Kits News - 15th November 2024

This week, the Kits’ Topic Book was 'Ten Terrible Dinosaurs' by Paul Stickland. In this colourful book, the dinosaurs are all playing together, and one by one, a dinosaur falls off until there is only one left. The children loved practising naming the different colours, naming the dinosaurs, describing how they looked, and practising their counting skills.

During the week, the children were engaged in lots of fun activities related to dinosaurs in all seven areas of learning. The children loved making dinosaurs using playdough, rolling pins, and dinosaur cutters. They also strengthened their hand muscles by manipulating the dough, squeezing, stretching, and rolling it.

The Kits have been exploring the Kinetic Sand with the hidden dinosaurs. The children looked inside the sand for the dinosaurs using scoops and their hands. They made imprints and hid the dinosaurs again by covering them up with sand and scoops.

The children were keen to explore the AnimaPhonics cards with objects. The Kits traced the letters on the table using a variety of felt pens, sounded the letter sounds with the associated AnimaPhonics actions, and then sounded out the objects to match them to the correct letter. The Wooden Blocks Scales were also popular, and the children had to try and succeed in getting the blocks to balance. We learnt about heavy and light and balancing the scales in the middle. The children practised recognising numbers and then matching quantity to numbers using Unifix cubes. The Kits loved experimenting with making tall and short towers.

During our Outdoor Learning Environment, the children loved exploring different coloured eggs placed inside the sand in the tuff tray. The children opened up the eggs to discover baby dinosaurs inside. The Kits then transferred sand into the empty eggs using a spoon and sand. We discussed weight, heavy, light, and named the different coloured eggs.

The children enjoyed exploring the Dinosaur World where they played with dinosaurs and natural objects in the soil. The Kits practised their counting skills by counting all the stones they could find. We discussed two different types of dinosaurs: Carnivores, who liked to eat meat, and Herbivores, who eat vegetables and leaves. The children also sang various rhymes and songs using musical instruments and ribbons.

For our Art project, the children created track marks by using soil mixed with glue. The Kits dipped a car inside the mixture and then strengthened their hand muscles by pushing the car in several ways on paper to create their amazing pieces of art. Once that had dried, the children dipped the dinosaurs' feet into paint to create footprints.    

Our Role-Play area was set up as a Fire Station this week where the Kits used lots of imagination and social skills. They dressed up as firefighters and used their fire engines and hoses to go on important missions with their friends.

During our Maths Lesson, the children learnt about subitising. When the teacher asked for a small number of dinosaurs, the children practised identifying how many objects there were without counting. We also practised counting objects and recognising numbers.

In our Fine Motor Lesson, the children continued to practise safely using a pair of standard scissors and crocodile scissors to make snips in magazines.

The Kits participated in our first Write Dance session. We practised making large circular arm movements to a piece of music. The children focused well and were able to copy the movements. By using a range of whole-body movements and with lots of repetition and practice, the children developed the skills and confidence they need for writing, e.g., shoulder and core strength, flexible wrists, balance, and coordination.

We are excited and can't wait for all the fun events this half of the term will bring as we prepare for Christmas.