Week commencing 7th December - Westmeston

This week, our focus has been on writing. Over the past few weeks, Mrs Spencer has been running a number of activities to help develop the children’s finger strength and coordination for writing, including picking up pom-poms with tweezers and Dough Disco!

This week, the activity was mark-making to music. On a large piece of paper, the children drew, wrote and scribbled in response to the music that was playing. It was interesting to see their actions change as the tempo of the music altered. Some children independently practised writing their names which was a great example of self directed learning.

We have been writing in other areas of our play as well. We made a variety of Christmas decorations with Paulina on Tuesday and the children used pens to draw reindeer faces and write their names. Giving mark making a purpose such as this allows the children to be much more motivated in their writing.

With Christmas coming up, we have been busy making and creating lots of decorations. Activities such as sewing jewels onto felt trees, sticking pompoms onto their Christmas cards and wrapping coloured string and wool around sticks are wonderful activities to build up children’s fine motor skills and finger strength in readiness for writing.

We used our hands to get messy making some salt dough decorations. We mixed flour, salt and water to make a dough then cut out Christmas shapes. The decorations were then put in a warm oven for 5 hours! We are planning to paint our decorations during the Christmas party on Friday.

Unfortunately, it was Paulina's last Forest School session this week. We will miss her so much! We had a wonderful final lesson with her as the children made beautiful Christmas wreaths and reindeer decorations. We also played a wonderful running and hiding game called Hibernating Hedgehogs.

There was lots of outdoor fun to be had this week.

On our Friday walk, we visited the woods again. We were interested to see that the big tree which had fallen over the path had been removed. That must have been a tough job for somebody! But it made an excellent climbing spot for us and meant that we could look closely at the inside of the trunk.

It is the time of year when our wet weather clothing gets tested to the limit! With all this puddle jumping and wading, wet socks and trousers are a common problem, so please ensure that your child comes with plenty of warm spare clothes.

We are looking forward to some more Christmas activities in our final week of term. If they wish to, children may wear Christmassy outfits on any day, including to our Christmas party which will be 2pm - 4pm on Friday at Westmeston. Please make sure you have responded to your invitation. so that we can cater accordingly.