Our wriggly caterpillars are very good at recognising their pictures now and enjoy putting them up on the self-registration board when they arrive and are becoming much more familiar with each other as they seek out friends to play with. We have had a strong focus on listening and attention skills, playing lots of games that encourage the children to take turns, listen for everyday sounds as well as following simple instructions.  

Some of our favourite stories have been ‘The tiger who came for tea’ which led us to having a tea party and having to share food, to reading ‘Elmer’, which provided lots of activities for learning our colours and thinking about our similarities and difference. The children also enjoyed reading ‘Monkey Puzzle’ down in the woods and showed great concern for the monkey’s mummy and HAD to go searching for her!

As we have moved through Autumn, we have enjoyed looking at conkers, pumpkins and seasonal vegetables, which has been great for our inquisitive and investigative caterpillars who love exploring and chopping. We have a group of vehicles/ tractor fanatics in our group at the moment, so harvest time has provided us with lots of chat about combines and trailers.

The Butterflies have fluttered over to their new classroom beautifully and as the term has gone on are beginning to develop those all-important independence skills! On arrival to school, they hang their coats up, take their shoes, and set to writing their names for the self-registration board. Our topic ‘families and feelings’ has led us down lots of different paths. We read ‘Sharing a shell’ which encouraged lots of sharing amongst the children in the classroom. They particularly enjoyed being buddied up for the day! We then moved on to Elmer which provided lots of discussion about colour and exploring what happens when we mix certain colours together. It also created lots of discussion about individual differences! Such as our eye colour, long hair/ short hair as well as looking at our families and who lives with us. The children then particularly enjoyed looking at ‘Lost and found’, this book taught the children the importance of how to be a good friend! This saw the making our ‘our friendship tree’, which is slowly growing leaves. When we see the children do an act of kindness we write it on a leaf and put it up on the tree. This book also prompted our budding builders who jumped into action to build a boat so they could rescue their friends! This really prompted their imaginations for building inside and out and has shown us what a resourceful group they are! They have been very busy bees gathering things from around the setting to build tractors, boats, cars, houses, shops we have even had roads re-built!

The Butterflies are also loving those enhanced curricular activities such as PE, where they have been focusing on following Mr Bell’s instructions, to phonics, where they have been introduced to our phase 2 sounds s, a, t.

A great term all round!