Me and My Place in the World
Project Overview
Children at the reception age stage of development see themselves as a being that is separate from their caregiver. The overarching aim of our first project is for the children to feel safe and happy and confident in the knowledge that they have independent thoughts and feelings. We will develop a basic sense of trust that supports the children to engage and enjoy their learning and exploration outside of their primary attachment relationship. Through positive, trusting relationships with peers and adults, we will build the foundation of well-being on which our learning can grow. The outcomes of this project will include a gallery of evidence to celebrate ourselves.
Project Goal
To feel happy and safe at school.
Steps to Success
I can share my feelings
I can talk about me
I can talk about my family
Links to EYFS
This project will mainly cover the prime areas of Communication and Language, Speaking and Personal, Social and Emotional Development.
Within those areas we will achieve the following statements:
C&L
'Listen attentively and respond to what they hear with relevant questions, comments and actions when being read to and during whole class discussions and small group interactions;
Make comments about what they have heard and ask questions to clarify their understanding;
Hold conversation when engaged in back-and-forth exchanges with their teacher and peers.
Speaking
Participate in small group, class and one-to-one discussions, offering their own ideas, using recently introduced vocabulary; -
Offer explanations for why things might happen, making use of recently introduced vocabulary from stories, non-fiction, rhymes and poems when appropriate; -
Express their ideas and feelings about their experiences using full sentences, including use of past, present and future tenses and making use of conjunctions, with modelling and support from their teacher.
PSED
Self-Regulation
Show an understanding of their own feelings and those of others, and begin to regulate their behaviour accordingly;
Set and work towards simple goals, being able to wait for what they want and control their immediate impulses when appropriate;
Give focused attention to what the teacher says, responding appropriately even when engaged in activity, and show an ability to follow instructions involving several ideas or actions.
Managing Self
Be confident to try new activities and show independence, resilience and perseverance in the face of challenge;
Explain the reasons for rules, know right from wrong and try to behave accordingly; - Manage their own basic hygiene and personal needs, including dressing, going to the toilet and understanding the importance of healthy food choices.
Building Relationships
Work and play cooperatively and take turns with others;
Form positive attachments to adults and friendships with peers;
Show sensitivity to their own and to others’ needs.
Wow, what a week! The children have done so well completing their first full week all together. We have followed and now understand the routines of the day. The children had lots of ideas for a class name, Cristina and I narrowed it down to two, Dandelions and Owls, the children then voted and The Owls was the most popular. We have spoken each morning about how we are feeling and setting a new intention for the day ahead. Our intentions have mostly been to be happy, have fun, play with our friends. So within this we have taken time to discuss ways of being that enable us to fulfil our intention. We will continue to keep checking in with our ways of being until we are all secure in living them. We have touched upon zones of regulation, so don't be surprised if the children begin using vocabulary such as "I am in the green," in the coming weeks. We shared a lovely story called 'So Much' about a baby and his visiting family. This sparked conversation about our own families which the children loved to share with the rest of the class.
We love the story 'Owl Babies.' We used the story tree and props to retell the story. Then we looked at some resources showing different families and we learnt that families come in all different ways. We shared in front of the class, who lives in our house and then we drew pictures of our families in our learning journeys. We had a lovely time playing families in the tree house.
In forest skills we are learning to identify trees. So, we took the opportunity to collect a variety of leaves and design our own leaf people.
With Leia, the children really enjoyed making clay faces and the results were brilliant!
On Thursday we had our morning meeting with 'The Kind Tigers.' In the meeting we spoke about relationships and after the meeting we played together so that we could make new friendships. The children really enjoyed this time to play and make new friends outside of our own den and class.
The children are becoming more familiar with our morning meeting routine now. Each day we reflect on the day before and set a new determination for today. Our determinations which enforce our ways of being this week have been: to use kind hands; to work as a team at tidy up time; to come to the circle when we hear the 'twit a whoo' call.
We have really enjoyed working on self portraits this week. We began by looking closely at ourselves and our friends and commenting on similarities and differences. Then we made a line drawing making sure we had included each feature. We used water colours to add colour, being careful to mix colours true to our skin, hair and eye tone. We played a game of 'Guess Who' giving clues to guess the right Owl. Then children were asked to guess who a portrait was of, highlighting the importance of observing and recreating in our portraits. The children loved both challenges.
We needed to return to our ways of being this week. In morning meetings, we agreed it's fair to tidy up as a team, it's safe to not come into the den at lunch time, it's good to say "No I don't like it," if something upsets you and it's kind to listen to our friends and respond.
We read 'Ruby's Worry' which encouraged us to talk about our worries to make them smaller.
We were able to attend a whole school morning meeting for the first time on Thursday. We sat so beautifully and listened to Nicola and Alice teaching us about disposing of rubbish and caring for our planet.
Another great week in the Owls!
We began the week making a second draft line drawing of ourselves. We were able to choose paper from a variety of sizes and textures. When we were happy with the line drawing, we then chose whether to use paints or pastels to add colour. We were so happy with the effects we made.
We had fun making an Owl number line later in the week. We counted how many Owls were are, then we found those numbers and stuck them in display squares. We had photographs of ourselves to cut and stick to match the corresponding number. We thought it was so funny seeing lots of photos of ourselves.
At the end of the week, we used our thumb prints to make characters. This was another opportunity for us to talk about ourselves, our families and our friends.
We had a real treat at whole school morning meeting this week when we were individually read a story to by one of The Adders. This was a wonderful Personal, Social and Emotional opportunity as well as Literacy and Communication and Language! The Owls really are feeling part of the whole school community.
We wanted to enhance our self portraits for display. We measured strips of paper to make a frame around our pictures. Then we used flowers and leaves that we had previously collected and pressed to stick onto the frames for decoration.
We have been learning about capital letters. We know that we need a capital letter at the beginning of our name only. We had many sounds to choose from to select the sounds we needed to build our name. Our school community can now see who each portrait belongs to.
We loved using the different coloured play dough to make a range of different faces. We have been talking about different emotions as part of our understanding of the zones of regulation. We have been looking at pictures of faces with different expressions and making suggestions of how we might read a facial expression.
We really enjoy using natural resources. To continue with our learning about capitals, we drew our initial and then used natural resources to follow the form of the capital letter.
We have had a few children doing trial sessions this week and The Owls have been great at welcoming and leading the way.
Our wonderful 'Me and My Place in the World' display was completed this week and we are so proud! We read stories and watched short videos to understand what it means to be unique. We wrote 'I am special because..'sentences to accompany our portraits. The display caught the eye of many across the school community, so much so that The Sparrows used our portraits and our poem to support their whole school meeting on celebrating diversity.
We have developed our understanding of the zones of regulation this week. Although we had previously understood which colour we could give to which emotion, we hadn't fully understood that we had the control to regulate ourselves. So we discussed and agreed strategies that we could use in order to 'be in the green.' We also made posts that we can locate in and around of den which are helpful zones when we are trying to regulate our emotions.
We have been talking about caring for class resources and in particular, encouraging a love of reading and caring for books. So we made posters for the 'book nook' as reminders of how to care for books. We had great fun acting out the do's and don'ts! Taking responsibility for our class den and the resources we use has been a great learning opportunity for The Owls. I can't believe we have only been together for half a term! It feels like The Owls have always been part of LWS.