I hope you all had a lovely half term. Where did the last 2 weeks disappear to? We have been even busier than usual. We celebrated Chinese new year with a special assembly last week. We enjoyed watching and joining in with a dragon dance and tasted lots of lovely food. The smell or stir fried vegetables filled the school hall.
Back in class, 1B enjoyed some Chinese style messy play. We explored the delicious crunch of rice, noodles and Chinese crackers. Children were exploring with their hands as they watched the results of their own actions. Everyone showed fantastic levels of engagement. Learning through exploration was our focus. Everyone participated in their own wonderful way.

Lucas sprinkling rice

Ameenah loves sensory food play

Katrina tasted the crackers.

We have been learning to turn take with our friends in class this half term too. Lots of children are showing interest in sharing an activity with a friend. We observed some fantastic tracking when passing a ball. Children chose a friend to pass the ball to and passed the ball around our circle.

Our children love a sensory story. We shared a story about the beach. Children loved pressing switches to hear the beach songs. Everyone began to anticipate the cheeky seagull flying down to pinch the children’s ice cream!

Ameenah loved the sound of her pebble tube

Look at the starfish

the sea urchin is fun

Raphael loved the seagull flying about

peek a boo

Lovely to see our James back to school after his op! What a brave boy! He took Melvin the class monkey to share the experience. It was lovely to see Melvin getting his own ID wrist band just like James. He dressed in his scrubs for the op too!

Have a lovely weekend friends,

Happy Friday everyone.

I can’t believe another week has flown by.  We have had an exceptional week of effort and achievements.  Our focus this week has been physical targets.  We have all practised walking, sitting, balancing and moving with greater independence.  During Rebound therapy on Monday we celebrated our Hope’s progress.  She is now balancing independently on a roll!! This is a new skill which she has been working on this academic year.

On Tuesday we all enjoyed water play and Katrina stood at the table independently for 15 minutes.  She was enjoying her sensory play so much; she stood for extended lengths of time. Lucas loved playing in the water!!

On Wednesday we walked to visit Westgate College Café. Lots of children walked. Our Morgan walked with the support of reins for the first time out of school. He loved the freedom of walking with an adult and let us know when his legs were tired enough to want his buggy. He was our Friday Star of the Week for doing just that. Well done Morgan. We are so proud of you.

We also made some cards for some special people in school.  We are saying goodbye to one of our amazing nurses, Di this week and we also made our lovely nursery teacher, Sharon a card to let her know class 1B are thinking of her. The cards were made entirely by children’s interests. Lots of paper tearing and exploring created a great Art lesson.

Then the snow fell on Thursday and look what we got out………… the sledges!! Tremendous balancing skills from our children. James even dared to sledge down a small hill in our play area! Go James. Basheer and Ameenah LOVED exploring in the snow with their waterproofs on.

Have a great weekend everyone!!

Happy New Year everyone. Welcome back to our 1B blog.  We look forward to sharing our hard work and achievements with you all throughout spring and summer terms too.

I’d like to begin our 2019 journey by sharing another fantastic resource offered by our very own school staff. Our pop up hair salon was popular amongst lots of our families.  Children who would usually struggle in a salon setting were offered a hair cut by familiar people in the safety of their school for a very reasonable donation.  I hope you parents and carers were happy with the beautiful results.  Here is our Morgan having a trim in class with the support of an Ipad and a familiar face.  Letters have gone home to offer the service again on Friday 8^th Feb.  For a small donation, we hope to see lots of you again at our next pop up salon.

This week in 1B we all flew into 2019 with a thirst for achievement. Children will be exhausted this Friday after a very physical week.  Hope has been standing and walking at every given opportunity.  She is walking independently to collect the register for class. Katrina is becoming so confident standing whenever she can. James is using his standing frame at every given opportunity. He is also working hard during our Jabadao sessions.  He can now use his fantastic upper body strength to climb on to a body board independently.  Basheer is showing great progress in his exploration skills,  enjoying a range of textures when making play dough.

Our Dale and Lucas are making us proud, working and playing with more focus at a table and on the floor with the support of an adult.

Well done to Ameenah for being our star of the week.  We are so proud of you for eating independently!!

Well done to our 1B stars.  We are all making progress pursuing our personal learning goals.

Have a great weekend!

This week our class was magically transformed into the Polar Express.  All children were given a golden ticket to board the train as it passed through 1B.  It was lovely to see so many  families join us on our journey.  We had hot chocolate and snacks before listening to personalised messages from Santa himself.
2 of our passengers enjoyed showing off their water skills to family in our hydrotherapy pool. We also attempted to revisit our class performance of ‘White Christmas’.   It was heart warming to see how proud you all were, seeing your 1B stars shine.

We wish you a very merry Christmas and peace and happiness in 2019!

From all 1B staff