All posts by Mr Edwards

Exploring our Senses

This week in the garden we have been exploring our sense of smell by using the herbs growing in our garden in different ways.

Today we explored our senses further by using teabags to create our own art in the studio.

We started by using our sense of smell to make observations about the different kinds of tea. We discussed the different kind of scents and what they smelled like.

“It’s mint”

“It smells like toothpaste”

“Like strawberry”

“We have mint in the garden”

To create our masterpiece we placed the tea bags on paper and used spray bottles with water to wet the tea bags. This is an excellent way to developing our fine motor skills. As the teabags absorbed the water we squeezed them, painted with them and explored the mixing of the colours.  We also talked about the texture of the tea as the bags started to break apart.

“It feels like sand”

“Little bits stick to me”

“It’s soft”

“I like mud in the garden”

The studio is now smelling very lovely, We all had lots of fun exploring our senses and creative skills.

The final masterpiece. Well done everyone!

Firework Splat Painting!

Today In the garden we created some firework pictures in preparation for bonfire night this weekend.

The children selected some paint and resources that they could spray and splat. We picked a selection of different spray bottles and pipettes to spray at the large plastic sheet and create our firework picture.

The spray bottles and pipettes helped us to develop our fine motor skills. We demonstrated good skill when filling them up and spaying them.

We then used the paint and sponges to throw the paint at the ground to make splats that resembled fireworks. This was a good way to get our bodies moving and develop our gross motor skills while being creative.


While we were painting we talking about fireworks and how we can stay safe.  These are some of the children’s comments.
😊

“You don’t touch the fire”

“Fireworks and very hot so you need to stay away”

“They go in the sky”

“Only adults do the fireworks”

What animals can you hear?

Today in the noisy quiet room the children took part in a listening activity. Following our current interest of ‘the farm’ we tested our knowledge of what animal sounds we could identify. These included farm animals and other animals in the wider world.   


Using an animal sounds CD and matching picture cards we got to work. First we looked at the animal card and identified the animal. Then together we made the sound we thought it would make. Next we listed to the animal sound on the CD to see if we were correct.  We all used our voices to make some really good animal sounds.

Once we were more familiar with the animal sounds we decided to challenge ourselves a little more.   This time we played the sound first and then selected what animal it was from the cards displayed. We worked together as a team to identify all the animals displayed.

“I think it’s a guinea pig”

“Cow”

“It’s a big rooster”

“That’s a turkey, it’s like a chicken”

Everyone did a fantastic job using their listening and talking skills to develop their knowledge of animal sounds. Well done everyone!

Let’s Get Matching!

Today in the noisy quiet room we explored table top games. The children selected a couple of games to play throughout the morning. These games focused on matching, turn taking and developing our social skills. Bellow are some of the games we played.

Snap

We played snap with picture cards. We took turns to deal out the cards and then started the game. Everyone did very well taking turns with our friends when playing.  When we found two cards the same we had to be very quick and say “SNAP! Everyone did super work and we have some very quick fingers!

“You need two the same”

“I’m going to be quick and snap them”

“I play this game at home and you need to get two the same”

Smelly Wellies

In the game of smelly wellies we placed all the welly cards face down and took it in turns to flip over one left and one right (green & red) welly to try make a pair. We had to test our memory and remember where they were. Once we found a pair we added them to our board.

“Turn them over and get two the same”

“You take one red and one green”

“Two the same is pair”

”It’s your turn next”

“I remember where my one is”

Let’s make music!

Today in the noisy quiet room the children got creative with the musical instruments. In a small group we started by singing songs and playing our chosen instrument together.  We began to explore beat and tried to copy the beat played by Derek and follow along wile we sang. We all played beautifully and made an excellent band.

“Let’s do old MacDonald had a cat”

“Sing twinkle twinkle”

We then explored how to use the instruments to make different sounds. Learning new words like high pitch and low pitch, and learning how to make the instruments sound noisy or quiet.

“Twinkle twinkle is a quiet song play it just a little”

Then the group got creative and invented their own songs. We had “it’s time to go to bed song”,  “The snake in the hat song” and the “bumped the head song”.  They were superb!

We all demonstrated good turn taking and swapped our instruments  in the group so that everyone got a turn at playing something different. We all had lots of fun and can’t wait till we can do it again.