Squirrels News - 7th February 2025

The children were thrilled to immerse themselves in this week’s Role Play which was set up as a hairdressers. In the end the hairdressers had to be redeveloped and have an extension built as everyone wanted to be in there! There were shampoos, blow drys, hair cutting and even hair colouring. The hairdressers even had a beauty salon which was hugely popular for getting nails done and having make up sessions. 

Elsewhere around the class this week the children selected numbers then counted jewels to match with the corresponding number. Everyone practised their pen grip, tracing lines and shapes which became people’s hair before creating their own hairstyles on paper. The children also created numbers out of playdough and built a town, which encouraged discussions about the types of buildings and places we would like to have in the community.

In our artists topic, we we started to explore Jackson Pollock's work. We learned about the techniques he used and had a lot of fun creating this final piece of art for our exhibition. It was so freeing and active and everyone became very immersed in the art as we built it up layer by layer.

Another highlight of our week was the arrival of our new class pets, two male gerbils. Having voted on names suggested by staff and children they are now called Loki and Stardust. We have all been so happy to welcome them into the class - they are fascinating to watch and look after.

Whilst it was a bit cold and windy on our Outdoor Learning Day this week, that did not deter us. We started our outdoor adventure by looking in the window of an art shop and discussing how we will display our art next week. We then headed to Balham tube station where we spoke about taking the tube as a class. We will be taking the tube in a few weeks time after the half term to the Polka Theatre. On our way to the common whilst the children sang Christmas songs (!) we continued to notice some of the first signs of Spring such as blossom, daffodils, birds chirping and crocuses. Once we got to the common, we ate our snack, then remembered all we have learnt about keeping warm. We ran, jumped and exercised as we played our games to keep the blood pumping fast around our bodies. Later in the morning we discussed rhythm and found we could make music using natural objects. It was lots of fun.