| Topic: Habitats | We will continue to explore the story ‘Dear Zoo’ by Rod Campbell, however we will be further exploring habitats, such as Forest, Ocean and Polar. | |
| Total Communication | Will be running throughout each activity and working alongside children’s individual communication plans, we will be learning topic-related words/signs and symbols found in our stories. We will continue to work throughout the half term on contextual words that support requests, play and social situations. | |
| Strand and Profile | Profiles in Class | Ideas for Home |
| Multi-sensory Listening and Attention | We will be exploring our individual PLGs and communication targets/SaLT programmes. This will involve attention and anticipation activities; following instructions in activity songs; exploring our listening skills in line with music; and expressing our preferences to stimuli. | Harness each attempt to communicate, try explaining simple every day activities as you are doing them, using keys words and actions. |
| Communication and Literacy | We will be exploring ‘Dear Zoo’ through daily story time, mark-making activities, listening activities, and activities focussed on the characters or theme of story, during this time we will be focussing on:
• Recognising/identifying key symbols.
• Having some favourite books or stories.
• Listening to stories with increasing attention and recall.
• Tolerating hand-over-hand support from adult during play/learning activity e.g. to complete a task, to request/exchange a PECS symbol.
• Beginning to understand the cause and effect of our actions in their mark making.
• Demonstrating pleasure/interest in drawing and writing on paper and/or in different media, e.g. in sand or playdough, foam, paint, styling gel.
• Showing increasing control in holding, using and manipulating a range of mark making tools.
| Encourage the exploration of books, stories and role play. Share a favourite story at bedtime or books that relate to events that you have coming up-for example a story about the doctor if you have an appointment coming up soon.
Explore using choosing boards at breakfast time or for choosing which toy to play with.
If you require any specific symbols for use at home, please do let me know
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| Mathematics and Problem Solving
| In maths we will be taking part in activities exploring: maths schemas such as connecting and stacking, moving and transporting, containing and enclosing, we will do much of this through exploration of and play with resources that are topic related, as well as building blocks, construction items and junk modelling | Explore items, games or activities that involve ‘containing and enclosing’, one to one correspondence, just like animals when exploring their habitat - make dens just like a fox in the forest. Or you could try connecting and stacking by making habitats. |
| Personal Development | This will be woven in through our weekly activities, exploring pupils individual PLG’s, aspirations and feelings.
| During our topic of habitats we will explore forests, ocean and polar. If you take a walk in the woods or visit places such as the Zoo or Sea life centre, explore the areas that are the animals’ homes. Do you like to be in the dark just like a fox? Do you enjoy being in the water just like a penguin? |
| Physical Development | As well as our usual motor skills activities such as; Pencil control, hand eye co-ordination activities and puzzles, we will be exploring how to use switches for cause and effect. We will continue to work on our individual physio and SE plans alongside our motor skills too, including fine motor skills to develop independence (holding cup, cutlery, isolating fingers to point manipulate objects.), which we will explore during our weekly cooking sessions. We will also explore role play and activities which are linked to our topic. | Mark making can be done using many different tools and resources, maybe try drawing animals in sand, using paint brushes or index fingers. Try moving around like specific animals, jumping like a frog or stretched out tall like a giraffe. |
| Understanding the World | We will work on the areas of ‘Understanding the World’ and ‘Imagination and Expression’ such using everyday materials linked to our stories to explore, understand and represent our world - ideas, interests and fascinations and exploring emotions linked to make believe situations or characters found in our stories. | Enjoy sharing stories about animals with your child. Keep an eye out for different habitats when out in the community or environment, identifying each one. Maybe explore which animals can be found in the forest, or oceans. |
| Expression and Creativity | We will be using different mediums to make pictures during weekly art sessions, developing our interests in a variety of tools and exploring materials, we will be doing tree and leaf rubbings, and exploring different textures.
During P.E we will be moving just like the animals from our topic book ‘Dear Zoo’, exploring changes in sound and movement.
| Spend some time exploring music and which song or nursery rhyme excites or pleases your child, maybe play a game of musical statues, pretending to be a specific animal from the story as the song stops. |
| Personalised Learning
| We will be working on our Personalised Learning Goals (PLGs) across the week. We will begin familiarising ourselves with the routine and expectations of our new class. Using a total communication approach, we will explore our diverse communication needs and explore interactions with our peers alongside engaging in self-advocacy exploration. | We will be focussing on self-advocacy words such as more/finished. Try practising them at home during appropriate times, signs will soon be uploaded to EfL for you to practise at home too. |
| Relaxation | To draw our busy week to a close we will take part in a number of relaxation activities on a Friday afternoon, such as yoga, foot spas, massage mats and time for reflection. We will explore how we feel before, during and after these sessions as well as how to activate such resources. We will also have access to our ball pool. | It would be great to hear what your child likes to do at home to relax, let us know. |
| Please feel free to record your explorations on EfL, we’d love to see what you’ve been up to at home, alternatively if you have any queries please feel free to send me an email | |
Welcome to Seals