Wow, what an amazing first whole week back 9G have had! Everyone has coped very well, and we have had so much fun being back together!

On Monday, we continued to look at our feelings, recognising what makes us happy, sad, cross, or scared. We explored this through the story ‘What makes us Happy?’. Miss Hendy made this into a sensory story, and we joined in! Everyone was able to follow the schedule on the board to move into the continuous provision areas where we made faces using different materials, played emotions snap and practiced our fine motor skills by using pegs to match feelings that animals were showing. With Miss Hendy we looked at the story, and spoke about what things make us happy, scared, or sad.

In the afternoon, we all took part in My Creativity. Miss Hendy started with an attention autism, which was autumn themed. The bucket had items that were the colours of autumn leaves, and then she used paint mixed into a bag inside a leaf silhouette to create some lovely autumn colours. Each of us made our own sensory leaf on the group table, and there were some beautiful colours coming out after mixing. As well as this, we practiced our fine motor skills by threading conkers, hedgehogs, and pine cones. We also played bingo with Mrs England which was fun! With support from Miss McPartlin we were able to design our own autumn leaves on purple mash too!

On Tuesday, Mr Murphy was with us in the morning. We created some leaf pictures, practicing our cutting and sticking skills and we also did some indoor orienteering. We had to find different autumn pictures under the cones in class, following a planned-out route. Miss Hendy came back at lunch and in the afternoon, we worked on our shape knowledge. We sang a 2D shape song, and then looked behind the binoculars to guess the right 2D shape. We had some challenges in the lesson, particularly copying shapes onto a peg board. Everyone tried hard at this and persisted when it became difficult. We really enjoyed a shape game that we took part in with our peers, making sure that we took turns!

On Wednesday, in My Communication we looked at our story ‘What Makes us Happy?’ again. This time we showed Miss Hendy how well we knew the story, matching the pictures to the right feeling. With Mrs England we practiced making faces using playdough, and with Miss McPartlin we continued to practice emotions snap! We are getting much better at understanding this game! In the afternoon, we had a great attention autism session where Miss Hendy did a leaf shake, and then leaves came falling on us. This was lots of fun! We then made our own leaf man, using leaves from the playground. Everyone tried hard at selecting the correct leaves for different parts of the leaf man’s body. Well done everyone!

On Thursday, we continued with showing Miss Hendy what we know about 2D shapes. This included making patterns using shapes, and with a little help from Mrs England, copying shapes onto the peg boards. 9G were able to show Miss Hendy that they can sort everyday objects into their correct shape categories. We even had a go at pentagons, octagons and hexagons which are very similar! This afternoon we got to know our peers a little better by having a circle time where we asked questions about each other. One question that was asked was ‘Do you have a dog?’. Everyone who had a dog had to stand up, and then move around the circle into a new spot. We then practiced our turn taking and communication skills by playing ‘Name 5 …’, ‘Guess who?’, and Autumn Pairs.

On Friday, we had a very special day! It was Macmillan coffee morning. We did a video call with some of the parents and tested their knowledge on different cakes! Miss Hendy had some special helpers; Nicola and Ben are our school councillors so helped to give everyone their cakes. We then ate some cakes, had some hot chocolate, milkshake and fruit shoots. In the afternoon we had golden time and decorated some biscuits which we ate for snack. It was then time for celebration assembly – Well done Harrison who was our Star of the Week!

Have a lovely weekend everyone, and we look forward to Week 6!

Miss Hendy, Mrs England and Miss McPartlin.