⭐️ Week 4: Pirates don’t drive diggers! ⭐️
This week, Story Land was led by our pirate theme! We’ve been reading "Pirates Don't Drive Diggers" and bringing the story to life across the classroom.
From using tweezers to rescue treasure! To exploring absorbency, the children have loved every minute. We even practiced our maths by matching numbers to subitised chests buried in the sand. It’s been a joy to see so much positive energy and engagement this week!
💦 Science: Absorbency 💦
This week our scientists investigated absorbency!
We started with a fun song, and guessing games to see if we could spot the difference between materials that push water away (waterproof) and materials that suck it up (absorbent).
The highlight was our experiment using pipettes! We discovered that water slides right off a wooden stick, but it loves to hide inside cotton wool and sponges. It was magic seeing the water disappear, only to rush back out with a big SQUEEZE!
🧩 PSHE: Jigsaw 🧩
In our Jigsaw session, we learned a very important lesson about perseverance. We watched a funny role-play where the teachers kept giving up when their towers fell down or their drawings got tricky.
The children were amazing at spotting the frustration and gave us the best advice: "Don't give up, try again!" We talked about how it’s okay to find things hard, but setting small goals and working together helps us get better every day ❤️
☀️ Wonderful Wednesday: Computing ☀️
⭐️ Week 3: The Pirates on the bus ⭐️
This week, our classroom explored the story, The Pirates on the Bus, through hands-on learning. In Maths, the children used 2D shapes to construct ships, while in Literacy, we shaped playdough into sounds. We also strengthened our fine motor skills by twisting nuts and bolts and cutting out pirate buses. Finally, we navigated our transportation map, using directional language to steer clear of "squids" and "quicksand"!
🪵 Science: Properties 🪵
This week in Science, we moved from identifying materials to investigating their properties. We started with a fun song about why chairs can’t be made of pizza (they need to be strong!), which led to exploring "Mystery Feely Jars" to describe different textures.
The highlight was our "Fred the Frog" experiment! 🐸
The children built houses from wood, fabric, and paper, then tested which ones kept Fred dry. This helped us understand the term waterproof. To finish, we went on a classroom scavenger hunt to find items that were hard, bendy, rough, or transparent.
PE: Cool Kids
Our pirate adventures continued in the gym this week! We focused on body control, practicing being "straight like a pencil" to master our rolling skills. The children also worked on their balance by carefully "walking the plank" (using ropes) and exploring different ways to move over and under obstacles. We finished with some calming pirate yoga.
⭐️ Week 2: This is the ship that Jack built ⭐️
We have had a creative week in class for Week 2 of "The Ship That Jack Built." ⛵️
The children loved getting hands-on in our Art and Design area, where they designed and built their own magnificent pirate ships.
We also focused on fine motor skills and logic with our transportation and sequencing puzzles. It was wonderful to see the children becoming authors by creating their own storybooks and getting into character by crafting their own pirate hats!🏴☠️
Physical Development: Pirate Explorers 🏴☠️
We turned our physical development session into a pirate adventure today! 🏴☠️
The children engaged in a movement circuit designed to challenge their balance and coordination.
Navigating the "ship" required them to control their movements carefully—stepping lightly on the "plank," crouching low to get through tunnels, and landing safely when jumping.
This activity helps build core strength and spatial awareness, all while having pirate-themed fun!
🌲 Science: Natural Materials 🌲
This week we became Material Detectives! 🔍
We started by discussing the difference between "Natural" and "Man-made" materials.
We then took our learning outdoors! 🌳
Using our visual scavenger hunt boards, the children used their exploring skills in the outdoor area to find different natural materials.
PE: Cool Kids 🏃♀️
Today in "Cool Kids" PE, we explored our rolling skills.
Using beanbags, the children worked on tracking an object and controlling their throw. We progressed from small two-handed catches to challenging ourselves to pass the beanbag from hand-to-hand and around our bodies.
We focused on "Rolling" to build core stability.
• Superman Pose: Lifting head, legs and arms to strengthen our back muscles.
• Blanket Rolls: The children became "Sausage Rolls," wrapping themselves in blankets. This required coordination to roll across the mat, but the tight blanket also provided calming deep pressure which the children found very regulating. The children enjoyed trying roll from one side and back again, using the correct rolling formation.
⭐️ Week One: Storyland Adventure - Ten Little Pirates! ⭐️
What a fantastic a snow filled week we've had to start to our learning adventures! This week we've been busy exploring, discovering and having lots of fun across all areas of learning
Maths: We challenged our brains with fun subitising puzzles, spotting quantities at a glance!
Literacy: We got hands-on with sounds in the sand, went digging for sounds, and enjoyed stamping and matching activities.
Physical Development: We worked those muscles with a transportation puzzle, building strength and coordination.
Art & Design: We showed our creativity with cut and stick activities and loved building our very own treasure maps
Understanding the World: We explored natural materials and investigated different textures on animals, using our senses to learn more about the world around us.
We did a small circle time activity to discuss what clothes we wear to stay warm and how they keep us safe!
We then found these items and got dressed to enjoy spending some time in the snow, rolling, squishing and stomping!
We all built a snowman and used some spare clothes to keep it warm just like us!
Sensory Circuits
The children have really enjoyed building and using the sensory circuits this week.
They worked together as a team to safely manoeuvre and move the equipment, showing awareness of space and listening carefully to guidance. With adult support, they led decisions about where each mat and item should go. The children explored different ways to travel across the circuit, including sliding, walking and crawling, developing their coordination, confidence and teamwork.
Science: Natural Materials
Today we started our new Science topic: Everyday Materials! 🧱🧸
We used our super senses to investigate objects around the classroom.
• EYFS Explorers used their hands to describe things as smooth, rough, hard, or soft.
• Year 1 Scientists made predictions and sorted objects into groups based on how they feel (like putting all the scaly things together! 🐍).
⭐️ Week 7: The Christmas countdown ⭐️
This week in the Rainbow Room we have enjoyed celebrating the Christmas season by getting stuck in to different festive activities! 🎄 We have played many Christmas games, had a Christmas dinner, sang in our stage, kept an eye on the different things that Sprinkle the cheeky elf does each day and also even had our extra special visit from Santa Claus who joined us in some play!🎅
🎅 Special memories meeting Santa 🎅
Here is a look at our very special visitor 🎅 Santa was kind enough to take some time out of his busy schedule to visit the wonderful children at Dothill Primary School.
Santa loved taking the time to play with some of our toys that each child enjoys, and giving us an early classroom gift of a new storybook to share 🎁
The children were very excited to read our new book at story time 📖
🧑🍳 Baking Christmas Wreaths 👩🍳
This week we visited the Meadow provision to try some baking in their kitchen area.
We verbally and physically explored each ingredient and utensils needed for our session and discussed how we would use them to create our Christmas wreaths.
Some of the children shared the idea of using an oven to melt the chocolate 🍫 We then looked at what a microwave is and listened for the ping before checking whether our chocolate was still solid or was now a hot liquid ready to mix. The children loved mixing and creating their circle shapes and adding a variety of Christmas sprinkles and marshmallows. Once we finished everyone carried their wreath to the fridge and placed them carefully to set overnight.
🎁 Pass the parcel 🎁
Here’s a look at just how fun our game of pass the parcel was this week! Every child waited patiently, listened to the music and made sure to only open one layer at a time. They even reminded Miss Coomber when she lost that “it is okay, you try again”. We are so proud of our wonderful role models ⭐️
Week 6: Just the job for Santa 🎅
Our storyland adventure this week was: Just the job for Santa! In this story Santa was feeling very sleepy. Mrs Claus told Santa to try a new job! Santa tried lots and lots of new jobs such as, being a builder, an Astronaught and a race car driver. However, Santa realised the job he LOVES most was…. flying on his Christmas sleigh after all 🛷 All the children loved seeing Santa explore different jobs, and escape Italy the touch and feel aspect to explore the different uniforms (e.g. tassels on his sailors suit) that people in these jobs wear.
This week’s learning goals include:
- Explore the different uniforms people wear.
- Role play different jobs that we want to try.
- Recognise who wears what uniform.
- Understand what people’s roles are in their job.
This week we have loved embracing the Christmas chaos and celebrating the end of our first term in the Rainbow Room.
🎄 Rainbow Room Christmas event 🎄
This week in the Rainbow Room the children had their festive Christmas event. They enjoyed getting stuck in to their nativity costumes, singing their Christmas songs, creating memorable keepsakes with their families and many Christmas themed activities such as:
- Decorating Christmas cupcakes,
- Building gingerbread houses,
- Making Christmas wreaths,
- Painting Christmas ornaments,
- Delcrating hanging photo ornaments,
- Making reindeer food,
- Making Christmas bead keychains or jewellery,
- Party games: Dancing, Reindeer toss, stick the carrot on the snowman,
- Photo Booth dress up.
⭐️ Week 5 - Emergency! ⭐️
This week, our Storyland adventure was "Emergency!" We explored exciting vocabulary, learned when to call 999, and created our own brave hero stories in Drawing Club.
Christmas has arrived in the Rainbow Room! We’ve been busy exploring patterns by designing baubles and making gingerbread men. In Maths, we helped muddled elves sort Numicon shapes and explored "parts and wholes," while our "Wonderful Wednesday" saw us programming BeeBots to deliver letters.
⭐️ Week 4 - The jolly Christmas postman ⭐️
The Rainbow Room has been a hive of festive activity this week! Inspired by The Jolly Christmas Postman, our little learners have been busy in our class Post Office, writing letters and discussing creative ways to deliver them—from Santa's sleigh to police cars!
We combined messy play with Maths by making "snow" (shaving foam and cornflour) to stamp Numicon shapes and built stables for the Nativity story using pasta and sticks. We are now fully decorated and ready for a magical December!
The Classroom Christmas Elf!
RAINBOW ROOM ELF TAKEOVER ALERT!
After following a trail of mischief, we can now confirm that the Rainbow Room Christmas Elf has ARRIVED!
Meet Sprinkle - our cheeky little elf who causes ALL sorts of mischief and mayhem! A Sprinkle has already unpacked their magic, climbed into places they shouldn't, and-most importantly-started writing a very long list of everything it sees the children get up to in the Rainbow Room to tell Miss Coomber ••
Sprinkle enjoys reporting the superstar moments AND the silly ones, aswell as adding continuous mayhem to Miss Coomber's day!
PE: Cool kids
Today we went out into the hall for our PE Cool Kids lesson, and the children were amazing. They waited so patiently, helped to collect and tidy the mats, and each one of them stayed in their own space beautifully. They watched and listened so carefully to Miss Coomber and followed every instruction with such focus. After our lesson we brought out some music and danced some actions songs on our mats, shared a Christmas sing song practise before lining up and returning to the Rainbow Room for maths.
I am sooo proud of all of their maturity, respectfulness and effort - what a wonderful group of children we have!
⭐️ Week 3 - You can’t call an elephant in an emergency! ⭐️
This week, our story "You Can't Call an Elephant in an Emergency!" had us giggling and learning all about community helpers. We explored where helpers work by digging through "fire foam" and even programmed Bee Bots to drive helper vehicles in Computing!
Christmas has also arrived in the Rainbow Room. We have been busy making salt dough ornaments, creating paper chains to build teamwork, and practicing our cutting skills to make Christmas trees. In Maths, we tackled subitising and comparing numbers, while Literacy saw us challenging ourselves to write sounds independently.
⭐️ Week 2 - Someone bigger ⭐️
This week’s Storyland Adventure featured the book "Someone Bigger," sparking wonderful conversations about helping others and working together. Alongside the story, we focused on Remembrance activities. The children created beautiful tissue paper poppies, decorated medals, and practiced their maths skills by ordering poppies from smallest to biggest. It has been a week full of rich vocabulary and creative learning!
⭐️ Week 1 - Clothesline clues, jobs people do ⭐️
This week, we dove into Clothesline Clues - Jobs People Do, exploring the different people who help us. The children have been busy role-playing, counting helpers in Maths, and developing fine motor skills by pegging uniforms onto our washing line.
We also celebrated Bonfire Night in style! From painting glittery firework explosions to learning about safety and tracing sounds, it has been a week full of colour and excitement. A huge thank you to our parents for sharing your news on Seesaw—the children loved sharing their stories!
🍂 Autumn 2: People Who Help Us
This term, we are learning all about the real-life superheroes in our community! Our focus is on community roles, safety, family, and understanding emergencies.
Our Key Learning Questions:
• 🏠 Home & School: Who helps me in my daily life?
• 🚑 Community Heroes: What do police, doctors, and firefighters do?
• ⚠️ Safety First: How do we know what is safe or not safe?
• ‼️Getting Help: Who do I go to when I need help?
Week 8: Room on the Broom 🧙♀️🧹
Our Story Land adventure this week is Room on the Broom. This delightful Halloween tale follows a kind-hearted witch who shares her broomstick with a growing group of helpful animals. Through spooky skies and a dragon on the prowl, the story shows that friendship, generosity and teamwork can create powerful friendships.
This week’s learning goals include:
- I can show what sharing is
- I can take turns and wait for my turn during play
- I can explore teamwork
- I can demonstrate teamwork in the Rainbow Room
- I can begin to problem-solve with adult support
👻 Rainbow Room Monster Mash 🎃
In the Rainbow Room we celebrated our last week of Autumn 1 with a spooky monster mash disco 🪩
We enjoyed getting dressed up in our costumes and attending our SEND friendly disco 🕺
🦕 Staying safe with PANTS 🩲
We were thrilled to have a special visit from Pantasaurus, who helped us learn all about the importance of keeping our private areas private and staying safe. The children joined in with discussions and activities building a lovely understanding of staying safe in their own individual ways.
Of course, we couldn’t resist singing and dancing along to the classic Pantasaurus song. Everyone joined in with great enthusiasm, using actions, movement and lots of big smiles throughout.
Week 7: Ruby’s Worry 💭
Our Story Land adventure this week is Ruby’s Worry. This story helps children understand that worries are normal and that sharing our worries can help us feel better. It also explores who we can talk to and how others can support us.
This week’s learning goals include:
- I can understand what a worry is
- I can understand how worries can make us feel
- I can understand why it is important to share worries
- I can recognise who I can share my worries with
- I can begin to show or talk about my worries with adult support
Crossbar Taster Session 🪩
Last week we enjoyed our Crossbar session so much, we decided to join in on another one. This weeks session was dance! Take a look at some of our super moves 🕺
A special visitor 🚒
Ahead of our next half term theme ‘People who help us’, the Rainbow Room were surprised with a visit from some firefighters 🧑🚒 We explored how their uniforms feel, looked at what tools they use and the sounds of their sirens 🚨
Calming connections
Here is a look at one of our group co-regulation activities. We enjoy a range of stimulating activities from dough-disco 🪩 to Sensory massages 💆♀️
During sensory massages the children explore safe boundaries, calm connections with their peers, and attentive listening skills.
These develop safe and secure relationships, and build regulation techniques that help them to feel calm.
Week 6: Sharing a Shell 🐚
Our Story Land adventure this week is Sharing a Shell. This heart-warming story follows three sea creatures who learn that life is much better when they share their home — and their hearts — instead of keeping everything to themselves. The story beautifully shows that kindness, cooperation and friendship make the world a lot brighter (and roomier!) than going it alone.
This week’s learning goals include:
- I can understand what sharing is
- I can recognise how sharing can make us feel
- I can join in with a turn-taking activity
- I can recognise why teamwork is sometimes better
- I can begin to explore how to wait for my turn, or what my other options are
- I can begin to ask to share or take turns using visuals or words, with adult support
Crossbar Taster Session
This week we also enjoyed taking part in a Crossbar taster session. The children were incredible transitioning into the school hall, listening and waiting, and trying their best at new skills!
Stay and Play
We also enjoyed sharing our first Stay and Play event. We loved welcoming all our families to take a look at their child’s learning environment and partake in some hands on activities!
💬
Week 5: How Do You Feel? ❤️
This week’s Story Land adventure encourages children to name, recognise and talk about their emotions, helping them to understand how they and awareness of how others may feel.
This week’s learning goals include:
- I can understand different emotions
- I can begin to recognise my own feelings
- I can begin to recognise other people’s feelings
- I can talk about how I am feeling.
A surprise visitor 🐸
In our Rainbow Room garden we were surprised to find a toad hopping around! We took a moment to explore what a toad looks like, how the toad may feel if it is lost, and we discussed where it lives and where we need to return it too.
Mr Busby was very brave and helped us to carefully move it back to a safe space.
Week 4: I love you everyday ❤️
This week’s Story Land adventure focuses on exploring feelings and emotions, helping children begin to recognise how they feel and why.
This week’s learning goals include:
- I can begin to explore different emotions
- I can demonstrate emotions
- I can begin to match emotions to events
- I can begin to practise self-care activities (e.g. brushing teeth, washing hands)
- I can begin to explore ways to regulate my emotions
Week 3: Elmer the Patchwork Elephant 🐘🌈
Our Story Land adventure this week is Elmer the Patchwork Elephant. This story explores celebrating being different and recognising what makes us unique. Children will also explore different colours, patterns and textures in the world around them.
This week’s learning goals:
- I can celebrate me
- I can explore differences and similarities
- I can recognise different colours
- I can explore and create different patterns
- I can begin to explore different textures through my senses
🎨 Colour mixing experiment
Whilst setting up our Rainbow Room activity the children started asking some questions about different colours.
This was prompted by our Elmer story where we looked at the different patterns and colours the elephants created!
We loved the children’s curiosity and let this lead use in an explorative activity where we all had a go at mixing colours to see what we could make.
We discovered:
🔵 + 🟡 = 🟢
🔴 + 🟡 = 🟠
🔵 + 🔴 = 🟣
Week 2: The Colour Monster 🎨
Our Storyland adventure this week is The Colour Monster, a lovely story that helps children explore different emotions and begin to understand them. Through this story, children are learning to recognise their own feelings and start developing ways to express and regulate them.
This week’s learning goals include:
- I can follow our school timetable
- I can explore different emotions
- I can show different emotions
- I am beginning to learn ways to regulate my emotions
Rainy Days Experiment ☔️
This week in the Rainbow Room, we experienced our first very rainy day, which meant the outdoor area was closed. This was a new change for our Rainbow learners.
To help the children understand what was happening, Miss Coomber introduced some special equipment and explored the question: What is rain? 🌧️
We used paint tubs covered with tissue to create our ‘clouds’ ☁️ and pots of blue water to represent the rain. Using pipettes as our ‘sun’, the children carefully sucked up the water and slowly dropped it onto the clouds. When the clouds became too heavy, the rain began to fall!
The children loved this activity so much that they spent the afternoon independently recreating the experiment themselves, showing great curiosity, focus and creativity.
Week 1: Harry and His Dinosaurs Go to School 🦕
We loved welcoming our new learners and starting our school adventure together! Take a look at some of the fun and exciting activities from our first week. 😊
Our first Story Land adventure begins with "Harry and the Dinosaurs Go to School" a lovely story to support children in feeling safe and excited about starting their school journey.
This week's learning goals include:
- I can explore my new classroom / school.
- I can follow parts of our daily routine.
- I can express how I feel about starting school.
- I can begin to explore facial features.
