muscles. At Orchard Brae we also have a trike which wheelchairs can be fastened onto so all the children can take part in cycling activities.

Up in the Air with Room 5

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!

Room 5 have wings!

This term our topic will be ‘Up in the air’. In room 5 we’ve started this topic by reading the story ‘Wings!’ by Paul Stewart and learning about birds. ‘Wings!’ is the story of a penguin who desperately wants to fly but is unable to. His friends try to help him but finally he realises he can swim instead. To start the topic we read the story and painted penguins.

Learning to share in Room 5

In Room 5 we have been reading ‘Sharing a Shell’ by Julia Donaldson. We enjoyed reading it as a sensory story and exploring different materials like water, shells and bubbles, and feeling the wind from the ‘storm’. We are learning to share with our friends, like the characters in the story, so we used lots of turn-taking language as we passed objects around.

Harvest time in Room 5

In Room 5 we have been learning about autumn and harvest time. We have painted and carved pumpkins, made beautiful apple print pictures and experienced the feeling of dried leaves. We made some lovely suncatchers for our class window out of dried leaves we collected when out and about. We enjoyed all the different textures and smells of autumn.