I had a lovely Easter holiday, but it went far too quickly.. and I spent far too much money (mostly on teaching supplies!) Lots of the supermarkets were selling off the Easter supplies for cheap, so I bought some of those to stash away until next year...
...I also bought some things for our new topic, which is Handa's Kenyan Safari. I bought lots of fiction and non-fiction books based in and around Kenya, some animals for the small world, a couple of builders trays (which were an absolute steal at £6 each!!) a Kenyan flag, some animal masks and a crocodile puppet!
I also bought a few things for my prize box.. and some things for phonics, smelly markers to go with my tricky word scoop pack and some cool sunglasses to go with my gangnam style phonics pack..
These are the phonics packs that I mentioned... just click on the pictures and they'll take you to my TeachersPayTeachers store!
I also need to post up the pictures of our Art Gallery from our previous topic, The Great Fire of London... here are the kiddos fantastic portraits of King Charles II.. the head loved the display so much she wanted one outside her office...
... this is the portrait gallery outside the heads office.
So as aforementioned, our new topic this half term is 'Handa's Kenyan Safari' so we're doing lots all about Kenya, Handa's surprise and Africa.
I have opted out of a roleplay area this time, choosing a small world area instead.. which the kids absolutely love! I also have another interactive display..
The kids really enjoy using the interactive display!
This is our small world area, which unfortunately hasn't stayed this pristine for very long.. but they have tried really hard to make it stay this nice!
Our afternoons have been so jam packed it's untrue, we looked at African materials and had a go at painting some of our own (kind of adinkra style)
We looked at Maasai jewellery and tried on a real Maasai necklace!
We made a Kenyan fruit salad - using the fruit from the story Handa's surprise....
We collected 'wow' words (adjectives) and then used these to make giant fruit shape poems outside!
We have been looking at how a typical African village differs from where we live, and they produced some lovely work...
.... and we made corn fritters which was lots of fun!
This is just a tiny snapshot, we have done so much more with our afternoons!
One of my personal main focuses this half term is guided reading, and our guided reading sessions have also been full to the brim. Each child works in their group to complete each task for 15 minutes - they then rotate until they have completed each task;
We have been reviewing books that we have been reading throughout the week...
We are also currently working our way through Mrs Wheeler's non-fiction writing pack which you can purchase here I am absolutely in love, and my kids are really enjoying making their non-fiction book.
We have been using these follow the yellow brick road story telling aids to work on retelling stories in order.
We've been doing some dictionary work, finding the meaning of words and putting words in to alphabetical order...
...we've been using non-fiction books to find out information about Kenya...
...and there's been lots of speaking and listening in our small world area!
Finally... I made up my kiddos a literacy and numeracy pack, so if they finish their work early they can just go straight to their drawer and grab their packs. I'll do a more indepth post in a few days, as I'm going to be reviewing some fab items from Little Learning Lovies, so keep your eyes peeled to find out what's in these packs!
That's all for now!!
Dani x
