Mrs Procter, Mrs Watkins, Mrs Frattaroli, Mrs Masters and Ms Baker would like to welcome you to the Early Years

Westmeads Early Years - This is how we learn...

Term 5 - Everything Changes

Wow! We’ve built a science lab for investigating, created a woodland animal role-play world as well as looking the properties of 3D shape! No wonder we are so tired from all this learning. 

Over this term we have been exploring changes over time using our senses. There has been an array of colourful and textureful fruit and veg to talk about, looking carefully at the seeds we found in them. Lots of practical discovery learning about seeds and what makes them change. 

 

We love to go outdoors in Reception! So many learning opportunities at Forest School - negotiating spatial awareness, gross motor skills refined, personal, social and emotional development not to mention all the communication and language that was being used. Moreover, the children used their senses to explore this magnificent place in conjunction with our science learning noticing that everything changes! 
 

Term 4 Going Places.

Term 3 Be a Maker! An Engineer Like Me. 

Reception children have continued to "Be An Engineer" by designing and creating their own mazes using Lego and Duplo. Then they challenged each other to navigate the ping pong balls around the mazes. Some children added extra obstacles in to make it even more of a challenge!
#STEAM #BeAMakerBeAnEngineer #UniquelyWestmeads

With the arrival of the cooler weather this week, the Reception children came in one morning to discover that the water tray and tuff tray had iced over. This resulted in a morning of exploring ice; holding it with their hands, using different  tools to crack it into pieces and then creating their own ice transporter machine to move the melting ice into the jug. Some of the children even created their own ice art with food dye!
#STEAM #AsColdAsIce #BeAMakerBeAnEngineer #UniquelyWestmeads

Through personalised activities such as our mighty muscle programme the children  develop both fine and gross motor skills daily within the early year’s environment. as well as developing core strength we focus on shoulder, elbow and wrist pivots for our mark makers using brooms, brushes, sponges and sprayers. Research informs us that these stages of physical development are crucial for fine motor control and emergent writers.

Term 2 - Coastal School at St Mildred’s Bay

What a fabulous adventure for our children to experience and compare the differences between our local Whitstable beach and a sandy one. 

Term 1 - The Skin You Live In

The Reception children have enjoyed exploring water in different areas of the environment. They created their own bubble mixtures, mixing it into water using different tools. They used the bubble machine or pipe cleaner to make the bubbles. Reception have continued to investigate and show curiosity with their water play and experimented with 'Rainbow Rain' in the water tray, mixing coloured water in the shaving foam 'clouds', as well as grating soap to create their own washing liquid to wash clothes! Fantastic clean fun!

Outdoor Learning- Canopy, Coastal and Forest School

Forest and Coastal School Promote...

• Confidence and independence grows in the natural environment giving a sense of success and self-esteem.

• Development of relationships with other children and adults.

• Adaptation to new situations, trying new activities and openness to experiences.

• Children can become more motivated to use extensive language and vocabulary for different contexts and questions become more specific.

• Physical development- enhanced stamina, gross and fine motor skills

• 6 key thinking and learning skills enquiry, hypothesis, information processing, decision making, communication and vocabulary, review and evaluation are experienced regularly.

• Children’s attitudes to outdoors changes, respect for the environment begins to develop and they want to spend time in the great outdoors.