We enjoyed a lovely circle time together where we shared things about ourselves. Children decided to share about their brothers and sisters, pets, favourite colour, favourite TV shows and hobbies. We also loved reading the book You Choose, where the children took turns to come up and choose their favourite from the page. We realised that sometimes we are the same as other people and sometimes we are different and that that’s okay. This led us on to reading the story My Mum and Dad Make Me Laugh, where we learn that mum likes spots, dad likes stripes and the little boy loves elephants!

This week, we learned what the word portrait means and the children worked very hard with Mrs Nelson and me to complete their painted self-portrait for our display board outside the classroom. They had to look carefully in the mirrors to work out what features to include in their portrait, and they had to think carefully about how to mix the right colour paint to match these. We will use everyone's painting in our display along with some quotes from the children, and photos of them creating their artwork. We hope that this will be a lovely introduction to us for people who visit the Transition classroom. Some children have also been making playdough faces or loose parts faces in their play this week, and we have created wooden spoon self-portraits which we have loved playing with in the small world area. 

During Phonics this week, we have been listening out for environmental sounds. We practised identifying different household noises in the classroom, such as the hoover, and the children had fantastic ideas about what these noises could be. Then we explored the environmental sounds outside as we ventured into the Paddock. We took our clipboards for a sound scavenger hunt, and listened out for all the sounds we could hear. Our favourites were a parakeet spotted in the playground; the electricity from the train line and a Spitfire soaring overhead!

Our focus for mathematics this week has been on careful counting, ensuring that we say one number for each object that we touch. We played a game on the board where you had to count out the correct number of cakes to feed the teddy. This was a big hit with the children and some of them even continued to play it after our carpet time, during their play! We have also practised singing counting songs to solidify the children’s understanding of numerical order, as well as taking turns to count the number of children in the class each morning. 

It has been lovely to get back into the routine of our week in Transition including our Pre-Prep assembly, music with Miss Norford and our gymnastics lesson in the hall, as well as enjoying lots of lovely play inside and outside the classroom. We have been busy building train tracks in the construction area, fixing closed roads in the sandpit and taking our babies for a picnic.

Once again, I look forward to another exciting week as we begin to explore My Family.