In Badgers the children have been mark making and being creative outdoors. In phonics they have been rhyming. In maths we have been making marks to represent numbers. We have been exploring the watermills which has helped to develop learning about forces. We worked as a team to complete a very big animal jigsaw.

In the Squirrels room the children have been exploring different ways of painting with a variety of colours. They have been developing their muscles in their fingers by using the tweezers to sort fruits out into colours. The squirrels have been learning new action songs while outside and inside.

During Forest Schools we read the story "After the storm". The children then made houses for the animals in the story using sticks and bark.

We have continued to plant vegetables in our vegetable patch.

We had to sadly say goodbye to the chickens today, they have gone back to the farm. The lady said the chickens looked really healthy and we had obviously done a good job. The chickens have grown so much over the past 2 weeks and most of the children have really enjoyed handling them. The children have had a great real-life experience of watching the life cycle of a chicken/egg. All children have joined in with lots of chicken crafts and learning.

We have been making shapes in Forest schools with natural objects.

The Squirrels have been exploring colours this week. As usual we have been relaxing and exploring in the sensory room.

In the playdough area Badgers have been making imprints with the plastic mini beast and Squirrels have used match sticks to make mini beasts with the playdough.

During Badgers' maths sessions they have been making patterns using 2 or 3 colours. In phonics Badgers have been listening to the adults' sound talk and working out what the adult is saying, the children are starting to get really good at hearing the word that is being sounded out.

In phonics the Squirrels have been using their bodies to make a variety of noises. The Squirrels have also been developing turn taking skills by playing a variety of circles games in small groups.

Next week we are going to be learning about dinosaurs due to a lot of children showing an interest in them.

Another busy week at Little Acorns, learning about life cycles and mini beasts.

During Forest Schools the children have been on Minibeast hunts, which they have really enjoyed, the children are becoming aware of being gentle to living creatures and starting to understand some life cycles. We also made Spring sensory bottles in Forest Schools, which helped to develop our fine manipulative skills and hand eye co-ordination.

The Badgers have been strengthening their fingers by taking part in daily dough discos.
In the funky finger area this week we have been developing our pencil control.

During maths sessions the children have been showing the correct number of fingers and the correct numeral when singing number songs such as 5 little Speckled Frogs.

In phonics the children are developing their alliteration knowledge, some of the children are becoming more confident at thinking of words that start with the same sound.

In the Squirrels room the children have had lots of fun exploring different sounds instruments make and ways to make them play louder and quieter. They have been learning and developing different ways of moving around the forest school's equipment.

On Monday afternoon we went onto the school field and played circle games and took part in some racing games where we had to move in different ways eg side steps, jumping, walking backwards, crawling etc.

To support our learning of life cycles we planted runner beans.

In the mud kitchen we have added some potatoes which the children have loved playing with.