Week 6

We have continued exploring The Rainforest this week, but have been looking at Minibeasts within our topic. The children have explored the story Ten Little Bugs, they have enjoyed exploring different materials, sensory toys and the water spray.

On Monday it was World Bee Day and we explored lots of sensory activities linked to bee's. The children explored honeycomb playdough using cutters and rollers. We made hand print bee's and used crayons to engage with pre writing patterns.

This week we have practised our gross motor skills using the bikes and scooters which was a lot of fun in the sunshine, during PE we did lots of climbing, swinging and jumping. At swimming we had a fantastic time, the children are growing in confidence and each week are responding well to what is asked of them by the swimming teacher. 

We have made insects by printing with potatoes and adding features using a paintbrush, the children used communication boards to make their choices. They have enjoyed making art work using rollers and choosing colours of paint. 

We enjoyed a community walk to the park to explore the play equipment as well as using the sensory playground in the sunshine. 

The children engaged amazingly well during our Attention Autism sessions and showed enjoyment by lots of smiles and happy noises!

To end the week we went on a messy bug hunt, we had lots of trays filled with different materials, textures and colours. We used magnifying glasses to help look for the bugs and enjoyed the different sensory trays. 

Week 5

We have had a very busy week this week with lots of exciting activities to explore. This week we have visited the Rainforest through our Let's explore topic and we've had some of the weather to go with our tropical theme.

In PE the children did some excellent communication to request more of their favourite activities. They had lots of fun swinging, jumping and climbing.

The children have enjoyed maths activities by exploring numbers through sensory play, drawing numbers, counting out objects and completing number puzzles. We also explored number games and puzzles on the interactive board.

Our RSHE theme for this term is our bodies, we explored our bodies by recognising body parts in our favourite way - through songs! The children all participated in the song 'Heads, shoulders, knees and toes' either independently or with some adult support.

In our sensory baking session we made cupcakes. Everyone helped with some part of our baking activity. The children were encourage to pour, scoop and mix at different stages. Some of the children enjoyed tasting the cakes too. 

As always we enjoyed our physical activities, the sensory playground with our friends and swimming! 

Week 4

This week in Ally's class we have continued our story, The curious Polar bear. The children have explored communication mats linked to the story and engaged with props by copying adult actions.

We have enjoyed Sensology sessions, story massage and exploring continuous provision activities in class. 

Our community walk took us to Willow park, where we enjoyed playing on the equipment, drawing with chalk and blowing bubbles.

The children have engaged well with activities related to phonics, exploring sounds and letter sounds. We have enjoyed building, stacking and counting activities in class this week.

For our educational visit we went to two parks on the minibus, in the morning we explored Rainford park and had lots of fun using the equipment and playing with our friends. We saw some amazing sharing, lovely communication and enjoyed being outside. In the afternoon we visited Bickerstaffe park which was lots of fun, we enjoyed engaging in regulating activities and playing with our friends. 

On Friday lots of our family members came in for a creative afternoon. We had painting activities inside including ice painting and painting 'icebergs'. Outside we enjoyed using chalks to draw, playing with bubbles and some water squirters, which were very exciting and will be lovely to play with now the weather is getting warmer. Thank you to everyone who came to play this afternoon, we loved having you!

Week 3

This week we have visited the Arctic through our story, The Curious Polar Bear. We enjoyed exploring 'snow', ice and the ocean through sensory exploration of our story. 

We did lots of regulating activities in our PE session this week including climbing, swimming and massage. The children enjoyed moving around to Disney songs throughout the session.

In class we explored colour sorting with different coloured Polar bears, we did some counting bears and finding the correct number to match to the amount.

At swimming all the children were amazing. They have grown in confidence so much and were able to respond well to the visual prompts to wash their face, wet their hair, kick their legs and blow bubbles.

The children have progressed to stage 3 in Attention Autism which includes turn taking, they are engaging for longer periods of time and are really enjoying exploring our messy play.

In our sensory baking session this week we made cakes, the children took turns to add ingredients, mix and scoop the mixture into cases. They all did very well and enjoyed taking part.

We have enjoyed art activities, water play and going out in the community to the park. 

Week 2

We have had such a busy week in Ally's class enjoying our Let's Explore topic. Our story this week was Giraffe's can't dance. We have enjoyed using dancing scarves in the story, exploring our story umbrella and twirling it around to make the Giraffe's dance. We listened to some African drumming and calming nature music. The children could use a communication board to name the animals and comment on how they were feeling. We loved our story.

For our Art activities this week we have made handprint giraffes, chosen colours to paint our class Giraffe (picture to follow when it's dry!), we have decorated African necklaces exploring patterns and using communication boards to select materials. 

For Earth day we experienced this through our Attention Autism session, where we explored the colours of the Earth then took turns to put our handprints on a template to create our own Earth pictures.

At swimming we had lots of fun joining in with all the activities, but our favourite part was choose time where we got to play on a platform and jump into the water.

This week we went for a walk to Sandy Lane park, which was new for us. Everyone did a fantastic job and they enjoyed exploring the new environment using the swings, climbing and drawing pictures.

On Thursday we went to the farm, even though the weather got a bit wet, we still had an amazing time. We enjoyed looking at, stroking and feeding the animals. Lots of us found the animals very funny and everyone was gentle with the animals. 

Next week we will be exploring the Arctic!

Week 1

Our theme for this half term is Let's Explore, we will be exploring lots of countries, including hot and cold places over the next few weeks. Our story this week was Handa's Surprise, we enjoyed exploring a hot country this week as well as the animals and fruit linked to the story. We read the story, explored a basket of fruit and used communication boards to say what animals and fruits we could see in the story. The children enjoyed holding and looking at the animals as well as touching, smelling and tasting the fruit. 

We had rebound therapy this week and the children enjoyed having a turn on the trampoline, practising listening and jumping with adult support. We also went swimming and they loved being in the water. This week we wet our faces, blew a ball in the water and practised swimming with a pool noodle.

The children did some amazing counting by counting animals in photographs and finding the number to label how many they could see. We have practised our fine motor skills by using playdough, tools and threading around animal shapes using pipe cleaners.

For our art activities this week we used fruit to do some printing, which was lots of fun and we used some fruit stencils on a roll of paper to make some fruit patterns. 

When we had finished our story the children enjoyed chopping up the fruit from the story and using it to make some fruit skewers or to taste the fruit. 

We have had a fantastic first week back!