Specialist Areas
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.
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.
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!!
Room 18 were invited to join in Aberdeen Library’s Living Advent Calendar. We had a great time performing some of our favourite pieces from Drama and Trash Band. We ate our lunch in the committee room and then performed in the main library. Some members of the public joined in with our Trash Band piece.
We had a great time!
Today we were lucky to have had a very special visitor, Artie from Artie’s Tartan Tales.
We all sat patiently waiting for the show to start and Artie said hello to us before the show.
We were thoroughly entertained throughout the whole show! Artie performed a variety of Christmas songs as well as some old favourites from the Singing Kettle. He had staff and pupils bopping around, singing along and copying the actions!
He spent time meeting some of his biggest fans after the show (yes, Claire from Room 2, we mean you!) and even allowed us to explore his magical Singing Kettle!
A fantastic time was had by everyone and we hope to see him again at Orchard Brae in the future.
However, if you can’t wait that long, Artie will be performing a special Burn’s show at The Aberdeen Arts Centre on January 25th 2020. Tickets can be booked using the link below:
https://www.aberdeenperformingarts.com/bookevent/arties-singing-kettle-scotland/258003ADGNQNHKDBCVDTKGKJBLLJHNCBB
Room 19 have been looking at preparing food for our Duke of Edinburgh Bronze award. We tested 2 different brands of noodles, and enjoyed eating them both. Even those who were not sure, once they tried them, discovered that they were nice to eat.
We assembled and used a Trangia stove to boil water, and add then added to the dried noodles. Part of our assessment will be making a hot meal, from scratch, using a stove.
We have also cooked sausages outside which were very popular.
This week we even made hot chocolate, heating up chocolate milk on a stove.
We all agree – food tastes better when cooked outside!
Outdoor learning has looked at using natural materials like grass, beech nuts and twigs to make textured animals. We have made spikey hedgehogs from twigs. We also made soft fluffy reindeer for their fur, and small twigs to make their antlers. Some of our reindeer also had a shiny red nose like Rudolph.
We also made poppies to celebrate Armistice Day out of heart shaped pieces of red paper. We were using scissors, paint, different colours to recreate poppies in the wild.
A huge Thank You to all those who attended the Fair, Stallholders, Raffle ticket purchasers, bakers and those that manned the stalls, made cheese toasties, cups of tea and coffee or wrapped presents.
Also a big Thank You to Emmeline and our amazing Makaton Choir who wonderfully entertained the crowd with their Christmas songs. They were obviously all enjoying themselves.
It was wonderful to see so many people there and the Friends of Orchard Brae are delighted to announce that the grand total of £4,200 has been raised. We hope the Fair started off everyone’s Christmas celebrations and some presents were purchased or raffles won.
Following on from our successful launch of the Makaton Taster Session for Santa’s, Aberdeen City Health And Social Care Partnership, released this wonderful video.
It contains interviews with our music therapist, Emmeline as well as our colleagues in Speech Therapy and of course, footage of our amazing Makaton Minis and Makaton Choir.
PE is always such a big hit for the children in room 4!
Physical Education offers so much to our children:
Social skills, turn taking and collaborative team work are just some of the benefits of a balanced physical education program.
Room 19 are working on their Bronze Duke of Edinburgh Award this year. So far, we have chosen our physical activity and are working on basketball, table tennis and yoga.
For our skills section we are fundraising through our sandwich enterprise. We are also volunteering by helping out in classes with younger pupils and supporting an older gentleman in his home and garden.
In outdoor education, we have learned how to use fire sticks to light the gas for cooking with the trangia stove, all in preparation for our residential expedition next year.
