Somerhill Review 2023/24

THE SOMERHILL REVIEW 2023/24

Michaelmas Term As we welcomed our new cohort to Kindergarten at the beginning of September, it was the perfect opportunity to find out ‘All about Me’.What do I look like? Who is in my family? What are my favourite things to do or play? There were so many opportunities to discuss and share information about ourselves and to find out a little more about our friends.We realised that we are not all the same; we are all different, each one of us is unique. Our learning then took us further afield as we embarked on a sensory discovery of the vibrant culture of India. We created colourful Rangoli patterns, smelt an assortment of spices, used our fingers to tear and assemble tiger stripe patterns, tasted rice, popadoms and mango chutney and moved our bodies to music as we copied some traditional Indian dances. We learnt about Diwali - the festival of light, and discovered celebrations go on into the night with colourful firework displays.This coincided with our Somerhill fireworks event, and the children created some fiery, sparkly artworks for our classroom displays.Towards the end of term, the children participated in the Kindergarten Nativity – a highlight in the calendar and an opportunity for us to showcase our developing confidence and tuneful singing voices in front of some very proud family members. Lent Term Robins were the focus for us at the start of term, and we looked at the features of these familiar garden birds to paint our own pictures.We used measuring worms to compare length and worked together to create nests with twigs, paper and shredded wheat. A timely sprinkle of snow coincided with our Snowman story focus, and we enjoyed some snowy and icy activities. We worked together to rescue some toy figures trapped in ice using hammers, tweezers and other tools.We experimented using pipettes of warm water and noticed how the ice melted before our eyes.We painted on ice and with ice cubes before thinking about animals from frozen worlds.There was much excitement with the arrival of eggs in our classrooms, and we worked together to build nests for them. Once hatched, we had two resident penguins to care for! Kindergarten had the most wonderful time celebrating the Lunar New Year Festival, and our classrooms were colourful and vibrant, decorated in shades of red and gold.We marked the arrival of the Year of the Dragon with a Dragon Dance workshop, dressing up, dancing, crafting paper lanterns, drawing Chinese calligraphy patterns and experimenting with chopsticks. Toward the end of the term, we enjoyed exploring some weather topics. A highlight was testing umbrellas to see if they were waterproof and creating colourful rainbows using a variety of media and resources.

Trinity Term Kindergarten had a wonderful time delving into the traditional tale of The Three Little Pigs! This led to a hive of activity with construction resources, both inside and outside of the classroom, as children were challenged to build with straw, sticks and bricks. Collaborating with each other for larger projects and working in smaller groups to draw designs or retell the story using puppets and pictures. Children painted their favourite farmyard animals, thinking carefully about colour and shape. They had great fun playing with small world farms with sensory materials, including soil, sand, water, sawdust and straw. We visited role-play farm shops to purchase fruit for morning break and observed how apples grow from seeds to the fruit we enjoy eating.We tasted a selection of fruits and voted for our favourite, with raspberries being the most popular. We used corn cobs to create interesting paint effects and conducted sensory investigations of tomatoes to identify how they look, feel, smell, and taste. General Our maths learning has accompanied all topics throughout the year, and we have worked on developing a deep understanding of numbers -- not only counting securely and recognising numerals but also subitising skills and looking for number patterns. Our mathematical curiosity has led us to explore shapes and patterns and measure and compare objects side by side. In our Dough Disco sessions, we have enjoyed some funky finger moves, practising fine motor skills by squeezing and manipulating playdough along to music.These sessions are great fun and enable us to practise hand and finger strength and begin making isolated finger actions.

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