Page 60: What have we learnt so far ... an eyfs journey

 Page 60: What have we learnt so far ... an eyfs journey.

Happy Eater Holidays! Congratulations of completing term 2, only Summer term to go!

Over my summer term blog posts, I will be focussing upon delving into various areas of the curriculum throughout our direct teaching input and continuous provision. Today I will be sharing some of the wonderful things we have learnt this term, reflect through our timeline of learning.

One of my proudest areas of my classroom us our learning journey. This is a timeline of all of the learning we have completed so far following our school curriculum. The time line is full of pictures, children's work and key vocabulary per topic which allows adults to support daily revise and revisit of the key knowledge learnt. Due to the personalisation of the timeline which is most definitely one of the reasons it one looks great but two the children are super invested to find themselves and talk about themselves, due to the large amount of class images, I cannot sadly share what it looks like since the first day, however I will share a selection of our key learning so far and how this is linked throughout the curriculum. 

(DISCLAIMER**) Obviously not all of out learning can physically go onto out timeline, throughout the year so far, I have selected small aspects of a range of different areas, so by the end of the year, all areas on learning will feature through our topic driven work on our timeline.  

So we start in September ...

Following on from our transition period into school, our first focus was all about me! We learnt about our own and each other families, identified ourselves and named others in photographs, and we made our own family book. We introduced the concept of friends and our reading tree where each leaf is dedicated to a member of each class. The children enjoy talking about themselves and family fondly so it is a great start to get the timeline going!

October ...

In October, after our transition period had settled and all of the children were back in full time, we moved into learning about the season Autumn. I deiced to write a song (to the tune of the wheels on the bus) for the children to learn 4 key facts about Autumn. The use of the song, physical resources, and completing an Autumn walk around our school grounds, provided the children with the hook and ability to remember

1. The leaves fall off the trees

2. The branches are dry and snap

3. We wear hats as it starts to get cold

4. The weather changes and it starts to rain

November ...

In November, all of the school were focussing on the core subject Art, so we chose November to explore out artist and contribute to the school's fantastic art gallery. We learnt all about the American painter Jackson Pollock who is famous for his splatter paintings. We looked and compared at lots of his work, predominately focusing on his piece titled Summertime 9a. We explored recreating his pieces by whole class and individual splatter paintings using brushes to splatter and straws to blow. We also discussed how the paintings made us feel, and many children were able to draw connections between a class read The Colour Monster. We placed many action shots of creating the whole class piece and framed many individual masterpieces to create this element of our learning journey.

December ...

In December, following on from our seasons work, we moved onto learning all about Winter, and the changes from Autumn. Placing the images from our learning on our timeline allows the children to draw visual comparisons between the different times of year, recalling and comparing predominately their winter walk and song to this experience in Autumn. Through this, the children again learnt 4 key facts about Winter

1. The leaves have now fallen on the floor

2. There is ice on the ground

3. The rain freezes and turns to snow

4. Warm clothes are worn because it's cold outside

January ...

In January our timeline had but focussed mainly on our EYFS Chinese New Year celebrations where the children made their own dragon, decorations and instruments to take on our school parade. Full of action shots from out parade, food tasting, writing and provision activities, this supports the children to be able to recall and reflect on their learning, about the celebrations and the year of the rabbit. 

February ...

In February, we learnt all about keeping ourselves healthy. We focussed on eating well, personal hygiene, exercise and mindfulness. This area of the timeline explores a few examples of each area such as out gym that we created with out crates and planks were children were giving basic instructions for their peers whilst keeping themselves fit and healthy! Through this topic we also explored observational drawings of different fruits and vegetable. The learning journey showcases these wonderfully.

March ...

This takes us to our final month, March. We this part with our World Book Day celebrations to further promote the key love to read and expose to literature. This lead onto our focus text for the half term the Gruffalo, and the images on the timeline such as action shots of the children retelling the story with puppets and story spoon, prompts and promotes the children to retell the story when exploring the timeline. Our other focus for this month is caring for our world, so the learning journey captures a few brief elements we want the children to know more and remember more about. This includes, recycling (inc naming and sorting different materials) and mini beasts. 

This takes us up to now, Easter! Throughout the summer term, some areas we will most definitely continue developing is out continuem of seasons and our season walks/songs (join my next page for more about this...) as well as our day to day learning and development. I am really looking forward to seeing how our writing progresses in the summer term and adding more independant writing to our learning journey. 

To follow alongside our learning, remember to follow and engage with my teachergram (@_missyeoman), where I share our learning throughout the year. Enjoy your well deserved Easter break and join me after the holidays for some personal teaching and learning deep dives alongside that crucial self reflection. 

- Miss Yeoman