For the next few weeks we are using the song 'head, shoulders, knees and toes' as our focus is all about ourselves. Our main focus this week is our faces, what colour our faces are, what facial features we have and what colour these features are. We are also starting to think about our differences and the importance of celebrating them.

We began on Monday by talking about faces and what we all have on our face e.g. two eyes, a nose and a mouth. We then went into further detail talking about our hair and how that is different e.g. long, short, straight or curly. We use mirrors to closely look at our faces to see what colour our skin is and our eyes etc... 

We then painted our own self portrait with Mrs Gardiner using all of the knowledge we spoke about first thing in the morning. We created some amazing art work which is going to look fabulous in the front of our learning journeys. 

As always on a Monday the staff model the new provision to the children so they understand what each activity is for, I was amazed after a demonstration how good the children are at manipulating play dough, they selected a face outline and then used the play dough and their hands to make facial features. 

We also have out the potato heads but this week they only have facial features to use, next week we get more body parts as our knowledge grows. The children showed accuracy as they put the features into the potato heads holes and also showed good understanding of where each facial feature goes e.g. eyes at the top, nose in the middle and mouth at the bottom.

On Tuesday it was very rainy so we did some exciting learning outside with Mrs Gardiner, we did some learning about colour using powder paint and puddles as we have been struggling to identify some colours. We were amazed when the colours started to mix and new colours appeared.

For our adult led activity today we sorted some pictures into our likes and dislikes and some of us were able to discuss our thoughts whilst making our decisions, we have lots of animal lovers in Duckling Class. We are going to continue to work on this over the half term in circle time as we did find it difficult to talk about things which we didn't like and why. 

On Wednesday we were so excited to see that we had a new small world area, it is no longer a pond but it is now a jungle. We have had a lovely morning looking at the animals, saying their names and describing their features. We have begun to develop our play narrative and are now engaging others into our play.

As the fog cleared we finally had some sunshine and we were able to use the school balance bikes for the first time, we spoke about how we are safe on the bikes e.g. wearing a helmet to protect our heads. Our ability to ride the bikes successfully will be a focus for the rest of the school year. 

In numbers and patterns this week we have been learning all about the number zero and what it represents, we can now recognise 0 and can show zero fingers. We have also used our communication skills to talk about pictures and where the show zero objects, the children also used the words none, nothing and nothing left.

Below is some of our super independent learning from Thursday and Friday which is facilitated through play by the adults in the indoor and outdoor provision. I hope you have a lovely weekend and I will see you all on Monday. Mrs Morray x