The children really enjoyed the theme for this month – ‘The Campsite’. In the first week, the class examined an oral language poster based on the theme and played word games to familiarise themselves with vocabulary around the topic. The children observed images of campsites and then used natural materials such as rocks, pebbles and twigs to build a small world version of a campsite. They added in tents made from recycled cardboard and wooden people to bring their campsite to life. In playdough, there were lots of minibeasts made, as well as items you would find at a campsite. The children enjoyed using Lego in Construction to build campsites too. The children thoroughly enjoyed the activities in Puzzles this month because animal footprints were left on the children’s tables and they have to find the animals the footprints belonged to hidden around the classroom. Once all the animals were found, the footprints had to be examined very closely and matched together. The role play area was set up like a campsite and there were people being checked into the campsite and fun activities such as roasting marshmallows, making s’mores and reading stories around the campfire. As part of water play, the children went fishing and really enjoyed this activity. Linked with Science and Geography, the children did lots of outdoor activities, looking for minibeasts in our school’s grass habitat. Art was mostly inspired by the outdoors and minibeasts. Our class spent some time creating campsite scenes using natural materials that we gathered outside our school. We glued down twigs, leaves and petals to make trees, flowers, string lights and the sun. We pressed our pictures for a number of weeks to dry out the materials. The finished results were fantastic! We even celebrated ‘World Bee Day’ on the 20th May and read the story ‘The Honeybee’ by Kristen Hall and made some beautiful beehive art in response to the story. We were busy bees in the Junior Room!
St Thomas National School
Phone:: 043 6676210 / Email: stthomasns@gmail.com
