Sunday, 25 August 2013

A sneaky peek

Well all has been a little quiet on my blog recently, however that's not to say that I haven't been busy!

I have been working on writing some 'follow up' extension activities relating to the Sensory Story that can be used in the classroom or nursery environment. 

What I have found out whilst I have been working on this venture, is that my Sensory Story and accompanying activities will benefit all the children in class not just the small group of children for whom it was originally written for. 

Although we probably don't think about it we use our senses all the time to help us learn things. I am sure all of us can draw on memories associated with different senses - for example that special song or a precious photo. Whenever my middle daughter smells freesias she recalls holding the basket of flowers when she was a bridesmaid - age 2!  She is now 22! What an impact that one smell had on her! 

With this in mind my challenge today was to think around writing examples of different learning activities that could be used with the whole class once the Sensory Story had been delivered. 

Most of you may have realised by now that my main character is a squirrel. The setting of the story is in a wood. The time of year is Autumn. So here is a sneaky peek at just a few of my ideas that I have included along with the story to support and extend the children's learning further. . . 

Personal, social and emotional development - 
Talk about different feelings.  How was the squirrel feeling at different points in the story? Are there times when you feel happy? Sad? Scared? Talk about looking after the environment, and safety issues regarding picking berries that grow in the wild. 

Literacy 
Use descriptive words to describe the stimuli such as 'prickly' fir cones, extend into writing simple sentence.  Draw maps of the places that Squirrel visited when he was looking for food and encourage labelling. Read stories such as ‘Ferdie and the falling leaves’......

Understanding the World - 
Baking – Make individual blackberry crumbles (also covers Maths development with weighing and measuring etc.).  Become a nature detective – go for a walk and explore a hedge! It's amazing what you can see in there! Find out about habitats - which animals live in the hedgerow? 


I have also written activities to cover Maths, Communication and Language, Physical development, and Expressive arts and design....but I felt it would be too much to include in tonight's blog.

Enough written for tonight as my sewing machine is beckoning me from afar…….will be back soon with more news of my Sensory Story journey.


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