Belated welcome back to school. Apologies for the lack of blog last week.  Tech problems prevented our usual Friday edition.  We hope you all enjoyed a wonderful Easter break.  We were lucky to enjoy lots of sunshine.  Long may it continue.  This holiday felt different as lots of places began to reopen.  The world is beginning to return to our new normal.  We’d like to take this opportunity to reassure you all, as the world outside reopens, we are continuing to follow procedures to keep Covid out of Hadrian.  We continue our high level of hygiene practice and continue to work in our bubbles.  We are still taking every precaution to keep ourselves safe in school.

As the sun shines, we are taking lots of opportunities to develop our outdoor learning curriculum.  In our class this means lots of outdoor exploration.  Last week we were able to enjoy some water play.  We are sometimes asked if all we do is play at school.  That’s a great question which we’d like to try to answer simply.

YES…..WE LOVE PLAY!!! Play is essential to develop a range of learning skills.  It’s how we are making sense of our world around us.  By using our bodies to explore water we are using our senses, our gross and fine motor skills.  We are filling and emptying containers, pouring water from one place to another.  We are developing mathematical  skills through problem solving.   We are also developing social play skills and enjoying activities alongside friends.  We are also creating strong relationships with adults through co exploration and creating opportunities for interactions with everyone around us.

The best way to promote communication is creating a nurturing environment rich in play.  We are using every opportunity to develop communication for each child using play.

Here are some photo’s of our Outdoor Learning last week……

We also enjoyed working in Jabadao on our physical and movement skills.  In this session we create an environment to encourage movement.  We use slides, body boards, climbing equipment. We changed our session this term after reflecting on last term.  We decided to choose equipment based on a specific movement or skill each week.    We chose climbing and balancing as our first trial. It worked beautifully.  The new session allowed our learning to be much more specific, allowing each child to flourish, at their own level, developing a particular skill. Here are some photos of how we got on…