The Little Learning Nook

🌟 The Little Learning Nook – Weekly Round-Up🌟

This week we our theme has been Wimbledon🎾

Unfortunately, the weather wasn't on our side, so we didn't get as much outdoor play as we had hoped. However, we still had lots of fun developing our fine motor skills through activities such as using chopsticks, threading beads, crafts, and playdough.

📚 Reading
This week, we worked on phonics, revised tricky words, and completed reading comprehensions to help us learn more about Wimbledon and the sport of tennis.

🔢 Maths
Some of us explored floating and sinking before using scales to investigate which objects were heavier or lighter. We also practised counting in 5s and 25s, addition within 20, and sequencing our morning routines.

✏️ Writing
We practised our spellings and wrote short stories imagining we were at Wimbledon watching a tennis match. Before writing, we learned some fascinating facts using BBC Bitesize to inspire our work.

🌈 All reading, writing, and maths activities were carefully tailored to each child's individual needs and abilities. Most importantly, everyone had a lovely, fun, and sociable week while learning new skills and building confidence.

👏 Well done, everyone! We are so proud of all your hard work this week. 🌟

🌟 Today's Session at The Little Learning Nook 🌟

Today we focused on developing fine motor skills through a range of engaging, hands-on activities.

✍️ After noticing last week that we needed to work on strengthening pencil control, I planned today's activities to provide plenty of opportunities to develop the small muscles and coordination needed for confident writing.

✋️ We began by warming up our fingers using the sensory tray and tweezers, helping to strengthen fine motor skills in a fun and engaging way.

💧 From there, we explored floating and sinking, which naturally led to discussions about weight, comparing heavier and lighter objects, and investigating how to balance scales. It was wonderful to see curiosity and problem-solving skills in action! ⚖️

🎾 We also completed our Speech and Language programme before heading outside to work on gross motor skills. As we begin learning about Wimbledon this week, we explored what it is and why it's such a famous event. This provided the perfect opportunity for throwing, catching, tennis, and badminton activities.

✍️ The afternoon then became very much child-led, with our learner choosing to continue developing their fine motor skills. We practised writing 'g' and 'c' words, focused on pencil grip, letter formation, and writing technique, and worked on improving control and handwriting presentation. It was fantastic to see how much progress was made in just one session, with noticeably neater and more controlled writing.

🌟 To finish the session, the child independently chose to continue their writing and drawing practice, showing great enthusiasm, determination, and pride in their work.

A wonderful session full of curiosity, learning, and child-led exploration! ✨

✨ **Weekly Round-Up at The Little Learning Nook** ✨

We've had a fantastic week of learning! 🌎⚽

This week, we've been exploring the World Cup and discovered that 48 teams will be competing, with matches being hosted across the USA, Mexico and Canada. The children loved creating their own football pitches in our sensory tray and painting their football-themed masterpieces.

Our football topic inspired some brilliant writing too. Some children imagined themselves playing in a World Cup match, while others took on the role of newspaper reporters, writing exciting match reports.

🌻 We also planted sunflowers! This hands-on activity inspired instruction writing, with some children explaining how to grow sunflowers, while others used expanded noun phrases to describe them in detail.

Throughout the week, children worked on personalised learning targets, including phonics, tricky red words, handwriting, spelling and reading. Our older learners enjoyed reading comprehensions to deepen their understanding of either sunflowers or the World Cup.

➕ At our after-school club, the children tackled maths activities tailored to their abilities. Some practised counting in 1s, 2s, 5s and 10s, while our older children focused on revising their times tables ahead of next week's test.

We are so proud of everyone's hard work, enthusiasm and progress this week. Keep up the amazing learning! 💛

🌻 What a lovely tutoring session today! 🌻

🎨 We started our afternoon with some sunflower painting, exploring colour mixing and getting creative with our artwork.

🌱 Next, we revisited our phonics and red (tricky) words before planting giant sunflower seeds. We used this hands-on activity as an opportunity to practise our writing skills by labelling our pots and creating a list in our books of everything we needed to plant them.

✍️ After our writing, we headed outside for some heavy lifting, goal setting, and a game of football. Back indoors, we explored the sensory tray and worked together to create our very own farm scene.

📚 To finish our session, we practised spelling using magnetic letters and used Numicon to create and solve addition calculations.

🌿 At The Little Learning Nook, we are always looking for ways to make learning meaningful through practical resources, hands-on activities, and real-world experiences that connect with children's interests and the world around them.

I am so proud of the focus, enthusiasm, and progress shown today. Well done! ✨

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