At this stage of the school year, I feel that the children can handle the longer and more complicated stories. Julia Donaldson is great for this time of the year, whereas in Autumn it would have been a little more difficult to follow for my cohort of children.
I base my provision around stories that engage and excite the children. The children are then eager to involve themselves in the learning activities independently (or with peers) in the provision.
This activity was so simple and easy to do...
Invest in some tweezers, they are great for fine motor and can be used in such a range of activities. As can magnetic letters/numbers!
All I did was:
Grab a tray and fill with soil (my TA did this as I was scared of spider, oh the irony).
I taped string across the back to make a web.
Chucked in the vowels.
Grabbed a couple of fabulous books about spider from our school library.
This quick activity encompasses several areas of learning:
Literacy - learning about vowels is an essential part of phonics, which will come useful as they move onto split digraphs and the long and short vowel sounds.
Fine motor (if you remember the board game operation).
Understanding of the world/communication and language - the books about generate the most fantastic discussions about the life of spiders.
The easiest one to do...
Find a variety of vibrant and detailed spider pictures.
Stick on the board with magnets or blutack.
Write on the names!
Areas of learning:
This activity is giving children the opportunity to read some rather complicated phonics!
Vocabulary - as we know vocabulary is incredibly important to children's development. (If they don't understand what a 'Gooty Tarantula' is in their reading comprehension is...what hope do they have?)
Writing - how would you desribe the spider?
This one took me 5 minutes to prepare...
Luckily I had some googly eyes but they can be a little expensive. Subsitute these for small pebbles or beads.
Chopped up some pipe cleaners.
Wack them in a dish.
Make some black playdough!
Use this to develop children's...
Fine motor skills - making a spider can be fiddly.
Making relationships/Managing feelings and behaviour - make this a sharing activity, make sure we share those googly eyes!
Maths - make sure your spider has 8 legs! Can you double the amount of eyes?
Another quick and easy one!
Black paper chopped into small squares.
Model to the children how to cut circles and rectangular legs.
White chalk.
String.
Glue and sellotape.
Areas of learning:
Shape space and measures - what shapes have you used? Why?
Using media and materials - how do the children experiment with media and materials?
Finding out about their properties and modifying and manipulating them.
An invitation to write.
All I did to prepare was...
Grab some spiders, lucky I have inherited a lot mini beasts from previous teachers. But you can ask around, look in charity shops, check the local libary (they sometimes have discovery boxes), find a photo stimulus, use videos on an ipad.
Googled a spider template and added the lines.
Added some writing implements.
Areas of learning...
Being imaginative - what words can you think of to describe the creatures?
Reading - Rhyming.
Writing - writing descriptive words using their phonetic knowledge.
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